AppServers, Grid, SOA, JEE, etc.

GOOGLE HAS JOINED the OpenStack Foundation, becoming a corporate sponsor in a bid to promote open source and open cloud technologies.Working closely with other members of the OpenStack community, Google said the move will bring its expertise in containers and container management to OpenStack while sharing its work with innovative open source projects like Kubernetes.

OpenStack Foundation chief operating officer Mark Collier explained in a blog post how Google is an ideal sponsor as “few companies understand cloud-native apps at scale like Google”. So he expects big things as Google developers contribute to OpenStack projects like Magnum.”OpenStack’s Magnum project directly integrates with Kubernetes, the open source project Google introduced in June 2014, enabling new cloud native apps to run alongside traditional enterprise workloads on a single platform,” he wrote. “The community has also created an easy way to deploy Kubernetes on OpenStack via the Murano project and the new Community App Catalogue.”

However, despite Google’s backing, the move could be seen as more significant if the company had joined the Foundation as a gold or platinum member like firms such as IBM, HP, Rackspace, Intel and Red Hat as opposed to a corporate sponsor.”We’re excited to add our expertise in container-oriented computing to one of the most widely adopted private cloud stacks, while improving interoperability between private and public clouds,” said Craig McLuckie, product manager at Google.”We will be working over the coming months with the community to integrate Kubernetes, as well as complementary container technologies, to create a stronger hybrid cloud.”

In April this year, Citrix also became a corporate sponsor of the OpenStack Foundation in a push towards interoperability and unified standards in the cloud community. As part of the announcement, Citrix said that products including NetScaler and XenServer will be coming to OpenStack. Citrix had been a contributor to OpenStack for some time, but this sponsorship announcement sees the company ramping up its involvement and integrating its core product lines.

The OpenStack Foundation was formed in 2011 as an independent body to oversee development of the open source platform, removing it from the control of any one IT vendor, such as Rackspace, one of the original developers of the technology.