Hewlett-Packard Releases Its OpenStack Cloud OS

Hewlett-Packard this week used its annual Discover technology conference in Las Vegas to flesh out its cloud hardware, software and services portfolio.

The company released its new HP Cloud OS, an operating system designed to provide a common environment for public, private and hybrid cloud environments. Ironically, HP and Microsoft have chosen to use the "cloud OS" term to define their common approach to deploying cloud apps across public, private and public clouds.

That's where the similarities stop. Microsoft's cloud OS is based on a combination of Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012, while HP Cloud OS is based on the open source OpenStack platform, providing a common environment across its Converged Cloud Portfolio.

While much of the components of HP Cloud OS are already available, according to Saar Gillai, senior vice president and general manager for HP's Converged Cloud business, the OpenStack-compatible software is now available and consistent across all of HP's delivery models, including its servers and the HP public cloud, and will be available on its Cloud Service Automation Software by year's end.

"We have capabilities, where you can model once and deploy anywhere, where you can create a logical model for your resource pool and then you can choose a deployment," Gillai said. "You bind your application to this model, and you can choose your deployment later."

The company also said it will offer HP Cloud OS on the recently launched Moonshot servers, based on the low-power Intel Atom processors. Gillai said HP Cloud OS will be available on the Moonshot servers by the end of the year.

HP also added some new options for its public cloud service, including larger instances and virtual public cloud capabilities, and is implementing some if the software-defined networking technology developed from its network group.

Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 06/13/2013 at 12:49 PM