OpenStack vs. CloudStack: The beginning of the open-source cloud wars
Summary: As clouds become more important, high-tech companies, and the open-source clouds they support, are coming into conflict.
The open-source cloud conflict got started in earnest last week when Citrix, formerly an OpenStack cloud supporter, announced that it was reviving its own CloudStack cloud under the Apache Foundation. Today, OpenStack finally announced that its Foundation was really launching with industry heavy-weights AT&T, Canonical, HP, IBM, Nebula, Rackspace, Red Hat, and SUSE as Platinum Members, Let the open-source cloud wars begin!
So, what's the conflict here? Simple, like open-source Eucalyptus, Citrix CloudStack's application programming interface (API) provides compatibility with Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), the world's most popular public cloud. The OpenStack Foundation members would like businesses not to use EC2, thank you very much, but to use public clouds built by its major vendors—such as Dell, HP and IBM—instead.
For example, before the OpenStack Foundation announcement, HP had already said that it would start offering its HP Converged Cloud. This “hardened” OpenStack service targets enterprises, service providers and small- and medium-sized business (SMBs). You can expect to see similar offerings from the other big hardware/service companies.
The name of their game will be to try to offer corporate customers vertical software/hardware cloud stacks. Citrix, on the other hands, hopes that EC2 customers will use their CloudStack for their private clouds while using the EC2 APIs to integrate with Amazon's public cloud.
And, who will be the winner? It's much too early to tell. That said, I do see the cloud wars shaping up to be a battle between the OpenStack partners and Amazon and Citrix. I suspect we'll see other would-be enterprise cloud competitors, Eucalyptus and Microsoft with Azure, scrambling to stay relevant.
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HP takes its cloud support approach public while converging its offerings around OpenStack, KVM
Citrix submits CloudStack to Apache Citrix Breaks Away From OpenStack
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Talkback
Competition is good
While 20 or 30 of these would be bad, two can compete and co-exist nicely and probably be more successful than say, Open and Libre Office.
RE: Competition is good
You have stated that open-source invents. Is this progress?
Not really, you don't recognize sarcasm
RE: Not really, you don't recognize sarcasm
Android-based tablets are going to bring LibreOffice to the masses (unless Microsoft ports Microsoft Office to Android).
P.S. I'm not so sure it was all sarcasm. Me thinks that you've been hanging around Steven's blogs so long that open-source is beginning to get under your skin.
Actually
Plus, when Steven intentionally fails to research his position, it's fun to get into the fray. Just shows how inane anyone can get when religious zeal takes over their mind.
Having survived the holy wars between MS and OS/2, the holy war Steven tries to wage (though unsuccessfully) brings back good memories. OS/2 was better, but MS won with applications. History repeats itself over and over again.
By the way, that's where Android and Apple are winning the Tablet battles, applications. Without apps, it's just a pretty bit of glass and metal.
Ahhh, the old glory days of IT. They were fun when a single person strung the cable, wired the closet, programmed the PC, figured out the Config.Sys files and hopefully had enough memory left to actually run the software.
Now, I just call the Service Desk and hope someone has a clue.
@Cynical99
Let me say, there is far more worth in worshiping open source (if that would be the extreme of a fan boy) than worshiping say, Apple. I'm not advocating anyone worship technology, but if you must, at least don't worship those want a large portion of your worldly wealth.
There is actual logical merit in the fields of technology to use and develop open source software. OTOH, there is logical merit in the fields of finance to use and develop proprietary closed source software. After all, if you are going to rip someone off, what better way than with software. Sounds like you're a victim. ;)
When did Canonical become an industry heavyweight?
EC2 API Support != Using EC2 for Infrastruture
All three solutions provide excellent support for the EC2 APIs, by emulating the calls a developer would normally be making to Amazon's Elastic Cloud Compute service. This emulation allows a developer to use their existing code, which normally starts and stops instances on Amazon, on their own deployment of Ecualyptus, OpenStack or CloudStack.
All three of the Open Source private cloud projects assume you are running your own infrastructure, or someone is hosting that infrastructure for you. Using the emulated EC2 API calls doesn't imply you are using Amazon's offerings.
Thanks for the post. It's important everyone understand what the real battle is about. It's essentially an infrastructure land grab through the distribution of an Open Source software solution.
I've put together a feature comparison of the different projects AND their respective EC2 API support here: http://urly.stackgeek.com/naD
How much will the DOJ license cost?
Not all cloud stacks will survive...
survival the fittest
Michel
http://www.osslinks.com
Thanks for sharing this