HP Adds OpenStack Features To Its Converged Cloud

HP has announced a number of new features for its Converged Cloud products, including extended support for the OpenStack technology.

HP’s Converged Cloud is a blend of traditional IT with private, managed and public clouds. With OpenStack, it will be capable of advanced features such as “cloud bursting”, when an application runs in a private cloud or data centre and “bursts” into a public cloud when the demand for computing capacity spikes.

HP has also launched a new Cloud Messaging duplication service, and a new OpenStack blueprint for fibre channel storage.

Opening up

HP has contributed to the OpenStack project for the past two years. And now, the latest version of its CloudSystem tools features OpenStack integration to enable support of bursting capabilities and KVM hypervisor resource pools.

HP has also introduced new Bursting Activation Services that let users quickly configure bursting. The feature means  additional capacity can be shifted across multiple systems and helps service providers deliver computing resources on-demand.

Bursting Activation Services for CloudSystem will be available worldwide this summer, and right now, HP even offers to educate IT staff on operating and managing the bursting technology.

“Enterprises are embracing open-source cloud solutions to increase workload portability and avoid vendor lock-in,” commented Saar Gillai, senior VP and GM of Converged Cloud at HP. “HP provides the industry’s most comprehensive hybrid cloud solution leveraging OpenStack across private and public environments.”

The company has also enhanced its public cloud offering with Cloud Messaging (currently in private beta), a service that reduces application downtime by duplicating messages on multiple servers. It is based on an OpenStack standard called Marconi, and doesn’t require system installation or configuration.

Finally, HP has produced a new OpenStack blueprint for orchestration and provisioning of Fibre Channel Storage in private and hybrid deployments. As a result, HP’s Converged Storage portfolio now supports OpenStack technology across both iSCSI and Fibre Channel protocols. The relevant drivers are available in the latest OpenStack version, codenamed Grizzly.

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