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Scaling the Cloud

The Hot Topic at SCALE: OpenStack

By: MargotRudell 02-01-2012  | Edited: 02-01-2012

The biggest topic at this year’s Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) conference was the OpenStackTM project. Everyone came away from the show appreciating that OpenStack is only going to get more popular and bigger. OpenStack is building momentum. Jim Ash and Andrei Matei from the HP Cloud Services team stayed busy – talking with and signing up people for our private beta (HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage). To the SCALE attendees, who gave us their opinions, HP’s involvement with OpenStack means that OpenStack will be a serious, viable option for businesses of all sizes and for developers – who want a real choice in the market that competes with the existing proprietary cloud options.

 

People at the conference wanted to know more about the links between HP, OpenStack technology, Linux, and other open source projects. In a nutshell, OpenStack technology is the open source, open API, open development, and open orchestration layer powering HP Cloud Services. And OpenStack technology is built on Linux and open source technology. The OpenStack project and offerings like HP Cloud Services that integrate OpenStack technology bring open source technology and ideals to businesses of all sizes. We were excited about the warm reception HP Cloud Services got from people with a broad range of backgrounds in Linux and cloud – and from developers from all kinds of companies, from the smallest organizations to the largest enterprises.

 

SCALE draws a broad and diverse group of attendees – all interested in Linux and open technology. We’re excited about the very warm welcome HP Cloud Services received for our public cloud from the full spectrum of attendees. Here’s what we heard from attendees.

 

Developers told us that they love the fact that HP Cloud Services integrates OpenStack and open standards – and that they see HP Cloud Services as a strong alternative to the leading proprietary cloud options.

 

Enterprise developers, some who already have private clouds and some who currently work with Amazon Web Services or Rackspace, were also interested to see a new competitive market entry by HP.  

 

Nobody likes a monopoly.  Everybody likes choice.

 

Some of the people we talked to are building their own deployments of OpenStack in-house. This group was interested in HP’s efforts to help move OpenStack forward in readiness for business deployments and eager for tips we could provide from our experience.

 

We got a lot of great input on our private beta during the show, and we’d like to thank everyone, who took the time to give us their feedback. Here’s what people liked about our features:

 

  • Full-featured CLI
  • An already available, fully functional web-based portal with attention to ease of use
  • The fact that HP Cloud Services is free in private beta
  • Quick instance deployment, storage, and public IP address attachment

Many people asked us how long they’ll be able to use HP Cloud Services free of charge in private beta. Stay tuned for more on that topic. The best way to try HP Cloud Services for free is to sign up (link to sign up page) now.

Over time, SCALE has become a major event for anybody interested in Linux and open source. Now SCALE is also a great conference for all those interested in OpenStack technology.

 

If you have an opinion about SCALE, the HP Cloud Services private beta, or HP’s role in the OpenStack project and Linux community, we’d like to see your comments on our blog.

Tags: cloud Linux open source Openstack SCALE
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  • Zorawar Biri Singh is senior vice president and general manager for Cloud Services at HP. He has global responsibility for HP’s public cloud infrastructure, platform services, cloud solutions and cloud ecosystem for developers, independent software vendors, service providers and enterprises. Singh has more than 20 years of global leadership experience as an executive and serial entrepreneur in enterprise IT, online advertising, e-commerce and telecommunications. He has an extensive products background in infrastructure software, cloud computing services, data center and internet scale-out infrastructure, and networking. Prior to joining HP, Singh was vice president of Cloud Computing at IBM, where he helped lead corporate-wide strategy and solutions for cloud computing. He joined IBM in 2008 through the acquisition of Encentuate, Inc., an identity and access management security company, where he served as chief executive officer. Singh also previously served as CEO of Pivia, a network acceleration appliance company acquired by F5 Networks; JRG, a Consumer Packaged Goods-focused software-as-a-service company acquired by CDC; and e-commerce startup Idapta. Earlier, he was chief operating officer of RelevantKnowledge / MediaMetrix, a pioneer in online advertising ratings and Internet audience measurement, which today is part of comScore Inc. Singh started his career at NORTEL as a product line manager. Singh holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Bachelor of Arts in economics from North Carolina State University.
  • Blake is a Product Manager in HP's emerging Cloud Services focusing on cloud products and technologies. Prior to joining HP, Blake served as the Product Line Leader for Cloud Compute at San Antonio based Rackspace Hosting, a provider of hosted IT services and Cloud Computing. During his tenure there, Blake's team focused on driving the development and growth of the Cloud Servers product line and launching the Managed Cloud Service Level. Previously, Blake was VP of Research and Development for Gandinnovations, a grand-format digital inkjet printer manufacturer based in Toronto. Blake lives in San Antonio, Texas where he and his wife enjoy spending time outdoors running, bicycling, fishing and hunting. They are also avid travelers who enjoy seeing new places and sampling the local fare. Blake can be reached via email at blake.yeager@hp.com or on twitter: @Blake_Yeager.
  • Brant leads HP Cloud Services’ Product Management function for those parts of our system that are behind the scenes or that span our service offerings. Included in that is the Identity Service, the Manage console, the Bindings and CLIs, system security, the billing system, sales and support tools and others. Before joining HP Cloud Services, Brant spent many years in other parts of HP where he, among other things, managed the first 2G wireless iPAQ Pocket PC offering, oversaw the development of the industry’s first low cost fingerprint reader, devised the BioAPI consortium and was Marketing Chairman for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. Brant lives in Houston with his wife and family where he’s an avid swimmer and Boy Scout leader. He also enjoys skiing, snowboarding, scuba diving, rafting and kayaking. He even once fought off a wild bear – you can bet there’s more to that story. Brant holds degrees from Claremont McKenna College, Dartmouth College and MIT. He can be reached at brant.jones@hp.com or you can follow him on Twitter: @partly_cloudy1
  • Recently joined HP’s services lab with a focus to identify ways to pull lab activities into HP Services as well as harvest some of the ideas and opportunities in the services organization back into the research space. I've been utility player for EDS (and now HP) performing a variety of roles in recent years like the Chief Technologist of EDS' Application Delivery organization, the acting VP for Application Portfolio during the creation of EDS' application portfolio strategy and the chief technologist for the relationship between EDS and a large consumer products company. I've supported a variety of industries including process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, engineering, consumer products, financial systems and health care. I am known as a team builder who interfaces across and within organizational boundaries to develop team solutions and I constantly strive to understand innovation both within and outside HP. My value has been that of a pioneer-- typically knowing where the explorers have gone and identifying the best path for others to follow. I try to cultivate a large resource network inside and outside HP, which helps facilitate the process of clearing overgrown routes and enabling efficient and effective movement of the larger group to meet common and corporate objectives.
  • Darlene has 20 years technology marketing experience and currently works with HP’s Cloud Services. She has held a range of positions within marketing with Tandem, Compaq and HP, including working in the gaming, media, entertainment and telecom industries. Prior to HP, Darlene worked in telecom industry with customers from enterprise, small and midmarket, and consumer segments. She held a variety of roles across marketing, sales, customer satisfaction and quality management at Nortel, Pacific Telesis, and PacTel. She has taught public relations, has been a Texas and California state examiner for the National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award, and an ISO auditor. She received her degree from Pepperdine University and although originally from Southern California, she currently resides in Austin, Texas. Darlene can be reached via e-mail at darlene.lynch@hp.com
  • Gavin Pratt is on the HP Cloud Services product management team, where he focuses on storage, networking, and CDN services. Before joining HP Cloud Services, Gavin held a number of corporate and business unit strategy-related roles at HP, where he spent a significant amount of his time on cloud computing. Before HP, Gavin worked at a small technology startup, and before that, he worked at The Boston Consulting Group. Gavin holds an MBA in Finance & Strategic Management from The Wharton School and a BA in Economics from Yale University. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife, and he is an enthusiast of: travelling, sushi, standup comedy, and everything technology-related.
  • Jeff wrote his first e-commerce site in 1997 for an amusement park, spent a few years at Whole Foods Market managing web server load, creating CMSes and writing web interfaces to pricing systems, spent a decade doing all manner of Perl, PHP and Ruby projects at a small web consultancy and is now the server guy on the Developer Experience team at HP Cloud Services.Jeff lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, new baby and very cute corgi. You can find him on twitter as @jeffk, posting about interesting augmented reality, 3d manufacturing and other near-future technologies.
  • John Purrier is Vice President of Cloud Infrastructure for HP Cloud Services. John oversees engineering, service/technical operation and customer satisfaction. Prior to HP, John worked as a director of OpenStack at Rackspace, where he drove the development of this industry leading open source cloud computing project. John brings more than 30 years of technology expertise to HP, with roles at IBM and Microsoft, as well as a variety of startups. Over the course of John’s career he has served as chief software architect, director of product development, CTO and has been the CEO of two different companies. John lives in San Antonio, TX and enjoys live music and spending time with his family and friends.
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  • Marc is the Director of Product Management for HP Cloud Services. Marc’s team is responsible for defining and prioritizing the services and features deployed on hpcloud.com and working with other HP teams, customers, and ecosystem partners to create public, private and hybrid cloud solutions. Prior to joining HP, Marc served in a variety of product management roles with his 11+ years at Dell and 5+ years at a local startup in Austin, Texas. While at Dell, Marc worked in the Data Center Solutions, Web/Customer Services, Enterprise Products, and Client Systems Groups. Before Dell, Marc worked at Asyst Technologies (formerly “PST”), a company that specializes in semiconductor and flat panel display factory automation solutions. Marc lives in Austin, Texas where he and his wife enjoy spending time running around to different kid activities. Marc also likes tinkering with media solutions and relaxing with movies and music.
  • Margot has over 12 years experience in technology product marketing, product management, and corporate marketing. Prior to joining HP, Margot served as Director of Product Marketing for YouSendIt, a cloud collaboration, cloud storage, and cloud file transfer provider, and Director of Marketing for Space-Time Insight, a business intelligence software vendor. Previously, she was director of product marketing for companies including Imperva, a web application and database security vendor, and Merced Systems, a performance management software company. Margot founded a mobile games startup that launched an iPhone game in the early days of the iTunes AppStore. Earlier in her career, she served as Senior Manager, Product Marketing for Hyperion Solutions’ business intelligence products. Margot lives in San Francisco, California where she enjoys exploring the city. Margot can be reached via email at margot.rudell@hp.com.
  • Monty is Manager of Developer Automation and Infrastructure for HP Cloud Services. He runs the developer tooling, automation and process for the OpenStack project, is an at-large member of the OpenStack Project Policy Board, and is a regular conference speaker around the world. Monty has been with OpenStack since its inception, but before that was a core developer on Drizzle at Rackspace, and a Senior Consultant at MySQL, Inc. He's also started several companies related to Open Source software for the entertainment production industry, and he is an accomplished lighting designer. Monty splits his time between Seattle and New York where he works with several bands and theatre companies.
  • Pete Johnson created one of the first web applications ever built inside Hewlett Packard during the mid 1990's, served a stint as the HP.com Chief Architect, and now works on HP's cloud initiatives. You can find him on Twitter or LinkedIn as nerdguru and his retired blog on the importance of soft skills in technical careers can be found at http://blog.nerdguru.net
  • Peter is a project manager in HP’s Cloud Services business, engineering HP’s upcoming global-scale public cloud. Prior to this he managed research in HP Labs on automated cloud infrastructure, and led the HP Labs SE3D program, a cloud-based service for digital media production, which — among other things — showcased the world’s first automated, market-based computing utility.
  • Business Technology Leader and Strategist with expertise in building and managing cost-effective and high-performance technical teams in both tactical and strategic operating models for complex global organizations. Deep technical knowledge of software architectures and emerging technology with practical experience in all phases of the software lifecycle, from initial feasibility and opportunity analysis to design, construction and enhancement. Skilled and experienced at presenting complex technical information at an executive level and clearly articulating the implications and opportunities that arise to improve cost structures or create strategic advantages.
  • Rupak started writing web applications 1992 and had worked on an engine to embed dynamic data into HTML pages, to drive a live webcast of the World Cup Cricket in 1996. He has since dabbled in C/C++, .NET, Ruby and Rails platforms. He has worked at Compaq and then HP, as a Solution Architect on their eCommerce website for many years, before moving into the HP Cloud Services, Developer Experience team in 2010, working on the next generation cloud platform focusing on building applications, the Ruby language bindings, the Unix CLI, and Openstack APIs to enrich the developer experience. To fuel his personal passion as a developer, Rupak has been developing applications in his spare time, using Ruby, Rails, and Titanium. He loves, supports and contributes to OpenSource software and to that end, he also serves as the Managing Editor for the Rails Magazine, a free magazine for the Rails community. Rupak Ganguly lives in the Greater Atlanta area of Georgia with his lovely wife and two kids. He can be reached at Twitter @rupakg and also blogs at http://rails.webintellix.com
  • Sandro is assuming product management responsibilities for Data Services programs, including Databases, Memcache, and Analytics. He joined HP (through Compaq merger) 10+ years ago as Software Product Manager. He has been creating products in various domains: Telecom Service Level Management, Business Intelligence (strategic Analytics and CIO Scorecard) and IT Service Management. He recently was a Product Marketing Manager on HP Cloud Service Automation. He was mostly responsible for Dev-Ops initiatives, Service Providers market, technical marketing and supporting EMEA business. Prior to HP, Sandro worked as a R&D Director for Swisscom (Swiss incumbent telecom service provider) leading several projects in the area of Customer Care, Service and Network Management. Sandro holds a PhD in Computer Science that he obtained at university of Nice Sophia-Antipolis. • Soccer: member of HP team, coach (for youth soccer) and as well as a fan of OGC Nice (the city he was born in) • Travel: special fan of paradisiac island (Hawaii, Seychelles, Tahiti, …) • Food: I am half French and half Italian!!! Sandro can be reached via email at sandro.mazziotta@hp.com or on twitter: @smazziotta
  • Steve Loughran is a researcher at HP Laboratories in the UK on datacenter & cloud computing infrastructure. He is the author of the book "Ant in Action", is an Apache member and a committer in the Apache Ant and Apache Hadoop projects. He is also an evangelist of test-driven development and specializes in breaking things.