OpenStack has just added a new Hosted Private Cloud category to its Marketplace vendor comparison site, in a move it says represents growing interest in the option from customers.

The new category includes products and service from Aptira, AURO, Blue Box, IBM, DataCentred, Metacloud, Mirantis, Morphlabs, Rackspace and UnitedStack. All of these products and services meet specific technical criteria and are transparent with product information like OpenStack versions and the capabilities they support.

According to the OpenStack Foundation, it saw more than double the number of private cloud deployments based on its technology in the past year, citing its own research.

Mark Collier, COO of the OpenStack Foundation, said that adding hosted private cloud options to the marketplace should help vendors to make better decisions about their cloud services. He also noted that organizations are under constant pressure to move faster in a “software-defined economy”, and are focused on adding value through rapid app development.

“That’s why we’ve seen so much traction for OpenStack in the hosted private cloud market, and are now adding the new marketplace category to help companies quickly identify which vendors are offering this new path to OpenStack-powered, fully managed infrastructure,” he added.

OpenStack points out a number of benefits that make hosted private clouds a viable option for businesses. These include a low barrier to entry with little to no upfront capital expenditure; control over the location of physical infrastructure and policies to meet governance requirements; deployment speeds that compare with public cloud provisioningl and minimal responsibility for operating the physical infrastructure.

“Hosted private cloud can give users the best of both worlds: public cloud convenience and private cloud performance. For that reason alone, we see continued growth and interest,” reasoned Collier.

OpenStack cites research from Forrester Research, which claims that the biggest drivers for organizations using or planning to use hosted private clouds include lowering total cost of ownership (TCO), improved manageability of resources, on-demand capacity, and improved disaster recovery.

The Hosted Private Cloud category will be added to the Marketplace alongside already existing ones (Training, Consulting Services, Distributions & Appliances, Public Clouds and Drivers).

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