AT&T has joined the OpenStack community as the first major carrier to take part in the open-source cloud computing project.
By joining OpenStack, AT&T can lend its hand in pushing the project forward while also tapping into the OpenStack cloud technology for AT&T’s own developer cloud initiative announced Jan. 9. OpenStack is an infrastructure as a service (IAAS) cloud computing project by Rackspace Cloud and NASA. More than 140 companies have joined the project including Citrix Systems, Dell, AMD, Intel, Canonical, SUSE Linux, HP and Cisco. It is free open-source software released under the terms of the Apache License.
In a Jan. 9 post on the OpenStack blog, Mark Collier, vice president of marketing at Rackspace and a key “stacker” in the OpenStack community, welcomed AT&T into the OpenStack fold.
In a separate post, John Donovan, chief technology officer at AT&T said: “We also announced today that AT&T has become the first U.S. telecom services provider to join the OpenStack initiative, a community of more than 140 technology companies worldwide. We’ve been participating in OpenStack for more than a year and have already contributed a blueprint for a potential new function within OpenStack, focused on transactional task management.
“We’re housing our OpenStack capabilities on dedicated infrastructure in three AT&T data centers today, with locations in Dallas, San Diego, and Secaucus, N.J. We plan to more than double the number of our centers with open-source capabilities in 2012.”
AT&T announced a new Cloud Architect developer cloud effort at its 2012 AT&T Developer Summit that was held in Las Vegas Jan 8-9, just prior to the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show there. AT&T also plans to hold a Developer University at CES Jan 12.
Donovan said AT&T Cloud Architect is a developer-centric cloud with cost-efficient access to highly flexible, integrated computing and application-development services.
“While we deliver a differentiated cloud experience to a wide range of enterprise customers, providing them private and virtual private cloud solutions, coupled with the security and performance of their MPLS-based [Multiprotocol Label Switching-based] corporate VPNs, we also understand that developers’ cloud needs differ significantly from those of enterprises,” Donovan said. “Developers need the reliability and stability of our differentiated cloud too, but first and foremost, developers need flexibility, affordability and speed in turning up new services.”
Donovan added that Cloud Architect will provide a variety of options and configurations, where users will be able to set up public and private computing instances or choose to build from the ground up with AT&T’s bare metal or dedicated server options.
“Cloud Architect will be available in coming weeks, and our developer-centric service offers will expand throughout the year,” Donovan said.