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In the public cloud world, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure may be the most commonly known providers.
Mark Collier, chief operating officer of the OpenStack Foundation, however, is getting the message out that OpenStack is a growing player in the public cloud market too. Collier delivered his message about the current state of OpenStack public cloud deployments at the OpenStack Summit in Sydney, Australia.
“It’s no secret that OpenStack is the de facto standard for private clouds, but a lot of people don’t realize just how big the footprint is for public clouds powered by OpenStack,” he said.
A lot of people have “written off” OpenStack as a player in the public cloud space, Collier said, but the simple fact is that when all the different OpenStack public providers are combined, the footprint is large.
“There are over 60 different data centers for public cloud powered by OpenStack around the world,” he said.
OpenStack public cloud deployments in 2017 have grown at a quick pace, with vendors adding multiple new regions. Among the operators that have added new OpenStack public cloud regions so far in 2017 are Telefonica, OVH, vScaler and City Network.
“OpenStack is all over the world, not just in private, but also in public cloud form,” Collier said.
In a bid to help make it easier for organizations to access OpenStack public cloud resources around the world, the OpenStack Foundation announced its new Passport program at the Sydney summit. Collier explained that the OpenStack Passport program is a place where organizations can find a listing of all OpenStack-powered public cloud operators that offer free trials. The Passport program was put together by the OpenStack public cloud working group as a way to promote and expand the usage of OpenStack for public cloud deployments.
“We’ve spoken in the past about all the different public OpenStack clouds around the world, but it hasn’t been very tangible for users, so we’re trying to make it easy to get started,” Lauren Sell, vice president of marketing and community services at the OpenStack Foundation, told eWEEK.
Sell added that the OpenStack public cloud working group has spent a lot of time putting together the Passport program, as well as thinking about what comes next to advance public OpenStack cloud usage. One of the efforts that the group will be discussing at the Sydney summit is a project called Sentinel, which is a secure OpenStack administration proxy for federated public clouds.
OpenStack Revenue
As both public and private cloud deployments are expanding, revenue is also growing.
Four years ago, in October 2013, 451 Research reported that OpenStack cloud revenues were approximately $600 million in 2013. In April 2016, 451 Research reported that 2015 OpenStack ecosystem revenues came in at $1.2 billion, with a forecast to grow to $3.37 billion by 2018.
Now in November 2017, 451 Research is out with it latest OpenStack market sizing report, estimating 2017 OpenStack ecosystem revenue at $2.6 billion. Looking forward, 451 Research is forecasting that OpenStack market revenues will reach $6.7 billion by 2021.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.