In the quest for Amazon S3 compatible storage offerings, there are two distinct sides forming: CloudStack and OpenStack.  Both are open source cloud computing software platforms.  CloudStack just got a boost as Basho Riak joins forces with the Apache CloudStack Project.  All the details can be found in the GigaOm article, “Basho Joins Apache CloudStack Effort.”

The article begins:

Basho, the company behind the Riak CS distributed object store, is joining the Apache CloudStack Project and will work to integrate its storage with the CloudStack open-source cloud platform.The company is contributing some, but not all, of the code to the project. CloudStack is the cloud platform backed by Citrix(s ctrx) as a rival to the OpenStack cloud and Basho will work with Citrix on this integration.  With Amazon S3 storage dominating the market for public cloud storage, an array of service providers and enterprises are looking for API-compatible options. That’s where Riak CS comes in.

While Amazon only deals in proprietary offerings, the fact that their success is paying dividends for the open source world of innovation is a positive side effect.  There are other companies that are benefiting from the overall boost in open source as well.  Industry leaders like LucidWorks provide strong customer service and training options around open source leaders Lucene and Solr.  All in all, the future of open source looks bright.

Emily Rae Aldridge, September 13, 2012

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