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OpenStack Celebrates a Successful First Year
by Stephen Spector 20 Jul '11

20 Jul '11

>From Jim Curry on the OpenStack.org Blog. A year into the life of OpenStack, it seems like its success should have been more obvious. The market lacked an open platform designed specifically for building and managing a cloud. We knew that fact at Rackspace because we had been forced to build our own solution. For five years we looked for off the shelf technologies that could power our public cloud but never found an acceptable solution. So we kept building our own proprietary technology. But that wasn¹t the right answer. As a company, we had always relied on standardized technologies to power our offers. Technologies that our customers were also running in their own datacenters. But in cloud, such standards did not exist and were nowhere in sight. Certainly, the ones that were emerging were not completely open. And by building our own solution one not available to anyone else we weren¹t actually helping to solve the problem. So we decided to open source our technology, and make it available for use by our competitors and customers alike. What we didn¹t know was whether anyone else saw the world as we did. A year later, its obvious we weren¹t alone. Consider these stats: * We grew from 2 organizations to over 89 * We grew from a couple dozen developers to nearly 250 unique contributors in the Cactus release and over 1,200 in the development community * Over 35,000 downloads from Launchpad and thousands more from our ecosystem * The scope of the project has truly evolved into a cloud operating system, tackling a diverse range of cloud infrastructure needs such as networking, load balancers and database. * Our initial conference and design summit had over 100 people, while the last in April hosted over 450 * We have delivered 3 major releases and are halfway to the fourth * 17 countries have active participants and user groups now exist on 5 continents One of the key reasons OpenStack has been successful is that it has such an audacious mission to build an operating system to power both public and private clouds. We believe that while public and private clouds do have different requirements, much of the core need is shared. Things such as basic management, self-service and scalability. OpenStack started with the large scale cloud expertise of Rackspace and NASA and has since added a wealth of knowledge from a who¹s who list contributors with broad-ranging enterprise and service provider expertise. All of these participants recognize that in order for the promise of cloud to be realized for workloads to seamlessly migrate from one environment to another a common platform is required inside the enterprise DC as well as the public cloud. The technology should also be purpose-built for cloud, rather than a bolt-on to existing server virtualization technologies. And that solution should be open and controlled by a vast community rather than a single vendor. The shared community desire for an open cloud operating system powering both public and private clouds has resulted in a flurry of activity around OpenStack. Consider the following: * Major enterprise software companies such as Citrix and Canonical, as well as startups such as StackOps, have announced commerical distributions of OpenStack. This is a very key development for enterprise adoption. * Reference hardware architectures from the likes of Dell, Cisco, Intel and AMD for OpenStack. * The contributions from service providers and announcement of public clouds powered by OpenStack including Rackspace, Internap, Dreamhost, Dell, Korea Telecom, Memset and Nephoscale among others. * Support for OpenStack deployments by the likes of Cloudscaling, Cybera and Rackspace Cloud Builders. * Deployment support from Puppet Labs and Opscode. * A host of tools and software integration from scores of companies including Scalr, Rightscale, FathomDB, enStratus, and many others. * Venture funding and M&A activity have picked up in the community, including the recent funding of Piston and the acquisition of Cloud.com by Citrix (both OpenStack community members). Most importantly, enterprises are really beginning to deploy OpenStack. It wasn¹t until the Cactus release in April that OpenStack truly became ready for production deployments. But during the 3 months since that release, the number of companies deploying the technologies is truly remarkable. Expect to see many of these stories coming to light in the next few months. Thank you to everyone who has made OpenStack happen over the last year! It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to be part of such an engaged and diverse community committed to the goal of an open cloud operating system. Happy first birthday to all! - - - Stephen Spector, Rackspace OpenStack Community Manager stephen.spector(a)openstack.org OpenStack Blog <http://openstack.org/blog> | @opnstk_ <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> com <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> _mgr <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> Office +1 (512) 539-1162 | Mobile +1 (210) 415-0930

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OpenStack Webinar Rescheduled for Thursday April 21
by Stephen Spector 20 Apr '11

20 Apr '11

OpenStack Enthusiasts: Due to technical difficulties we had to cancel the scheduled webinar yesterday on the newly released Cactus solution from the OpenStack community. We have fixed the issue and are hosting the webinar tomorrow at 4pm EST. Please join us to learn more about this innovate solution from the OpenStack community. The OpenStack Cactus webinar will cover new features implemented in the Cactus release of OpenStack. Presenting these features will be the Project Technical Leads: Vish Ishaya for OpenStack Compute (Nova), John Dickinson for OpenStack Object Storage (Swift), and Jay Pipes for OpenStack Image Service (Glance). Each Project Technical Lead will have 15 minutes to provide a quick overview of their respective technologies, what¹s new in the Cactus release and expected contributions for the next Diablo release of OpenStack. The last 15 minutes will be open for questions and further discussion. Register here: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/kdi85356wy - - - Stephen Spector, Rackspace OpenStack Community Manager stephen.spector(a)openstack.org OpenStack Blog <http://openstack.org/blog> | @opnstk_ <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> com <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> _mgr <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> Office +1 (512) 539-1162 | Mobile +1 (210) 415-0930

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OpenStack Announces the Release of Cactus
by Stephen Spector 15 Apr '11

15 Apr '11

OpenStack Enthusiast: I am pleased to announce the third release from the OpenStack community, Cactus. Much of the development and documentation efforts were spent improving existing features, extending the API and adding support for popular enterprise technologies to enable enterprises and service providers to deploy OpenStack clouds with greater scale and performance. In just 10 weeks since the Bexar¹ release, more than 4,700 code commits and 40 new features were added to the Cactus release from developers at organizations including Canonical, Citrix, FathomDB, Grid Dynamics, NTT Group and Rackspace. ³OpenStack provides a solid software foundation for computing at scale and we are very excited about the advancements we are working on with the community to deliver next generation cloud networking,² said Lew Tucker, Cisco CTO for Cloud Computing. ³As a strong supporter of OpenStack, we believe that cloud consumers should have choice,² said Ewan Mellor, Director, OpenStack Engineering, Datacenter and Cloud Division, Citrix and elected member of the OpenStack Project Policy Board. ³We added support for VMware vSphere to allow enterprises and services providers deploying OpenStack the flexibility to integrate with legacy technologies and take control of their cloud strategy.² More information on Cactus: * OpenStack Blog - http://www.openstack.org/blog/2011/04/openstack-announces-cactus-release/ * OpenStack Press Release - http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110415005748/en/OpenStack/cloud-compu ting/open-cloud * OpenStack Webinar Tuesday April 19th at 3:00 pm CST (http://connect33143669.adobeconnect.com/cactus/) > * Webinar will be taped and made available for viewing from OpenStack.org > website To obtain Cactus: * Nova 2011.2: https://launchpad.net/nova/cactus/2011.2 * Glance 2011.2:https://launchpad.net/glance/cactus/2011.2 * Swift 1.3.0: https://launchpad.net/swift/1.3/1.3.0 * Release Notes: http://wiki.openstack.org/ReleaseNotes/Cactus Thank you, - - - Stephen Spector, Rackspace OpenStack Community Manager stephen.spector(a)openstack.org OpenStack Blog <http://openstack.org/blog> | @opnstk_ <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> com <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> _mgr <http://twitter.com/opnstk_com_mgr> Office +1 (512) 539-1162 | Mobile +1 (210) 415-0930

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OpenStack Conference / Design Summit Registration Open
by Stephen Spector 10 Mar '11

10 Mar '11

The OpenStack community is proud to announce the opening of registration for our April 26-29, 2011 Design Summit conference in Santa Clara, CA at the Hyatt Regency. Confirmed speakers for the first 2 days of the event include NASA, Wikimedia, eBay, Intel, Citrix, Cloudscaling, GigaSpaces, KT, Gluster, Scalr, Arista Networks, Mach Technology, Rackspace, and Hyperstratus with the distance award to Paul Pettigrew the CEO of Mach Technology from Brisbane, Australia. Please register for the event here. All attendees will pay $100 to attend the event to assist in covering the various fees required to put on a 4 day event. If you are a college student and interested in attending for no charge, please contact me for special registration instructions. I would also like to thank the sponsors from Autonomic Resources, Cisco, Citrix, Cloudscaling, Intel, Nicira Networks, and NTT Data for generously supporting this community event. Sponsorship opportunities are still available for companies interested in assisting the community in hosting this event. Stephen Spector - OpenStack Community Manager PHONE: Office: +1 (512) 539-1162 - Mobile: +1 (210) 415-0930 ONLINE INFO: stephen.spector(a)openstack.org \\ OpenStack Blog \\ @opnstk_com_mgr

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OpenStack Announces Bexar Release and Participating Companies
by Stephen Spector 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

From the official OpenStack press release at http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110203006362/en/OpenStack-Ready-Dep… OpenStack is Ready to Deploy With ‘Bexar’ Code Release Ubuntu leader Canonical and Cisco now make 50 companies participating in OpenStack community SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OpenStack™, the open source cloud project founded by Rackspace® Hosting and NASA, today announced the ‘Bexar’ code release of OpenStack Compute and Object Storage which includes a variety of new features, an official documentation site and key new participants to drive adoption of the emerging cloud standard by service providers and enterprise users. While OpenStack Object Storage has already been deployed at commercial scale, for the first time, the release of these new features and documentation makes OpenStack Compute ready to deploy as an open source alternative to proprietary, expensive virtualization solutions. “OpenStack is rapidly moving to solve these problems, and it’s evident to us that we need an open cloud standard to best enable hybrid scenarios, federation and easy migration. We appreciate the hundreds of contributors who see the vision and have joined the cause.” “We’ve heard CIOs hesitate to invest in proprietary cloud technology, because they don’t to want be locked in for the long haul. They want the freedom to switch cloud hosting or technology providers and gain more flexibility with their deployments,” said Jim Curry, GM of OpenStack at Rackspace. “OpenStack is rapidly moving to solve these problems, and it’s evident to us that we need an open cloud standard to best enable hybrid scenarios, federation and easy migration. We appreciate the hundreds of contributors who see the vision and have joined the cause.” Bexar Release Features The Bexar release of OpenStack Compute introduces new enterprise features that streamline the installation process, allow users to pre-install and create their own application environments and instantly spin up the same copy as they scale out. The full list of features in Compute includes internationalization, support for IPv6, Hyper-V, iSCSI with XenAPI, XenServer snapshots and raw disk images, as well as the addition of a sub-project code-named Glance, an image discovery and delivery service that enables portability of workloads between OpenStack clouds. Object Storage now supports storing of files up to unlimited sizes, and the two projects have become more tightly integrated. The new release also includes the launch of an official documentation site with PDF and HTML manuals to guide users through installation and deployment. The new features and documentation were made possible by contributions from a long list of core contributors and participating companies, including Anso Labs, Citrix, Cloud.com, FathomDB, NTT Data and Rackspace. The theme of the next OpenStack ‘Cactus’ release, expected in April, will be optimizing the project for service provider-scale deployments. Cactus is also expected to include additional highly requested features such as live migration of virtual machines. The next public Design Summit will take place April 26-29, 2011 in Santa Clara, CA, where community members will plan for the following two releases, including ‘Diablo’ to be released Summer 2011. Participating Companies New OpenStack community members Canonical, Cisco, Extreme Networks and Grid Dynamics have joined the 50-member-strong alliance to continue advancing the code base and drive adoption of the open cloud operating system. Canonical has committed to include OpenStack in the April release of Ubuntu Server 11.04, while Cisco has assembled a development team of engineers that will contribute design specifications and code to the OpenStack community. "We are really delighted to bring the Bexar release to Ubuntu users in the next version of Ubuntu Server in April," said Neil Levine, VP of Corporate Services at Canonical. "Our goal in cloud computing is to deliver a platform for businesses and for cloud providers that integrates the best technology available on which to build open-source cloud environments. OpenStack is critical to that goal and I know that there is huge anticipation in our user base to start exploring the capabilities of OpenStack on the best OS for the cloud, which is Ubuntu." “Open source plays an important role in cloud computing, and Cisco’s membership in the OpenStack community reflects our focus on helping to advance this technology,” said Lew Tucker, vice president and chief technology officer, Cloud Computing, Cisco. “Cisco takes a systems approach to cloud computing for its customers and holds a commitment to open standards and industry collaboration. For many of our customers and partners, open-source solutions such as OpenStack provide an alternative approach to architect and deploy cloud solutions.” About OpenStack™ OpenStack is a large-scale open source cloud project and community established to drive industry standards, end cloud lock-in and speed the adoption of cloud technologies by service providers and enterprises. The project currently includes OpenStack Object Storage, a fully distributed object store, and OpenStack Compute, a scalable compute provisioning engine. OpenStack was founded by Rackspace® Hosting through its wholly owned subsidiary, OpenStack, LLC, and has the support of more than 50 participating companies and over 1,000 project participants. For more information and to join the community, visit OpenStack.org. This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements concerning expected development of the OpenStack project; the acceptance of OpenStack technology as an industry standard; anticipated operational and financial benefits from any development of the OpenStack project; the participation of other companies or individuals in the OpenStack project; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that expected benefits from the OpenStack project may not materialize because the underlying technology is not reliable or generally compatible with industry standards; there are changes in technology that adversely affect the adoption of the standards, and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2010, filed with the SEC on November 9, 2010. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Stephen Spector - OpenStack Community Manager PHONE: Office: +1 (512) 539-1162 - Mobile: +1 (210) 415-0930 ONLINE INFO: stephen.spector(a)openstack.org \\ OpenStack Blog \\ @opnstk_com_mgr

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OpenStack Design Summit Website Launched
by Stephen Spector 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

OpenStack Enthusiasts: Two weeks ago, the OpenStack community gathered in San Antonio, TX for our first public Design Summit event sponsored by Rackspace. Over 250 attendees from 90 companies and 12 countries spent 4 days planning for the next two product releases as well as providing business development executives a chance to network and collaborate on the OpenStack ecosystem. To ensure that all community members who could not attend are given the opportunity to learn from this event, we have created a new website with all the speakers slides and videos from the General Sessions and Business Track as well as links to the Technical Track overview discussions which were recorded on Etherpad. You can access this site at http://openstack.org/events/openstack-design-summit-2010/. Also, as the OpenStack community continues to grow, there will be plenty of opportunities to meet a community member at an event near you. To better inform you of upcoming events, we have created a new events page listing events with OpenStack speakers as well as previous events with slides from those presentations: http://openstack.org/events/. Finally, a 1 minute overview video of the OpenStack Design Summit was created and is available for your viewing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUXLLuUjac. If you have any questions about OpenStack or wish to become an active contributor please feel free to contact me or visit http://openstack.org to learn more. Thank you. Stephen Spector| Community Manager, OpenStack; Office Phone +1 512.539.1162 @opnstk_com_mgr - OpenStack Blog

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