Red Hat Prepares Enterprise-Focused OpenStack Distribution

The OpenStack open source cloud platform hasn't been short of powerful companies backing it, and among the many big companies that are part of the OpenStack Foundation, Red Hat has been a prominent player. Now, Red Hat is working on an enterprise-class version of the OpenStack platform for hosting IaaS deployments. It will arrive in a fully supported version early next year, but you can already get a preview edition.

On its page announcing the preview edition, Red Hat equates its enterprise-focused OpenStack distribution with what it has done with Linux:

"We've been working in the OpenStack community for a while now and can see its potential. Our focus has been around making OpenStack a great product for enterprises to use. Just like we did with Linux. In the future, we plan to release a commercial version of OpenStack for enterprise customers. But today, we invite you to download a preview of that product and try it out for free."

If you are interested in working with Red Hat OpenStack Preview, you only need to fill out a short form. However, it only works with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 or higher. And, you'll need a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription for each server you install with Red Hat OpenStack.

The preview is based on the OpenStack Essex release including packaging changes and backported bug fixes. After the upstream release of OpenStack Folsom, which is slated for September, Red Hat will update the preview release to a Folsom-based distribution. Red Hat's final commercially available offering will be based on Folsom.

It should be noted that there is no official support for Red Hat's preview edition yet, but a FAQ says this:

"Even though the preview is not officially supported, our engineers and support staff want to hear your feedback and provide assistance. We have set up an email list and bug tracking system to allow Preview customers to interface with our OpenStack engineering team."