Is OpenStack the New Linux?

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Posted by timothy on Thursday June 7, 2012 @06:58AM from the interesting-tools-find-interesting-uses dept.

snydeq writes "As the self-proclaimed 'cloud OS for the datacenter,' OpenStack is fast becoming one of the more intriguing movements in open source — complete with lofty ambitions, community in-fighting, and commercial appeal. But questions remain whether this project can reach its potential of becoming the new Linux. 'The allure of OpenStack is clear: Like Linux, OpenStack aims to provide a kernel around which all kinds of software vendors can build businesses. But with OpenStack, we're talking multiple projects to provide agile cloud management of compute, storage, and networking resources across the data center — plus authentication, self-service, resource monitoring, and a slew of other projects. It's hugely ambitious, perhaps the most far-reaching open source project ever, although still at a very early stage. ... Clearly, the sky-high aspirations of OpenStack both fuel its outrageous momentum and incur the risk of overreach and collapse, as it incites all manner of competition. The promise is big, but the success of OpenStack is by no means assured.'"

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Re:Done. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-07 07:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Needed webscale and enterprise value there. Agile alone isn't agile enough.
Meta-engineering by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · 2012-06-07 07:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

As a general rule, the only way to build something large and complex that works is to grow it from something small and simple that works.
1. Re:Meta-engineering by morcego · 2012-06-07 07:12 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  As a general rule, the only way to build something large and complex that works is to grow it from something small and simple that works.
  As a general rule, something simple that works will grow into something large and complex that doesn't work, and no one can figure why.
  
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  morcego
Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-07 07:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

OpenStack is a Linux distribution organized for deploying a compute cloud. Linux is the new Linux?
1. Re:Wait, what? by MightyMartian · 2012-06-07 07:07 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  In other words "We have a new distro, how can we get some free advertising..."
  
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  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Done. by NickFortune · 2012-06-07 07:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

I got that with "cloud".
How open can the system be when it runs on someone else's hardware under someone else's control?
OK, maybe potentially big news for cloud service vendors, but I can't the average Linux hobby coder giving this a lot of time or effort

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Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Re:Done. by aix+tom · 2012-06-07 09:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

So at which number of "servers" does it become a cloud?
Up until about 2-3 years ago we had about 50 or so "Hardware" servers at our company. Which we replaced one after the other with two bladecenters with 24 blades in total, in two different buildings plus NAS clusters, running everything on virtual machines. Those are advertised by IBM as "IBM BladeCenter for Cloud", so at least THEY think that already is "the cloud".
I, personally, have come to think that once you run something in a virtual machine, clustered in a way that one hardware box going down has no effect of your "Application" running it is basically "The Cloud". Of course that has been around for decades "The Cloud" is only a new marketing speak that has come up.