Canonical Puts IBM’s DB2 On Ubuntu Cloud

Canonical Ltd, the company behind the open source Ubuntu operating system, has launched a virtual appliance which puts the free version of IBM’s DB2 database system onto Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux-based cloud service, for both private and public clouds.

“We have been building cloud products for two years now,” said Gerry Carr, head of platform marketing at Canonical, speaking to eWEEK Europe UK. Ubuntu is currently available as a guest operating system on both the Amazon EC2 and Rackspace cloud service, he said: “The public cloud has a lot of merits as it has a low per hour charge, is technical advanced and is an immediate resource that can be extended indefinitely.”

“This makes it ideal for new companies or startups, companies that are working on internal projects or skunkworks etc. However traditionally it has seen less uptake in large enterprises with their own data centres.”

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC)

“Eighteen months ago we decided we should build something similar to EC2,” said Carr. To this end Canonical launched Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) in July last year, an open-source system that enables organisations to build their own clouds that matches the interface of Amazon EC2. “Opting for the open source route gives assurance to companies that there will be no vendor lock-in.”

The announcement puts IBM’s DB2 Express-C software – the community version of IBM’s database software – on Ubuntu, whether it is deployed as a  guest infrastructure layer on cloud services like Rackspace and Amazon EC2; or deployed on Canonical’s own host cloud infrastructure layer by private organisations and ISPs.

“A virtual cloud appliance consisting of Ubuntu and DB2 Express-C will enable customers to quickly and easily set up DB2 in both public and private cloud situations,” said Neil Levine, VP of commercial services at Canonical. “The full commercial support of DB2 running on Ubuntu and physical servers is also attractive to customers as a protection to their investment.”

Free IBM DB2

“The version of DB2 Express-C is IBM’s community edition, which is free of charge and focused on mid-sized organisations rather than large enterprises,” said Carr. He pointed out that there is a version of DB2 available on Ubuntu for large enterprises, which organisations would switch to if needed, as DB2 Express-C does have some restrictions on scalability.

“This is the first time that DB2 Express-C is available on an appliance, which allows for it to be instantly deployed to the cloud,” said Carr. “IBM continues to endorse the Ubuntu infrastructure, and it is a sign of things to come as we will be making more of these announcements soon. IBM is ahead of the game making things available on EUC environments.”

Earlier this week, Rackspace Hosting launched OpenStack, an open-source cloud platform that it hopes will drive the uptake of cloud apps, prevent vendor lock-in, and encourage cloud interoperability.