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    HP Extends OpenStack Embrace

    After having already made an official commitment to OpenStack, Hewlett-Packard today is extending its support for the cloud management framework to both the cloud and its storage product line.

    At the OpenStack Summit conference, HP announced that version 7.2 of the HP CloudSystem allows IT organizations to invoke OpenStack to manage pools of Red Hat KVM virtual machines and to take advantage of HP cloudbursting capabilities that dynamically make additional compute resources available to a specific application workload.

    In addition, HP also announced HP CloudSystem Activation Bursting Services that make it easier to integrate internal IT systems with external compute services managed by a third-party service provider, while also introducing HP Cloud Messaging, which leverages the OpenStack Marconi API to improve fault tolerance by allowing messages between servers to be duplicated across multiple machines.

    Finally, HP is also announcing that the company has submitted a blueprint to the OpenStack Foundation to enable Fibre Channel connectivity with OpenStack. As part of that effort, HP is also announcing that iHP 3PAR StoreServ Storage and HP StoreVirtual Storage products now support OpenStack across both iSCSI and Fibre Channel protocols,

    According to Patrick Osborne, director of product marketing for HP Storage, all of these efforts are part of a concerted effort to create software-defined data centers where the management of resources associated with any given application workload can be logically managed.

    While it’s too early to say how that unification will affect the role of any individual member of the IT staff, the one thing that is for certain is that collaboration across the data center will become a lot easier. For example, instead of provisioning a virtual machine in a couple of minutes and then waiting two weeks to provision the associated storage resources, logically managing resources across the data center would allow all the components needed to support a particular application workload to be provisioned simultaneously.

    As a framework for unifying the management of system resources in the cloud, OpenStack shows great promise. The only challenge now is waiting to see which vendor best executes that promise.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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