How Open Source And Openstack Are Commoditizing – And Transforming – The Cloud

...Look around and you will see the impact that open source has had on our daily lives. It is ubiquitous, powering our mobile devices, e-readers, home automation systems, and even cars.

Soon enough, clouds will likely be considered ubiquitous as well. They’ll be as much of a part of our daily existence as the Internet, data storage, networks and, yes, operating systems. Open standardization will be the driving force that leads us to this point. That standardization is already being created by the open source industry itself.

Similar to how Linux rewrote the rules for software, open source technology is making the path to the cloud more available to enterprises. It’s helping to eliminate the need for specialized software, and offering a standardized platform through which businesses can build open, public, and even hybrid, clouds. A major factor in this is OpenStack, which is the direct result of an entire industry coming together to collaborate and create cloud functionality that can work within any organization, regardless of IT infrastructure.

OpenStack is based on a fundamental belief that the best way to provide enterprises with the most direct path to the cloud is through an open model that gives us all an equal seat at the table. Many of the organizations behind OpenStack have readily contributed to the ideas behind the governance model, and everyone contributes to the project through a uniform sense of collaboration and sharing of ideas. Through this, we’ve been able to declare OpenStack the overwhelmingly right choice for the entire industry’s cloud infrastructure...