Ubuntu vendor Canonical has teamed up with AMD to make it easier for users to deploy an OpenStack private cloud.

The companies have cobbled together AMD’s SeaMicro SM15000, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Server Edition, and OpenStack together with a bunch of tools that allow users to build more reliable and flexible private OpenStack clouds. To make everything easy to setup and manage, the package also comes with Canonical’s JuJu DevOps program and Metal-as-a-Service (MaaS).

By integrating OpenStack with cloud server hardware, the two companies say they’re providing an “out-of-the-box experience, making it possible to deploy a private cloud in hours compared to days”.

The full solution comes available in a 10 RU bundle, including three cloud controllers and 80 Gbps of I/O.

“AMD and Canonical have dedicated a tremendous amount of engineering resources to ensure an integrated solution that removes the complexity of an OpenStack technology deployment,” Dhiraj Mallick, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD data center server solutions, said in a statement.

This unprecedented offering should dramatically reduce the cost and time involved in getting an OpenStack cloud up and running. By doing so, AMD and Canonical clearly they can attract a large number of CIOs and cloud and datacenter managers.

From Canonical’s perspective this is a smart move that should help it to maintain its position as the world’s most popular operating system for OpenStack deployments. It’s also good news for Ubuntu’s ecosystem too, because it means another mahor hardware vendor is selling the operating system preinstalled. Though Ubuntu OpenStack isn’t anything like the Ubuntu PCs touted by Dell, it’s a sign that Canonical is still trying to forge closer relationships with hardware manufacturers, and that those manufacturers are willing to embrace it.

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