Shuttleworth: Ubuntu 12.10 available with OpenStack "Folsom" today

Backers of Ubuntu are working hard to ensure that its Linux is the first and best for OpenStack cloud deployments. 

At OpenStack Summit today, Ubuntu and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said today the project is shipping Ubuntu 12.10 with the latest version of OpenStack, dubbed 'Folsom," and that a  "Folsom" upgrade path for users of Ubuntu 12.04 is also in place.

Ubuntu 12.10, code named "Quantal Quetzal," was officially slated for availability on October 18. Close enough. The "Folsom" version of OpenStack was released late last month. 

Although a total of four Ubuntu releases have incorporated OpenStack, this is the first Ubuntu release that incorporates the new 'Quantum" networking features of "Folsom" as well as multi-cluster support to allow customers to support thousands of nodes on a cloud. 

Ubuntu claims that customers ranging from Cap Gemini to Accenture are running OpenStack enabled Ubuntu distributions in production mode today. 

Shuttleworth did a live upgrade from the former incarnation of openStack, dubbed "Essex," to "Folsom" using Canonical's Landscape management platfom is fewer than three minutes. "The upgrade is good," and the upgrade to "Folsom" is quick," Shuttleworth said.

Shuttleworth said version 12.10 features expanded metal-as-a-service capabilities that support multiple clusters but noted that there are limitations and that bottlenecks will be encountered in the initial runs of the distribution.