Canonical's Shuttleworth Bets $1M on Big Data, Inktank, Ceph

mark shuttleworth canonical ubuntu

Shuttleworth’s interest in the distributed data storage system Ceph, and Inktank, which provides support services for Ceph, doesn’t come out of the blue. Canonical has had its eyes on Ceph for some time already, and has promoted it as the preferred massive storage platform for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. The longterm ability of Canonical and Ubuntu to compete in the evolving world of storage and Big Data is closely linked to open source storage solutions like Ceph.

Nor is it out of character for Shuttleworth to invest some of his personal fortune in fledgling open source startups. That’s how Ubuntu, which is now one of the biggest names in the Linux world, got its start a decade ago.

Storage, Open Source and the Future

Still, Shuttleworth’s personal investment in Inktank and the Ceph community, which comes in the form of a $1 million convertible note, is remarkable as a strong bet by one of the open source world’s leading mavericks on the key importance of Ceph to the growth of the open source channel. To quote Shuttleworth himself:

Remember, too, that although Shuttleworth remains a sort of benevolent dictator at Canonical, he has not formally led the company since stepping down as CEO. So his interest in Inktank and Ceph should be read as mostly personal, not part of an effort to advance Ubuntu.

Does Shuttleworth’s blessing mean that Inktank and Ceph stand poised to explode in the same way Ubuntu did? For the moment, that’s a hard question to answer. $1 million is not exactly a gigantic sum, and the stakes and popular appeal of a product like Ceph are far different from those of a populist desktop Linux distribution like Ubuntu.

There’s also, of course, the thorny issue of Shuttleworth’s personality. Although hailed as a visionary in some quarters, he has made his fair share of enemies who perceive Canonical as a threat to the fabric of cooperation and coordination on which the open source ecosystem is built. His unfortunate remarks on women have also not helped his image.

Still, the future does look bright for Inktank. Although the company was founded only last May, it has grown rapidly in a few months. And Ceph’s centrality to open source cloud and Big Data solutions is undeniable. Even if these entities don’t become the next Ubuntu, they’re likely to have a major impact all the same.