HP and Canonical Document OpenStack Cloud Deployment for Ubuntu

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) signaled its endorsement of Canonical's Ubuntu Linux as a platform for deploying the OpenStack cloud operating system with the release this week of a new reference architecture, which provides detailed instructions on setting up an OpenStack cloud using Ubuntu and other tools from Canonical, such as Juju and MAAS.

HP published the reference architecture online July 1. The information focuses on small-to-medium clouds, with the option of integrating compute and object- or block-storage nodes.

The guide is written for Ubuntu 14.04, the most recent long-term support (LTS) version of the open source operating system, and Icehouse, the latest release of OpenStack. (Incidentally, an icehouse is also something for which I'd happily trade my inferno of a house right now.)

The reference architecture, which Canonical's engineers wrote in conjuction with those from HP, encourages users to take advantage of the MAAS and Juju deployment tools for provisioning an OpenStack cloud and configuring cloud services. Canonical leads the development of both of those software platforms.

The reference architecture may be of direct interest only to IT admins, and HP servers remain fully compatible with other open source operating systems in addition to Ubuntu. Still, HP's cooperation with Canonical in producing the information will surely help to reinforce Ubuntu's current position as the most popular platform for deploying OpenStack.