Open Source Technologies

Cloud-based platforms are key to pushing colleges and universities ahead of the curve in academic and scientific research. That’s exactly why schools like the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) are turning to open source technologies like OpenStack and the OpenStack-powered Rackspace Private Cloud to fuel their scientific research efforts.

ObjectRocket, the industrial strength MongoDB database-as-a-service company that we acquired in February, is now available in our Chicago data center. This means you can now use ObjectRocket as part of your Rackspace deployments.

Last fall Rackspace announced the unlimited availability of Cloud Monitoring, our highly available API-driven monitoring system that is changing how we deliver Fanatical Support. Since then, we have been quietly adding features; and today we’re making those features available through unlimited availability, and we’re unveiling even more.

I have been a long-time attendee of OpenStack Summit (since the days when it was split into a Developer Summit on Monday through Wednesday and a Business Summit and Conference on Thursday and Friday). Now the entire event is called the “OpenStack Summit” and developers, operators and business executives converge in one place to talk all things OpenStack. So far, Every six months the conference has grown – the most recent brought nearly 3,000 attendees together in Portland to talk about the future release of OpenStack, Havana, and to share their experiences with OpenStack to date. With this type of growth, it was only natural for the OpenStack Foundation to ensure there were multiple tracks so attendees can align themselves to the sessions and topics they care about most. Some of the tracks this year included:

Technology is often a lopsided business. Studies show that just 12 percent of the professionals in engineering are women.

At OpenStack Summit Portland, the team that authored OpenStack Operations Guide during a five-day book sprint earlier this year held a panel discussion to answer questions and receive feedback from the community.

When Open Compute Foundation’s COO Cole Crawford gave a presentation at the OpenStack Summit in San Diego six months ago, he asked how many people in the audience had heard of his project. Only three hands went up. Fast forward, six months later, in Portland, he asked the same question and most people raised their hands. Like OpenStack itself, Open Compute is gaining interest.

It’s not often one hears an intelligence agency talk shop, at least not in front of several thousand people at a public technology conference.

Where will OpenStack be in 2023? While we’re only three years into the OpenStack revolution, the record crowd at OpenStack Summit Portland cements that the community-driven open source cloud operating system is here to stay.

UPDATED April 18, 2013 Rackspace changed the technology game when we co-founded OpenStack in July 2010. Come “Up Your Game” to the next level with us at OpenStack Summit in Portland, which runs from Monday, April 15 to Thursday, April 18.