The open source cloud is a topic that has been the focus of many debates, especially when we touch on the idea of freedom and the extent of what openness is. But, while uncertainty looms around the term, one thing is for sure; it is the heart and soul of Oscon 2011. Taking place this week, the conference has been a witness to a tremendous spike in startup potential, with other initiatives around the open source cloud emerging.

Oscon 2011 has served as a platform for several noteworthy updates from the big names and emerging companies alike. Staying true to its quest in improving on the open source field, Oracle introduced JDK 7 and gave the public a glimpse of MySQL 5.6.  Senior VP of Oracle Steven Harris pledged that this move will only be the first of many.  He also noted that they may been a bit challenged now on how they communicate with the open source community, but as an organization, they are looking to march forward in this area.

But perhaps two of the biggest victors of the event are Gluster and OpenStack—with the former’s announcement of expansion of their storage options for OpenStack deployments. Co-founder and CTO of Gluster AB Periasamy expressed his excitement over this development: “In just a year OpenStack has received great traction and is experiencing great success. By expanding the storage options for OpenStack deployments we are enabling cloud deployments to scale up to new levels and seamlessly deploy object storage and VM virtual motion.” He added, “OpenStack users will have access to integrated file and object storage which can be deployed in a wide range of environments with the Gluster Connector for OpenStack.”

Gluster has been quite active in the scene with various updates on their plate. It was in April when they added two support services for fresh management tools, and expanded their open source turf.  Early July, they added Rob Bearden to the Board and joined the Linux Foundation. Their latest release, GlusterFS 3.3, made a compelling mark as they approach open source superstardom. What a nice way to mark OpenStack’s anniversary.

Seems like OpenStack is all the rave, which has gained a following from not only start-ups, but the key players in the industry. This week, Dell launched OpenStack infrastructure offering, which is comprised of the combination of Dell PowerEdge C Series servers, OpenStack OS and Dell’s crowbar installer. Hewlett Packard was also eager to join the OpenStack community, further validating RackSpace’s initiative as a very solid and well-supported one.