Open Source And Cloud Computing Series: Some Cloud Computing Moves By Big Open Source Vendors

Often people wonder how Open Source Software vendors will adjust to the Cloud Computing era. We are increasingly seeing some traction in this regard. Recently, Redhat, the grand daddy of Open Source software, and Canonical, the company behind the glamorous Linux distribution Ubuntu, are making some noises in this space. Recently, Redhat announced a certification program and partner program with an aim to capture the imagination of Cloud users. Canonical also announced a similar plan in the name of “Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services”. In this post, I will do a short recap on their plans.

Redhat has announced what it calls as Premier Cloud Provider Certification and Partner Program to help enterprises adopt Cloud Computing. This certification program helps companies like Amazon, GoGrid, Rackspace, etc. to offer certified Redhat technology to enterprise customers. These Cloud Provider Partners will collaborate with Red Hat on technical support, security updates, hardware certification, sales and marketing, and business models. In fact, Amazon Web Services has signed up to become first partner to do so. This certification, coming from Redhat, might give the CIOs much needed peace of mind when they move to Clouds.

Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu OS, has been trying to establish themselves as a player in the Cloud game. They have announced their Cloud offering under the name Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services. They plan to offer service plans that will help enterprise deploy and manage Ubuntu as a part of their Cloud ecosystem. Ubuntu already has deeper integration with Eucalyptus platform. Now, Eucalyptus has evolved into a commercial company from the ranks of academia. They offer support for enterprise customers looking to deploy Eucalyptus platform as they move into the Clouds. Canonical goes one step further and they will help deploy at the OS level. Canonical also offer training support for their customers. It is a pretty comprehensive plan which will definitely get noticed by the CIOs looking to move away from the traditional system into the Clouds.

With companies like Cloudera, offering support to Hadoop implementations, and Eucalyptus in the fray, the Open Source Cloud Computing efforts are getting more traction. The cost effectiveness of Open Source when added on top of the cost savings offered by the Cloud infrastructure has the potential to disrupt IT in the enterprises. It is time for CIOs to take a hard look at this combo.