Which Open Source Cloud Platform Should You Use?

Grazed from Midsize Insider. Author: Bert Markgraf.

Proprietary models for cloud computing are a major barrier for midsize businesses considering moving data and applications to the cloud. It takes substantial resources to configure business functions to work in a cloud-based environment and companies must be able to move if there is a problem with one supplier.

Open source cloud platforms address this fear of lock-in by offering transparency and open structures at a basic level. This means that companies could transfer from one cloud supplier to another using the same open source platform, but it doesn’t mean that other open source platforms would be compatible. The key for a midsize business wanting to avoid lock-in to preserve its investment in cloud development is to choose an open source platform that will be adopted widely.

Sun BurstThree open source cloud platforms were represented at last week’s GigaOm Structure conference in San Francisco. OpenStack, CloudStack, and Eucalyptus representatives participated in a debate on the respective merits of their cloud technologies. InformationWeek reported on the discussions…

Lew Moorman, president of OpenStack co-founder Rackspace, made the point that open source platforms have to stand on their own. He suggested that the other two competitors were just creating APIs to serve the cloud platform of market leader Amazon. "You can’t replicate the full service," he said, if you do that.

Chris Kemp, CEO of OpenStack company Nebula, represented OpenStack in the debate. OpenStack is transitioning to its own foundation, the way Apache and Linux are organized, and will be open source in a similar sense. Kemp claimed OpenStack has attracted about 180 member companies. Intel, IBM, and HP are OpenStack supporters.

Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems defended his company’s strategy of developing APIs for the Amazon cloud. He called Amazon’s APIs the "de facto standards in the marketplace," and said that eventually his company would have APIs for almost all cloud vendors, making it very open but with a different approach.

Sameer Dholakia, general manager of the cloud at Citrix, explained that the CloudStack project is now part of the Apache foundation. His open source cloud platform is based on work by a tightly knit team developing in Java. He described his software as monolithic, similar to Eucalyptus, which is also written in Java. OpenStack consists of modules written in Python.

NetworkWorld reports on the same conference but adds more details on the Amazon connection. It says that compatibility with Amazon Web Services is a major part of the strategies of Eucalyptus and CloudStack. OpenStack, on the other hand, is presenting its platform as an open source alternative to Amazon.

Midsize businesses looking at these alternatives have several clear differences on which to base their decision to favor one of the options. OpenStack is the best fit to the traditional open source software, Linux-type model, and it has some large and powerful backers. Eucalyptus is in its infancy and seems more focused on providing companies that would like to use the Amazon cloud with some open source options to reduce lock-in. CloudStack falls in between with its Apache foundation backing and focus on Amazon.

Companies that are considering signing on with Amazon Web Services or that are already customers who want to regain some independence could look at CloudStack or Eucalyptus. Those who want to truly have the option to switch from one large cloud supplier to another are probably better off with OpenStack. Backers like HP and IBM say their OpenStack implementations will have a high degree of interoperability, promoting true open source principles. That’s assuming the concerns about supplier lock-in trump the use of proprietary platforms like those of Amazon or VMware.