Open Source vs. Commercial software in the Cloud

For those unfamiliar with the concepts of Open Source software, let me offer this definition from Whatis.com : “In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available.”

While many people tend to think of Open Source as “Free” software, it should be understood that there are numbers of companies profiting (some quite successfully) from the commercialization and support of Open Source programs. Various distributors of Linux (RedHat for example) or Xen (think Citrix XenServer) or the SpringSource development tools (VMware) add value to the often abstrusely-documented and sparsely supported code.

A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. (Source:Wikipedia)
Most everyone in IT is familiar with the slow but steady adoption of Linux (more or less a UNIX variant) over the past two decades. Once considered and Academic plaything, Linux has found acceptance in the most conservative of IT environments, and because it is so widely used in everything from hardware appliances to embedded systems, many are not even AWARE they are using it.

In the Corporate world of Virtualization, it is clear the VMware has gained a cadre of fiercely loyal supporters who would not even entertain the idea of using another technology. However, the Cloud is not the domain of these corporations. The largest provider today of IaaS is Amazon with its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2.) Some might even say that the APIs associated with EC2 could even be considered the “de facto” standard for deploying Cloud Computing every bit as much as VMware is the “gold” standard for Enterprise Virtualization.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Eucalyptus Project born of the University of California, Santa Barbara should flatter the crap out of Amazon. Eucalyptus captures the functionality of Amazon Web Services so well, that users can usually use the same tools for either platform. Because Amzon has chosen the open source Xen as its hypervisor standard, that was the first platform for Eucalyptus, but since the Eucalyptus folks are quite friendly with the Ubuntu folks (who favor KVM) that hypervisor is now supported. There is talk that somewhere down the road VMware will also be targeted for inclusion.

VMware, of course, has its own set of APIs (vCloud) which it has presented to the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) for official adoption as a standard. It may well be, but as we are all aware, de facto standards can be more important than those created by fiat of a committee.

Eucalyptus, "Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems" (Linux people LOVE drawn-out semi-humorous acronyms) has been around since 2008, making it a pretty mature rival to many new start-ups as well as established players looking to enter the CC market.

Just as XenSource was created to commercialize the Open Source Xen hypervisor, Eucalyptus now has some Venture funding and is offering “Enterprise Edition” for IT departments looking to build real “Private Clouds” with its technology. If history is any indicator, I can't imagine the cash-rich wannabes out there are not interested in adding this golden goose to their portfolios. One could be pretty certain that the folks in the upper ranks of VMware might be a bit concerned about this effort.

There is certainly no shortage of products available and emerging on what seems a daily basis (from the commercial and Open Source worlds) designed to “Manage” the virtualized Data Centers folks like to call “Private Clouds”, but deployments the size of NASA’s Nebula are rare.

The Obama administration has not failed to notice the efficiencies this project can provide to a government anxious to modernize while reducing an enormous deficit. If anyone tells you building a Cloud with Open Source tools is not “rocket science”, point them to the Nebula Platform.

http://nebula.nasa.gov/