OpenStack, Sonian, and Skydiving
This past April, fellow Sonianite, Don Wood and I took the opportunity to ascend 14,000 feet into the clouds and jump out of an airplane. Our initiative that day, although not innovative in and of itself, was received with wild excitement and enthusiasm. Months later another initiative is attracting a similar response. On July 19, 2010 Sonian partner Rackspace, Inc. (collaboratively with NASA and other industry leaders) unveiled to the world their latest project initiative, OpenStack. The company announced the opening of their cloud infrastructure code, an unprecedented industry angle. The move to open source means big things for cloud computing capability, Sonian and the entire hosting industry.
Now, after our sky soar I confessed to Don, “mentally, my lights were on but nobody was home” while I was rapidly descending towards the beautiful New England landscape. Adrenaline aside, I did manage to run some rational thoughts through my mind during that jump – 1) I’m flippin’ flying (literally, flips!), 2) Man has conquered the clouds, and 3) the sky and its clouds have never been so accessible and free. Alliteration aside, it would be a stretch to relate that first thought to the news at hand, however the second two lend themselves quite nicely. OpenStack has revolutionized the market, and so has since driven me to revisit thoughts two and three.
First, with skydiving it is undeniable that mankind has conquered the clouds and with Sonian it is undeniable mankind has conquered the cloud. Next, with thought three I was admittedly incorrect. The OpenStack project has boldly set the sky free and only now can one say its clouds are truly accessible, open and free. Now the good news gets great – an open source cloud platform will equally allow hosted archiving solution providers such as Sonian to reach new heights. So what exactly is all the fuss?
What open cloud means for you:
- OpenStack aims to “foster the emergence of technology standards and cloud interoperability”
- Eliminate fear of proprietary lock-in
- Open source encourages industry innovation
- Allows increased cloud flexibility and elasticity
- More tools and better capabilities
- Streamline industry standards, innovation and technologies
What open cloud means for us:
- Ability to adopt public and private clouds (further encompassing the government, education, global, technology, etc… industries)
- Product and service competition, allowing our solutions to surface and shine
- Participate in open source! Allowing our engineers and developers to shine
- New partnership opportunities
Sitting here at Sonian, I am planning to someday skydive again. With the open source initiative underway I can rest assured the next time around thoughts two and three will be glorious and true. Then perhaps I can muster the ever-elusive thought four! Stay tuned.
Assuming you’re safely on the ground be sure to check out the project’s hub, OpenStack.org to discover how Rackspace is opening the skies like never before.