Chris Kemp, the first CTO of IT at NASA, helped to lead an effort at the U.S. space agency to create a cloud compute platform. The original 9,000 lines of code, known as Nova, have become the cornerstone of the OpenStack cloud project. OpenStack now has the backing of major IT vendors
, including IBM, Dell, HP, Cisco, AT&T and Intel. Kemp left NASA in 2011 and is currently the CEO of Nebula, a startup that is set to deliver commercially supported OpenStack gear.
In an exclusive interview with InternetNews Kemp explained how the open source cloud effort came to be and how NASA is already reaping the rewards.
In taking the NASA cloud computing project forward into the open source world as part of OpenStack, Kemp realized that even more could be done. NASA partnered with Rackspace in July 2010, to form the OpenStack project.
“With NASA we had the opportunity to inspire a community,” Kemp said. “A lot of OpenStack’s success has to do with people that deep down inside were inspired by the space program and wanted to contribute code to a project that they knew would help NASA to explore the solar system.”
Watch the full video interview below:
Read the full story at Datamation:
How a NASA Open Source Startup Could Change the IT Universe
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.