MySQL Boss Heads To Cloud Software Maker

Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos told eWEEK on 5 April that he has joined cloud software maker Eucalyptus Systems as its new CEO.

Mickos, who has been working as an “entrepreneur in residence” at a Silicon Valley VC group for the last couple of years, was a key figure in guiding the open source MySQL database into worldwide significance as an enterprise data centre mainstay. 

Numerous Web companies, such as Facebook, Google, eBay and others rely on MySQL around the clock to handle their workloads.

Eucalyptus’ software enables businesses to create an internal cloud computing environment that is compatible with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud [EC2]. It released its first commercial product, the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition, in September 2009.

EEE leverages VMware’s vSphere platform and ESX server to give businesses more options in transforming their virtualised data centres into on-premises compute clouds.

 “Eucalyptus develops software for turning data centers into so-called private clouds, allowing a dynamic and much more efficient use of computing resources,” Mickos said.

Originated as a UCSB project

Eucalyptus started out as a research project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, creating open-source interfaces that enable businesses to use their own internal IT—including servers, storage systems and networking devices—to build clouds compatible with Amazon EC2.

“Eucalyptus Systems’ mission has been to support the open-source Eucalyptus on-premises cloud platform while also delivering solutions for large-scale enterprise deployments,” Rich Wolski, Eucalyptus’ co-founder and CTO and former director of the academic research project at UCSB, said at the time of the launch. 

Along with supporting the VMware products, EEE also includes an image converter that helps businesses create VMware-enabled Eucalyptus applications that are compatible with Amazon’s EC2, according to company officials.

EEE is available now and licensed based on the number of processor cores on the physical host system.

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Mickos, who lives in the Bay Area, told eWEEK that he will be commuting to Santa Barbara “a couple of times a week”.

eWEEK Senior Editor Jeff Burt contributed to this story.