Report: IBM, Red Hat to join OpenStack

05.04.2012
IBM and Red Hat could soon be joining the ranks of OpenStack supporters, giving the cloud project a big boost.

The addition of Red Hat and IBM, , has not been confirmed by either company or OpenStack. OpenStack started two years ago as a partnership between Rackspace and NASA, but has since grown to include more than 150 companies and more than 2,000 developers.

It's been a busy week for open source cloud projects, which are non-proprietary platforms for building cloud deployments. Citrix it would create a competitor to OpenStack by giving its CloudStack platform a license from the Apache Software Foundation. Meanwhile, OpenStack on Thursday related to the fifth release of its software, code named Essex.

Other big-name backers of the OpenStack project include HP, Dell and Internap. CloudStack, meanwhile, has a plethora of partners as well, including Juniper Networks, Engine Yard, NetApp, Intel, Equinix and Brocade.

OpenStack is holding a Design Summit in San Francisco the week of April 16-18, where backers will plan the future of the project. That could be a time for official announcements regarding new partners.

Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social media. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.