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IBM Cloud OpenStack Services, an expanded suite of OpenStack services that enable users to integrate applications and data across hybrid clouds, debuted today.
The new IBM Cloud OpenStack Services enable developers to build applications that deliver security and scalability to meet fluctuating business demands in a public cloud, IBM said. This includes spikes in usage and big data requirements
Indeed, with the new services, developers can target hybrid cloud environments, including public, dedicated and local cloud environments, and launch applications on local, on-premises installations and now on public clouds hosted on the SoftLayer infrastructure. This can all be done without changing code or configurations. Thus, developers can now build and test an application in a public cloud and use the interoperability of OpenStack to deploy that same application and data across hybrid clouds.
IBM said its OpenStack services announcement reinforces the company’s commitment to open cloud services, where these offerings can be consumed though Bluemix and SoftLayer. Users can get beta releases of the new IBM OpenStack Services here and launch applications on local, on-premises installations, and on public, dedicated and local clouds hosted on the IBM Cloud infrastructure.
“As a top contributor to OpenStack, IBM firmly believes that an open cloud architecture translates into significant cost savings for our clients and will rapidly expand the cloud marketplace,” Angel Diaz, IBM vice president of cloud architecture and technology, said in a statement. “By delivering a complete portfolio of OpenStack services to the market, we are enabling our clients with what they need to quickly move applications and data across multiple cloud environments without fear of getting locked into a single cloud environment.”
IBM has 500 developers dedicated to working on open cloud projects to bring new cloud innovations to market.
“Open technologies are paving the way for broader cloud adoption and enabling companies like Virdata to confidently deploy clouds without the fear of vendor lock-in,” Martin Braem, Virdata’s manager for DevOps, support and professional services, said in a statement. “IBM Cloud OpenStack Services gives us the ability to easily move OpenStack workloads across hybrid clouds.”
IBM’s new public cloud services enable developers to quickly set up and scale applications and deliver them to any OpenStack-powered platform. As part of this, IBM will manage the OpenStack environment and the infrastructure, hosted in IBM’s global cloud data centers. This will enable developers and clients to better manage workloads, including hosted enterprise applications, analytics, and Web and mobile applications.
Meanwhile, the new services build on IBM’s ongoing leadership within the OpenStack community. In fact, for Kilo, OpenStack’s latest release, IBM had hundreds of developers participate in 11,676 code reviews, implemented 68 blueprints and fixed 520 bugs for a total of 232,382 lines of code
Moreover, one of IBM’s most important contributions to OpenStack is its leadership in the development of the compliance test tool, RefStack-client, which enables users to benefit from the interoperability of OpenStack environments.
As IBM extends OpenStack Services, it is working with SAP to deploy enterprise solutions in the cloud more quickly with economies of scale. This is another example of IBM and SAP extending their partnership in the cloud, bringing the enterprise to OpenStack.