Eucalyptus’ AWS Bet

Yesterday Eucalyptus announced the new version of their software and, in the process, more closely aligned with AWS. It is not surprising given the ground realities of cloud infrastructure market. I would even argue that it is a smart bet by Eucalyptus which could help them as enterprises are seriously considering AWS off late. Before we dig on this topic, I want to briefly highlight Eucalyptus 3.2 features.

Some of highlights of the announcement include:

• Better web console
• Enhanced reporting
• Better admin capabilities
• More robustness

Apart from their strong marketing message regarding AWS compatible private and hybrid cloud, they also announced a new functionality that mimics AWS closely. They announced JBOD storage adopter which overlays EBS functionality over block devices and JBODs while also providing support for AWS EBS API. Their marketing message, product strategy, etc. clearly points to the fact that Eucalyptus sees AWS coattails as the only way to future structure. With AWS in the enterprise horizon and with private cloud still the enterprise focus, their strategy is on the right track.

Looking at the competitors VMware is building up a strong foundation for services future with their Software defined data center strategy. CloudStack has gained traction among Telcos wanting to offer cloud infrastructure services to enterprises and Citrix is now plotting a roadmap for a private-hybrid short term future strategy. OpenStack is still riding high on the momentum from the initial marketing campaign. We are now seeing some solid enterprise use cases coming out from the OpenStack ecosystem. This leaves Eucalyptus in a vulnerable position. They clearly understand that AWS needs a private-hybrid cloud strategy in the short term before they can gain enterprise credibility and they also figured out that AWS will not join the mating dance put forth by CloudStack because of potential troubles from the service providers in their ecosystem. They stepped in, convinced AWS to publicly certify them and are trying to grab the enterprise attention as organizations plot their AWS (public cloud) strategy.

It is not just a smart alignment on the Eucalyptus part but, also, the only viable option for them to fend off their competitors and stay relevant into the future. Whether it will succeed or not depends entirely on Amazon’s enterprise strategy. It could still backfire but it is the only alternative for them right now. They can give AWS some enterprise credibility and Amazon can help them fend off competitors like VMware, OpenStack, Citrix, etc.. Any thoughts?