Ubuntu’s Cloud Strategy

Ubuntu (http://cloud.ubuntu.com/) adopted the following approach (as outlined by Simon Wardley of the Linux distribution’s commercial sponsor, Canonical):

» make the cloud simple.

» focus on one layer of the computing stack (infrastructure) to begin with.

» help drive standardization (a key requirements of this shift towards a service world) by adopted public de-facto standards.

» provide open source systems to avoid lock-in issues.

» actively work to mitigate risks and concerns over cloud by giving our users options.

Source: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2010/03/cloud-computing-madesimple.html

Ubuntu’s approach, Wardley continues,
. . . was based around the adoption of Amazon EC2/S3 and EBS as the public de facto standard . . . We provided images for use on Amazon EC2 (public cloud) and the technology to build your own private cloud (known as Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud) that matched the same APIs of Amazon. We also added management tools which could cross both public and private domains because of our adoption of a standard API set.

Source: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2010/03/cloud-computing-madesimple.Html


Ubuntu’s partners include:
» Eucalyptus18 whose open source technology was adopted into the distribution as a core part of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC).

» Intel, whose Cloud Builder program19 provides best practices on how to create a private cloud using UEC. I’d strongly recommend reading the white paper.

» RightScale20 and CohesiveFT21 to provide best-of-breed public management tools alongside Ubuntu’s own Landscape system.

Source: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2010/03/cloud-computing-madesimple.html


Wardley states that Ubuntu offers:
» Simple Choices: You can have either private, public or hybrid (i.e. public + private) infrastructure clouds.

» Simple Setup: If you want to build a private cloud, then Ubuntu makes the set-up ridiculously easy. You can be up and running with your own cloud in minutes. . . .

» Simple Management: You can use the same tools for both your private and public clouds because we’ve standardised around a common set of APIs.

» Simple Bursting: Since we provides common machine images which run on both public and private cloud offerings combined with standardised APIs, then the process of moving infrastructure and combining both private and public clouds is . . . simpler.

» Enterprise Help: . . . 24x7 support and a jumpstart program to get your company into the cloud are provided at a cost [similar to most open source vendors].

» Open source: UEC, the Ubuntu machine images and all the basic tools are open sourced. . . . The system is open source and free and so are all the security patches and version upgrades.

Source: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2010/03/cloud-computing-madesimple.html

Source of Information : Implementing and Developing Cloud Computing Applications 2011

Ubuntu’s Cloud Strategy