Canonical and IBM Deepen Their OpenStack Partnership

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, is spreading out with its OpenStack eforts. It has announced that Ubuntu OpenStack is now available for IBM customers who want to manage their own OpenStack cloud across IBM platforms such as IBM z Systems, IBM LinuxONE and IBM Power Systems, including IBM’s newly announced OpenPOWER LC servers. This is an expansion of the companies’ hybrid cloud partnership, and many instances of OpenStack already run on top of Ubuntu.

As the OpenStack marketplace shifts, there is a shortage of people available to build secure and private clouds. IBM reports that it is following in the footsteps of companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Tele2, Bloomberg and Time Warner Cable in making Ubuntu OpenStack available to customers as a tested and supported cloud solution.

Canonical also runs the world’s largest OpenStack Interoperability Lab (OIL).Based in Boston, this Lab validates hardware and software OpenStack interoperability for over 35 major vendors, including IBM. In order to achieve this the Lab stands up over 3,500 new OpenStack clouds every month

As we've reported before, Ubuntu OpenStack is the most widely used private cloud platform among enterprises and service providers with over 55% of production OpenStack clouds, more than all other vendor solutions combined. There are over 2 million UbuntuLinux instances launched in the cloud since 2015, Canonical reports.

 IBM and Canonical say that they will continue to supply innovation around OpenStack, including “How to Guides” for deploying Ubuntu OpenStack on all IBM platforms. Customer support for Ubuntu and Ubuntu OpenStack can be purchased through IBM or with Canonical directly.