The Ubuntu 11.04 Linux release is due out next week and with it will debut a new open source cloud platform.
The Ubuntu ‘Natty’ release will include OpenStack, which is an open source effort that Canonical has been participating in since the beginning of the year. OpenStack was started by Rackspace and NASA and now has over 40 industry participants, including Dell and Cisco.
Though Canonical is an active participant in OpenStack, it is not providing commercial services for it as part of the Ubuntu 11.04 release.
“It’s now a technology preview, so we have Eucalyptus with UEC which is maintained and customers can buy services from us to support it,” Steve George vice president, business development of Canonical told InternetNews.com. “We’ve got OpenStack as our tech preview for developers and for people that are interested in the technology, so they can play with it.”
