Earlier this year Citrix rumbled the open source cloud industry when it ditched OpenStack, a project backed by big-name companies such as Rackspace, Red Hat, Dell and HP, and launched CloudStack, a competing open source platform for cloud deployments. Months later, vendors across the industry are strategically aligning themselves on either side of the divide between OpenStack or CloudStack, which is now an Apache Software Foundation-managed project.
The latest company to pick a side is Basho Technology, which provided the storage components for a public or private cloud. The company announced today compatibility with Citrix's CloudStack. But Basho CTO Justin Sheehy says he's not disowning OpenStack; instead, he's expanding his company's service to be compatible with the CloudStack platform, in addition to OpenStack's.
[ Also on InfoWorld: David Linthicum says the 'open cloud' is getting awfully confusing. | Stay on top of the current state of the cloud with InfoWorld's special report, "Cloud computing in 2012." Download it today! | Also check out our "Private Cloud Deep Dive," our "Cloud Security Deep Dive," our "Cloud Storage Deep Dive," and our "Cloud Services Deep Dive." ]
MAKING OF A PHONE: Behind the scenes with Samsung's Chinese factory girls
SLIDESHOW: 10 Tech Expenses Your Business Can Do Without
But there is an obvious rift developing in the open source cloud world between OpenStack, Cloudstack, as well as other players such as Eucalyptus, all of whom are looking to tap into the success that Amazon Web Services has found in offering cloud computing resources for businesses.
Sheehy says Basho is reaching out to expand integrations with CloudStack because it's so early in the development of open source cloud distributions that there aren't winners or losers yet. "I think customers realize that there's no obvious one sure solution out there for them," Sheehy says. "And that's a good thing for the customer -- it means they have choices."
In the open source cloud competition, OpenStack, he says, clearly has a lead in terms of marketing momentum. With some of the heaviest hitters in the tech industry backing the project, he says it's no wonder that OpenStack will have a great deal of buzz around it.
