Today at Citrix Synergy, Citrix announced “Project Olympus,” their up coming OpenStack distribution. In case you’re not familiar with it, OpenStack is an open source cloud platform based on the code from NASA’s Nebula cloud as well as Rackspace’s storage code. The OpenStack project kicked of last summer and already has gathered support from over 60 commercial hardware and software vendors.
Mt. Olympus and the Cloud
Citrix’s OpenStack Distro
Citrix’s Project Olympus will produce a commercial distribution of the OpenStack infrastructure-as-a-service platform. This “Olympian” distribution will be made up of two main components: a Citrix-certified version of OpenStack and a cloud-optimized version of XenServer. While Citrix will lead with their Xen technology, thanks to OpenStack the distro will support all leading hypervisors.
Project Olympus is targeted at both public cloud providers as well as enterprise customers looking to build out private clouds. The distribution will be available later this year.
But I want it now — The Citrix/Rackspace/Dell Early Access Program
For those who don’t want to wait until the official distribution is ready, don’t fret you can get started today through the Early Access Program (EAP). The EAP is designed to help customers kick-off pilots and proof-of-concept deployments. The program provides access to a beta version of the Citrix distro plus Dell hardware and deployment software as well as deployment services, training and on going customer support for customer clouds via Rackspace’s Cloud Builders program.
To get going with Citrix’s Project Olympus Early Access Program, please visit http://www.citrix.com/olympus
Dell, Crowbar and Reference Architectures
Dell’s above-mentioned deployment software, aka “crowbar,” was a big hit at the last OpenStack Design summit. The software which leverages Opscode’s Chef, allows folks to get an Openstack cloud up in running in less than four hours (instead of days). In addition to the deployment software and systems, to support the project Olympus EAP, Dell will also be providing reference architectures so keep your eyes peeled for those.
If you have any questions about what Dell is doing with OpenStack or want to get started, email us at OpenStack@Dell.com.
Extra-credit reading
- Citrix “Project Olympus” press release
- www.Dell.com/OpenStack
- Dell technical whitepaper “Bootstrapping OpenStack Clouds”
- Dell, Equinix and Rackspace launch Free OpenStack Demo environment
- Gettin’ the scoop on the OpenStack Design Summit
- OpenStack Installer Demo at SXSW
Pau for now…
Posted by Barton George 
Barton's Blog 