The first OpenStack-based cloud-computing platform is now publicly available, courtesy of hosting service Internap.
Managed hosting service
provider Internap unveiled its latest cloud offering, a publicly available
cloud-computing service based on the open-source OpenStack platform.
The new Open Public Cloud
service offers customers high-performance, on-demand provisioning and scaling
of enterprise computing capacity, Internap said Oct. 27. Open Public Cloud is
the first publicly available OpenStack-based cloud environment.
Open Public Cloud is based
on Compute, a major component within the OpenStack project. OpenStack provides
three core capabilities, including Compute, Object Storage and Networking, as
well as a dashboard.
Internap built Open Public
Cloud Internap on top of the project's third version, "Cactus,"
released in April. There was a lot of work done to tweak the project to
integrate with other Internap products and to add in custom features such as
billing and security, Paul Carmody, senior vice president of product management
and business development at Internap, told
eWEEK.
However, Internap was a
"committed member" of the OpenStack project and contributed code for
any enhancements that could benefit the broader community, according to
Carmody. "We use OpenStack more than any other service provider,"
Carmody said.
Rackspace and NASA
jointly
launched OpenStack in July 2010 to create a vendor-neutral platform that
would allow customers to easily move from one cloud service provider to another
without being locked in. With most public providers, such as Amazon Web
Services, some work is required to rebuild virtual machine instances if the
customer decides to switch cloud providers. The open-source OpenStack project
is designed to make the move seamless for customers and to allow providers to
design and run Amazon Web Services-like cloud-computing environments.
Many cloud providers have
been working to launch their own OpenStack-based cloud, including Rackspace,
Hewlett-Packard, Dell and DreamHost. Internap's offering may be the first, but
it's unlikely to be the only one for long, as HP's offering is currently in
private beta.
Internap's has three cloud
services, including Open Public Cloud, Custom Public Cloud and XIPCloud
Storage. Custom Public Cloud is a VMware-based environment intended for
enterprise users.
XIPCloud
Storage is a storage environment built upon the OpenStack ObjectStorage
framework. XIPCloud launched as beta in January and was made generally
available over the summer. It was the first major storage deployment using
ObjectStorage outside of hosting provider Rackspace.
Internap's cloud services
portfolio provides organizations with some flexibility in migrating to the
cloud. They can "dip a toe in the water" with one of the services and
migrate the rest over time, Carmody said.
Carmody said Internap has
everything customers are looking for from a "strict IP platform
perspective" and the company will focus its next steps on integrating
additional elements and improving the entire IT experience to make it easy to
work with.
As for the overall project,
Internap has "made some improvements" to the OpenStack networking
code, which will be contributed back to OpenStack, Carmody said. Internap expects
to participate in future development efforts for OpenStack's Networking
component, according to Carmody.
It has been a momentous
month for OpenStack. Earlier this month, Rackspace spun out the project to an
independent foundation to drive future development efforts. Rackspace remains
part of the project but actual project governance would rest with the
newly
created OpenStack Foundation.
Internap announced plans for
Open Public Cloud in May.
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