Oracle Hires Google and Snapchat Veteran to Run its Cloud Biz

In September, Oracle made it crystal clear that it, like HP and other tech titans, wants to hitch its cart to the cloud computing train. Oracle is focused on OpenStack, and made its Oracle OpenStack for Oracle Linux distribution generally available as September ended. Based on the OpenStack Icehouse release, it allows users to control Oracle Linux and Oracle VM through OpenStack, and can support any guest operating system (OS) that is supported with Oracle VM, including Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, Microsoft Windows,and other Linux distributions.

Now, advancing its focus on cloud computing, Google has hired Google and Snapchat veteran Peter S. Magnusson to run its cloud computing operations. Magnusson was VP of Engineering at Snapchat and was a director of engineering at Google.

Magnusson will oversee an increasingly diversified set of cloud computing initiatives at Oracle. Oracle is deepening its partnership with Canonical surrounding OpenStack. For example, users who install Oracle Linux as a guest OS on Canonical's Ubuntu OpenStack distribution will qualify for OS support from Oracle. Likewise, Canonical will support Ubuntu as a guest OS on Oracle OpenStack.

It's also worth noting that Oracle guru and former CEO Larry Ellison has moved into the CTO role at the company, so Magnusson will work side-by-side with Ellison on the technology components of Oracle's cloud computing efforts.

 Magnusson has a blog, and in one post he wrote that Google App Engine, which he worked on, offered “arguably the first, largest, and most influential Platform as a Service (PaaS) approach to cloud computing.”

Look for Magnusson to play an increasingly influential role at Oracle, and in the OpenStack community.

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