Citrix announces cloud infrastructure Project Olympus

At the Synergy Live! virtual event, Citrix Systems has announced the development of Project Olympus, a cloud infrastructure product based on OpenStack, the cloud platform established by Rackspace and NASA. In addition to OpenStack, the new project also employs a cloud-optimised version of Citrix XenServer. Both of these incorporate Xen virtualisation technology, although the project will also support both Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.

Pricing and availability have not yet been announced; however Project Olympus is expected to ship later this year. In the meantime, for those who wish to start pilot or proof-of-concept projects, an Early Access Program is available free of charge. This will be supported by Rackspace and Dell, founding members of OpenStack. Registered users who qualify will have access to (beta versions of) the Citrix version of OpenStack, a cloud-optimised version of XenServer and personalised design, engineering, training and support services.

The announcement adds Citrix to the increasing number of companies supporting the development of the OpenStack project. A comment on the company's community pages states that "We're working directly with the open-source code, and pushing our improvements to the public repositories straight away."

See also:

• OpenStack architect calls for calm after criticism, a report from The H.
  
• Is the open source cloud computing dream evaporating?, a feature from The H.
  
• Rackspace and NASA launch OpenStack project for open clouds, a report from The H.

(ehe)