It’s been an action-packed week in the cloud ecosystem, with several big-name vendors putting their weight behind OpenStack and upping the ante in the open source race to zero. Linux distributor Canonical set itself apart from the pack by forging an alliance with Pivotal to accelerate the convergence of IaaS and PaaS.

As part of the partnership, the pair will build an OpenStack-based version of Cloud Foundry into the next major release of Ubuntu, which is used to power 80 percent of all OpenStack deployments. They companies also plan to integrate the PaaS platform with Canonical’s Juju orchestration tool to make it easier for customers to set up their cloud environments.

Over in the private cloud, storage vendor Zadara introduced a subscription-based service that lets NetApp customers connect their on-premise fabric-attached storage (FAS) infrastructure to AWS over a private network with dedicated drives and vServers. The solution is based on the company’s homegrown Virtual Private Storage Array, an OpenStack-based platform that removes the technical barriers to running databases and high-performance applications off-premise.

While Zadara is working to make the public cloud a viable option for mission-critical workloads, Broadcom is looking to simplify the management of hyperscale environments. The company’s newly announced BCM5725 Gigabit Ethernet Controller utilizes open standards to consolidate network and system administration into a unified platform with a minimal physical footprint. Featuring Broadcom’s homegrown TrueManage technology, the device provides capabilities for regulating data center energy consumption, reporting usage trends and handling middleware updates. It also enables admins to configure event log alerts, assign access privileges to end-users and analyze sensory data to gain a better view of their networks. Currently in limited availability, the BCM5725 is set to hit production lines later this year.