Exciting news today from enStratus that they have joined the Dell Emerging Solutions Ecosystem to be the delivery mechanism for Dell OpenStack powered clouds. With the deal, enStratus will be used by Dell to deliver the following functions to OpenStack customers;
- Deliver applications with consistent governance and automation
- Control budgets and security access for the cloud
- Automate their infrastructure—including auto-scaling, automated backups, and automated recovery
- Leverage the configuration management solutions and operations tools that meet business needs
- Integrate their cloud into internal systems—including LDAP/AD, billing, monitoring and more
While it’s exciting from a business acquisition perspective for enStratus, what is far more substantive is the fact that Dell has chosen to partner with the company – it is yet another affirmation that enStratus is increasingly the player of choice in this space. It’s also perhaps a recognition by Dell and others that the future isn’t one of organizations using one flavor of infrastructure for all their needs. Rather an admission that going forwards organizations will increasingly follow a multifaceted approach to their infrastructure with use of public and private clouds of varying natures – the very problem set that enStratus eases.
It’s also an interesting play given the announcements from HP last week about their converged Cloud offering – an approach that sees customers offered the ability to utilize a centralized management approach towards infrastructure – no matter what combination of physical and virtual assets they use.
From a personal perspective it’s a validation of the growing importance of openness towards cloud computing – the ascendency of open approaches, be they from OpenStack, CloudStack or others is a positive development for those wishing for more choice when it comes to cloud – the flip side of this choice however is a more complex set of management requirements. From a commercial perspective this bodes well for enStratus and companies like it, but further than that it bodes well for the ongoing uptake of the cloud generally.
