Eucalyptus updates cloud platform, puts more tech into open source

Cloud platform provider Eucalyptus has updated its product ending the distinction between open source and enterprise versions.

Eucalyptus 3.1 pulls all of the company’s technologies into one version. It will also make available the source code through Github.

The company also said that all new development of the product will take place through Github as well. Defect and feature tracking will also be publicly available so that any member of the Eucalyptus community may file a bug report, request a feature, or keep track of the progress of the latest release.

As well as the move to full open source, Eucalyptus 3.1 will feature new enterprise private cloud deployments using Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation or VMware virtualisation, to deploy EC2, S3, EBS and IAM compatible APIs for hybrid clouds.

Another improvement is FastStart. This is a self-service system that can be deployed on CentOS 5 with Xen or CentOS 6 with KVM and allows users to browse and install euStore images to the deploy on-premise AWS-compatible IaaS clouds within 20 minutes.

It also builds upon features which debuted on version 3.0 which include high-availability features, Amazon Web Services API extensions, rapid instancing, improvements to EBS (elastic block storage) and Windows image support, a redesigned administration console and better CLI admin tools.

Marten Mickos, Eucalyptus Systems' chief executive said that the new version brings enterprise-grade cloud computing to the open source communities of the world and “sets the stage for a true architecture of participation.”

“This release draws from production experience with customers such as Puma, Inter-Continental Hotels Group, NIST, NASA, Cornell University and others,” he added.

Analysts said that while hybrid cloud computing is the next phase of enterprise cloud adoption, one of the most challenging aspects of this approach is having the solutions in place to quickly deploy and manage the implementation.

"A majority of large enterprises consider speed, agility and scalability to be the primary benefit of private and hybrid cloud adoption,” said Thomas Bittman, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

The new version will be on general release from 27 June.