UPDATED 16:02 EDT / SEPTEMBER 17 2014

Open source is key building block for cloud, says HP | #OpenStackSV

open source books typographyWhen it comes to cloud infrastructure tactics in the enterprise, open source is the winning method among enterprise service providers who we see incorporating it into their own services now. For example, Hewlett-Packard Co. delivers private, hybrid, managed and public clouds to enterprise customers worldwide. HP recently announced that it’s acquiring Eucalyptus Systems, Inc., provider of open-source software for building private and hybrid enterprise clouds.

In a move that demonstrate’s HP’s high regard for cloud services, Eucalyptus CEO Marten Mickos, a respected leader in the cloud industry and a longtime advocate of open source, will serve as HP’s new Senior Vice President of its cloud division as part of the deal. Mickos will report to HP CEO Meg Whitman.

It’s not clear yet whether or not HP plans to incorporate Eucalyptus’s technology into its HP Helion portfolio. But the appointment of an open source advocate to head up HP’s cloud business is a notable development according to Stu Miniman, Senior Analyst at Wikibon and co-host of SiliconANGLE’s roving news desk theCUBE. “It’s an important move for HP’s hybrid cloud strategy and impacts how [HP will] interact with AWS and OpenStack,” said Miniman.

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What the future holds for open source & cloud

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Following a joint keynote presentation with Martin Fink, Executive Vice President and CTO at HP, at this week’s OpenStack Silicon Valley 2014 (#openstackSV) event, Mickos made an appearance on theCUBE as it broadcasted live on SiliconANGLE.tv from the conference. Mickos spoke to theCUBE co-host John Furrier about the cloud, open source, and how HP Cloud can help developers. “I think there is a tremendous need for bringing people together in the Valley around the power that the open source cloud can deliver for developers,” Mickos said. “So if you think about OpenStack [and] what it actually does, it turbo-charges the productivity of software developers.”

Marten Mickos

Marten Mickos, Senior Vice President for HP Cloud

Furrier asked Mickos to describe how the acquisition deal went down between Eucalyptus and HP. Mickos said that one of the things he told HP was that he thinks “cloud is open source.” Mickos explained why open source is key to the cloud, saying that if you want to get engineers super-excited about something, the code must be open. “They don’t get excited unless it’s open,” Mickos said. “And that’s how you get this massive movement behind it because they flock around code that’s open.”

Certainly Amazon.com, Inc. has won the hearts and minds of developers with its growing enterprise cloud services, Furrier noted. So what does Mickos say to developers who may not trust HP Cloud until it’s fully baked out? How will HP work with developers to enable them to be successful with HP Cloud—especially greenfield developers who may be hesitant to move to HP Cloud?

“The great thing with open source is that, when it’s all open, you don’t necessarily need to think about where it came from because it’s yours and you can do what you like with it,” Mickos explained.

“You can modify it, you can distribute it, you can build your stuff on it, you can take it to somebody else and run it on somebody else’s infrastructure…. Then, of course, if you need more, HP can provide you with a whole range of products and services but there’s nothing forcing you to take it. You can just download the Helion OpenStack distribution, get going, build your application, run it on any hardware you like.”

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Check out the Marten Mickos interview at OpenStack Silicon Valley 2014 below:

photo credit: opensourceway via photopin cc

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