RackSpace Challenges Cloud Vendor Lock-In With OpenStack

RackSpace’s recent announcement of the release of “OpenStack” – their open source Cloud service stack could present a credible challenge to more established Cloud vendors (such as Amazon) according to some commentators.

A key issue with current Cloud services is vendor lock-in.  At present, while a number of enterprises have begun experimenting with using cloud based infrastructures, not many have yet needed to migrate from one vendor to another so this issue has yet to manifest itself more widely.  OpenStack could potentially smooth the path for migration from one vendor to another if OpenStack becomes more widely used.

OpenStack is being supported by NASA who have contributed some code to the project also (from their own Nebula Cloud platform) and are hoping to reduce their own expenditure on an in-house Cloud platform by leveraging the benefits of using a community based platform instead.

Chris Kanaracus writing on Computerworld.com discusses RackSpace’s motivations and their chances of success:

“OpenStack will need additional backing in order to succeed, but an ecosystem already seems to be forming. Chip makers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, server giant Dell, virtualization specialist Citrix, and cloud management tools vendors Cloudkick and Rightscale are involved, among others.” [Read More]

The article continues:

“Another observer also saw good odds for OpenStack. ‘Rackspace, while certainly not the name of an Amazon in the cloud, has an excellent reputation as a host, and NASA’s engineering pedigree certainly doesn’t hurt,’ said Redmonk analyst Stephen O’Grady.” [Read More]

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