Cloud hosting provider Rackspace expands its open-source offerings by incorporating OpenLogic's CloudSwing platform into its Cloud Tools program.
Open-source
cloud services provider OpenLogic announced Dec. 27 it has joined the Cloud
Tools program with Rackspace Hosting, enabling CloudSwing to be deployed on the
Rackspace Cloud. Rackspace Cloud Tools is a showcase site for the company's
strategic partners and independent developers to work with Rackspace Cloud to
share tools, applications and services.
"The
Rackspace Cloud and CloudSwing are both built to handle the highly flexible and
on-demand environments that enterprises need to deploy in the cloud," said
Ven Shanmugam, senior manager of strategy and corporate development at
Rackspace. "We welcome OpenLogic into our Cloud Tools community."
OpenLogic
CloudSwing is a flexible platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud solution that
offers cost tracking and complete customization of technology stacks. The
partnership allows Rackspace Cloud customers to use OpenLogic CloudSwing to
create their own customized PaaS by deploying preconfigured or customized
stacks on top of their Cloud Servers.
"We
are excited to expand OpenLogic CloudSwing's momentum to the Rackspace Cloud
customer ecosystem," said Kim Weins, senior vice president of marketing of
OpenLogic. "CloudSwing has more than tripled the number of users in the
first 60 days. As enterprises look to build customized PaaS environments in the
Rackspace Cloud, we anticipate this growth to continue."
CloudSwing
users will be able to manage and monitor applications deployed in the Rackspace
Cloud from the CloudSwing Dashboard.
The
Rackspace partnership should prove ideal for OpenLogic, which has recently
integrated the New Relic Standard Edition cloud application monitoring solution
into CloudSpace. New Relic allows developers to control how a PaaS solution
behaves down to its finest details and is based on open-source technologies, so
CloudSwing is free from the dangers of cloud vendor lock-in.
"Offering
New Relic Standard free of charge for complete application monitoring allows
CloudSwing to go beyond the server- or instance-level monitoring offered by
most cloud providers. New Relic provides all of the key metrics that our
CloudSwing customers need to monitor and manage their cloud applications,"
said Rod Cope, OpenLogic CTO, in that press release.
Those
looking into building PaaS solutions can benefit by the flexibility offered by
combining a large host with open-source tools, which also incorporate advance
management and monitoring capabilities. Rackspace with CloudSwing and New Relic
should deliver the capabilities to get quickly started in the PaaS realm.
Frank J. Ohlhorst is the Executive Technology Editor for eWeek Channel Insider and brings with him over 20 years of experience in the Information Technology field.He began his career as a network administrator and applications program in the private sector for two years before joining a computer consulting firm as a programmer analyst. In 1988 Frank founded a computer consulting company, which specialized in network design, implementation, and support, along with custom accounting applications developed in a variety of programming languages.In 1991, Frank took a position with the United States Department of Energy as a Network Manager for multiple DOE Area Offices with locations at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPL), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), FermiLAB and the Ames Area Office (AMESAO). Frank's duties included managing the site networks, associated staff and the inter-network links between the area offices. He also served at the Computer Security Officer (CSO) for multiple DOE sites. Frank joined CMP Technology's Channel group in 1999 as a Technical Editor assigned to the CRN Test Center, within a year, Frank became the Senior Technical Editor, and was responsible for designing product testing methodologies, assigning product reviews, roundups and bakeoffs to the CRN Test Center staff.In 2003, Frank was named Technology Editor of CRN. In that capacity, he ensured that CRN maintained a clearer focus on technology and increased the integration of the Test Center's review content into both CRN's print and web properties. He also contributed to Netseminar's, hosted sessions at CMP's Xchange Channel trade shows and helped to develop new methods of content delivery, Such as CRN-TV.In September of 2004, Frank became the Director of the CRN Test Center and was charged with increasing the Test Center's contributions to CMP's Channel Web online presence and CMP's latest monthly publication, Digital Connect, a magazine geared towards the home integrator. He also continued to contribute to CMP's Netseminar series, Xchange events, industry conferences and CRN-TV.In January of 2007, CMP Launched CRNtech, a monthly publication focused on technology for the channel, with a mailed audience of 70,000 qualified readers. Frank was instrumental in the development and design of CRNTech and was the editorial director of the publication as well as its primary contributor. He also maintained the edit calendar, and hosted quarterly CRNTech Live events.In June 2007, Frank was named Senior Technology Analyst and became responsible for the technical focus and edit calendars of all the Channel Group's publications, including CRN, CRNTech, and VARBusiness, along with the Channel Group's specialized publications Solutions Inc., Government VAR, TechBuilder and various custom publications. Frank joined Ziff Davis Enterprise in September of 2007 and focuses on creating editorial content geared towards the purveyors of Information Technology products and services. Frank writes comparative reviews, channel analysis pieces and participates in many of Ziff Davis Enterprise's tradeshows and webinars. He has received several awards for his writing and editing, including back to back best review of the year awards, and a president's award for CRN-TV. Frank speaks at many industry conferences, is a contributor to several IT Books, holds several records for online hits and has several industry certifications, including Novell's CNE, Microsoft's MCP.Frank can be reached at frank.ohlhorst@ziffdavisenterprise.com