Hewlett-Packard is jumping on the OpenStack cloud computing bandwagon, a day after rival Dell unveiled a cloud computing solution based on the open-source software stack.
In a blog post July 27, Emil Sayegh, vice president of cloud services for HP, said the company had joined the OpenStack project, which was kicked off a year ago by Rackspace and NASA and now has almost 100 organizations on its membership list.
Sayegh noted that HP is the world’s largest technology company and has a broad portfolio of products-from PCs and servers to printers, software, services, storage and networking-that are all key points in a cloud computing environment.
“HP recognizes that open and interoperable cloud infrastructure and services are critical in delivering the next generation of cloud-based services to developers, businesses and consumers,” he said in his blog post. “It is our belief that close collaboration with developer communities combined with HP’s global portfolio are cornerstones to delivering the right, seamless and secure experiences for our customers.”
HP is joining a wide range of tech companies-including such rivals and partners as Citrix Systems, Dell, Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco Systems, Brocade and Mellanox Technologies-that have signed on to the year-old organization, whose goal is to create an open and standard cloud environment for both public and private clouds. All the code for OpenStack is available under the Apache 2.0 license.
According to the Website, members “strongly believe that an open development model is the only way to foster badly-needed cloud standards, remove the fear of proprietary lock-in for cloud customers, and create a large ecosystem that spans cloud providers.”
Dell officials on July 26 rolled out their Dell OpenStack Cloud Solution, which brings together the vendor’s cloud-optimized PowerEdge C servers with the OpenStack cloud platform and Dell’s “Crowbar” OpenStack installer, which manages the deployment and operation of the OpenStack environment.
HP’s Sayegh said the company already is taking an active role in the OpenStack community.
“We see this as an opportunity to enable customers, partners and developers with unique infrastructure and development solutions across public, private and hybrid cloud environments,” he wrote, adding that members of HP’s cloud development group already are working on OpenStack’s Launchpad and channel projects.
HP also is a sponsor of the OpenStack Design Summit and OpenStack Conference in Boston in October.