OpenStack Announces 'Austin' Release

The open source cloud platform OpenStack announced Friday the 'Austin' code release of OpenStack Compute and Object Storage. OpenStack was started in 2010, primarily by RackSpace and NASA, with many other companies joining since then.

Release 'Austin'
The 'Austin' release of OpenStack is the culmination of three months of work by over 35 corporate partners and a busy development community.  This release is broken out into Object Storage, which is production-ready, and the first release of Compute, which is intended for testing and limited deployment. The OpenStack wiki contains complete documentation for both releases. A "Bexar" release is expected in January 2011after the OpenStack community determines the project roadmap.

Hyper-V and OpenStack
Microsoft announced that it has partnered with Cloud.com to provide integration and support of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V to the OpenStack project. Microsoft will be providing architectural and technical guidance under the agreement, while Cloud.com will in turn develop the code to support OpenStack on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.  Project code will then be checked in to the code repository when completed.

“As the demand for cloud computing continues to grow throughout the industry, there is an increased demand from customers for support of their existing technologies, such as Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V,” said Sheng Liang, CEO of Cloud.com. “Microsoft’s support for both the OpenStack project and Cloud.com’s CloudStack underscores its commitment to providing customers with technologies that promote interoperability and openness in the cloud ecosystem.”

Rackspace is all-in
In July 2010 Rackspace announced its commitment to the OpenStack project. Since then Rackspace (RAX) stock has been doing well, boosted by climbing revenues and margins on the company's cloud segment. Rackspace will be hosting the next OpenStack Design Summit in San Antonio, November 9-12.  The San Antonio provider also lists a job opening for Director of Business Development - focusing on "identifying, closing, and managing partnerships with companies building solutions around OpenStack."

The Coud.com blog talks about adding Microsoft as a partner, the release of 'Austin', and the approaches and industry opinions about the cloud stack. With the partnerships and integration that VMware has in the industry today, OpenStack faces an uphill battle, but it is gaining steam as a formidable platform and opportunity for wide spread adoption.