First ARM Technology-Powered Cloud Debuts on OpenStack

Calxeda, HP, Canonical and Core NAP among players supporting first OpenStack ARM Deployment on TryStack.org, the free OpenStack sandbox for developers

PORTLAND, Ore.-- July 18, 2012-- Today several OpenStack® community members announced their collaboration to build the first ARM® technology-powered OpenStack cloud as a zone in TryStack, the free sandbox for exploring and testing OpenStack. Solutions based on the ARM architecture show great promise for cloud computing due to their ability to deploy and manage scale-out workloads efficiently, reducing power consumption and cost.

OpenStack has attracted engineering expertise from leading innovators in the ARM ecosystem to add support for ARM processors, relying on the OpenStack pluggable architecture, which provides users the flexibility to build clouds tailored to their unique use cases. This means OpenStack can be deployed across diverse architectures, including widely available virtualization technologies, different storage back ends, and now CPU architectures like ARM.

"The explosion of cloud apps is creating new problems in datacenters, and OpenStack is attracting the brightest minds in the industry looking for new ways to solve those problems as the old approach of 'bigger iron and expensive software' runs out of steam," said Mark Collier, VP of Marketing and Business Development for OpenStack at Rackspace. "ARM-powered OpenStack clouds attack these problems in a fundamental way, by combining a radically more efficient chip architecture with the flexible OpenStack cloud operating system designed to manage them at scale."

“Highly efficient datacenters, combined with flexible cloud infrastructure on a massive scale, are increasingly essential to support the proliferation of always-on, always-connected mobile computing devices,” said Ian Ferguson, director of server systems and ecosystems, ARM. “The ARM technology-powered OpenStack cloud zone in TryStack provides free and easy access to explore and test workloads on the latest generation of ultra-low power servers. This will help to accelerate and extend an innovative server ecosystem based on the ARM architecture.”

TryStack is a community-run cloud ideal for testing software on the diverse architectures supported by OpenStack. TryStack users now have the choice to launch instances in two TryStack zones: an x86 zone running standard hardware and a new ARM-powered zone, both running the latest OpenStack Essex software release. The new ARM zone was made possible with hardware and engineering contributions from Calxeda, Canonical and HP, with data center space provided by Core NAP. TryStack is also made possible by ongoing individual and corporate contributions from Dell, Equinix, HP, NTT and Rackspace® Hosting.

"Adding ARM-based servers to the TryStack dev/test cloud will help accelerate the development of the ARM server Ecosystem," said Karl Freund, VP Marketing at Calxeda. "There is massive demand from end-users, ISVs, and members of the open source community to access this new technology, and TryStack will enable access to both the Calxeda-based servers, and the OpenStack APIs on ARM."

Steve George, VP Communication and Products at Canonical, said, “Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is the only operating system that supports the emerging ARM-based server platform and it's already running on ARM servers from Calxeda and others. We're delighted to support TryStack.org to help businesses realize the untapped potential of cloud computing on ARM.”

“Power, density and cost are barriers to rapid adoption of cloud computing by service providers,” said Glenn Keels, marketing director, Hyperscale Business Unit, Industry Standard Servers and Software, HP. “Incorporating HP’s ARM-based Redstone Development Platform with OpenStack will allow a broader set of service providers to achieve space, cost and energy savings needed to deliver the benefits of cloud computing to its end customers.”

After exploring OpenStack in the TryStack testbed, users can easily get started installing and deploying it through major Linux distributions, commercial products and services available through OpenStack participating companies. Developers and users can learn more at local user group meetups and events, including the upcoming OpenStack Summit, October 15-18, in San Diego. To gain access to TryStack, register at TryStack.org.

About OpenStack

OpenStack is open source software for building clouds. Created to drive industry standards, end cloud lock-in and speed cloud adoption, OpenStack is a common, open platform for both public and private clouds with the support of over 180 industry leading companies, more than 3,300 global project participants and 200,000+ downloads. The open source cloud operating system enables businesses to manage compute, storage and networking resources via a self-service portal and APIs on standard hardware at massive scale. For more information and to join the community, visit www.OpenStack.org.