Canonical Announces OpenStack Cloud App Store for Ubuntu Linux

Canonical is launching yet another app store for Ubuntu Linux. Unlike its great, late desktop-oriented predecessor, however, this one is focused on the OpenStack cloud, with apps delivered via Juju.

Ubuntu founder and former CEO Mark Shuttleworth announced the new app store at the OpenStack Summit this week in Tokyo. The platform will provide a way for people running Ubuntu-based OpenStack clouds to install cloud applications via Juju and Horizon, the web-based management interface for OpenStack.

The app store will work on all Ubuntu systems, whether they are bare-metal or virtualized. It also supports private and public clouds alike.

This isn’t Canonical’s first foray into app stores. The company ran a similar system for desktop-based versions of Ubuntu, called the Ubuntu Software Center, for years until announcing last summer it was shutting it down to focus on mobile app delivery for Snappy Ubuntu Core.

Juju, which Canonical has also offered for years, works something like an app store, too. It lets users deploy cloud-based apps and services in a few clicks using “Charms.”

Now, however, it appears that Canonical is intent on taking a broader and thicker approach to app delivery for the cloud. The new app store that Shuttleworth announced will extend beyond what Juju currently makes possible by integrating directly into the OpenStack management interface.

Canonical said it intends for the app store for the cloud to help Ubuntu-based service providers to attract more users. The platform is “for those of you who are building clouds and saying, ‘How am I going to bring users to my cloud, how am I going to bring applications to my cloud, how am I going to get people to consume this cloud much faster and at much better scale?'” Shuttleworth said. “We hope with this cloud to help you with that.”