UPDATED 09:34 EDT / MAY 12 2014

Will Docker or HP steal the show at OpenStack Summit? Watch LIVE

OpenStack Summit 2014 logoSoftware-defined trends are reshaping IT and datacenter infrastructure, shifting an entire industry around cloud capabilities, with an emphasis on scalability. While disruptors like Amazon Web Services (AWS) have tipped the scale, legacy vendors like Hewlett-Packard and IBM turn to open source initiatives to keep up.

Delving deep into the world of open source, the OpenStack Summit kicks off this week in Atlanta, GA. SiliconANGLE’s premier show #theCUBE will be streaming live interviews with industry executives and thought leaders from the event, which you can view at SiliconANGLE.tv here.

Who’s leading the open source movement?

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Open source is an attractive option for IT stalwarts thanks to its interoperability, which could provide their cloud platforms the competitive edge needed to curb AWS’s growth in the market. Where AWS looks to consolidate services within its own platform, open source enables an agnostic approach that many in the enterprise will find necessary in reworking data centers.

Yet this era of modern IT requires leadership, and cloud services cannot live by open source alone. For legacy vendors pumping their cloud services, middleware becomes the proprietary angle and open source remains a foundation for revenue potential.

SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier once called OpenStack the “hail Mary play to AWS,” and OpenStack has since evolved (see more on OpenStack’s latest version, Icehouse, here). The open source platform has the ambitious goal to be all things to all people, yet even as several industry players push OpenStack for their own silos, the OpenStack movement lacks leadership.

Betting the business on open source

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At this week’s OpenStack Summit, theCUBE hosts John Furrier and Dave Vellante will be asking questions to uncover the leaders in OpenStack, where HP, Dell and IBM remain contenders. Yet there are others to watch, including newcomer Docker. The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider is betting big on open source, flush with funding and building a business around commercializing its open source efforts.

Docker founder Solomon Hyke on theCUBE at Red Hat Summit 2014

Docker founder Solomon Hyke on theCUBE at Red Hat Summit 2014

In a recent appearance on #theCUBE, Docker Founder and CTO Solomon Hyke spoke to the challenges of a leaderless open source market:

“The applications that are built today are being built for a platform that no one can point to,” Hyke said. “It’s out there, it’s not standardized. we’re at the same phase for the cloud that personal computer programmers were at in the 70s. There’s a frenzy for everyone to participate and build in it.”

Nevertheless, legacy vendors including HP refuse to sit idly by, opting instead to lead the frenzy Hyke detailed. Last week the hardware maker revealed plans to invest $1 billion in the development of cloud services over the next two years, hoping to rebuild faith in its own business model.

As part of the initiative, the company is rolling out Helion, a portfolio of private and public cloud solutions built on open source technology. Included in the lineup is a free distribution of OpenStack, with a commercial version scheduled to launch in the coming months, and a platform-as-a-service based on the VMware-backer Cloud Foundry project, which was recently transferred to an independent foundation that counts HP among its sponsors.

HP’s move speaks to the level of “coopatition” going on within the open source community, even sparking a conversation thread on CrowdChat regarding expectations for this year’s OpenStack Summit. The question has been raised as to how “coopatition” will impact OpenStack’s ecosystem, prompting this response from Cloudscaling Founder and CEO Randy Bias:

“Interoperability will happen as it always has, through standards and testability. These things are in process now.”

For OpenStack Summit attendees

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If you’re interested in attending the five-day event, you can register here.  There are two access options for attendees: $1,000 for an all-access pass from Monday to Friday which includes access to Keynotes, the OpenStack Community Market Expo Hall, lunch and snacks, plus all of the breakout sessions, workshops, the Design Summit and the Summit bag/apparel giveaway; then the $350 pass which includes access to Keynote presentations, the OpenStack Community Market Expo Hall, lunch and snacks from Monday to Wednesday.

The five-day event is directed at contributors, enterprise users, service providers, application developers, ecosystem members and anyone interested in OpenStack or open source cloud computing.  Attendees will find over 200 breakout sessions, hands-on workshops and collaborative design sessions.  Attendees will also hear from keynote speakers such as OpenStack Foundation Executive Director Jonathan Bryce, Wells Fargo Bank Head of Private Cloud Enablement Glenn Ferguson, Disney Director of Cloud Hosting Chris Launey, and Rackspace’s Troy Toman, Enterprise Solution Group VP and Chief Technical Evangelist Sam Greenblatt.

Follow OpenStack Summit news

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Stay on top of OpenStack Summit news by following OpenStack on Twitter (@OpenStack, #OpenStack) and Facebook. SiliconANGLE is hosting a live CrowdChat for the entirety of the OpenStack Summit, where you can participate in the conversation.

SiliconANGLE’s premier video production #theCUBE will be at the Summit through Wednesday, with live broadcasts here and archived segments on SiliconANGLE’s YouTube channel.  You can also follow theCUBE hosts Furrier and Vellante on Twitter, (@furrier and @dvellante), to get the latest buzz around the event.

Attendees can also keep up with event schedules and news by using OpenStack’s mobile apps.  The mobile web app is available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry users, providing personal schedules and search tools.  And unlike many conference mobile apps, OpenStack’s is available offline for those instances where the local network is overloaded.

If you don’t want to miss sessions, labs, or keynotes, OpenStack also has the iCal app which gives users instant, offline access to personal schedules or the entire schedule of events.  iCal is available for Apple devices, Android, and Windows-based devices, or click here to download iCal on a computer to manually import to a calendar.


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