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Eucalyptus continues to update its private cloud software -- delivering version 3.1 today. And CEO Marten Mickos continues to refine his management style at the open source company. So how has Mickos adjusted his approach at Eucalyptus vs.
The VAR Guy
June 19, 2012
2 Min Read
Marten Mickos Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus continues to update its private cloud software — delivering version 3.1 today. And CEO Marten Mickos continues to refine his management style at the open source company. So how has Mickos adjusted his approach at Eucalyptus vs. his previous role as CEO of MySQL, the open source database now owned by Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL)? Here’s the update.In terms of managing the business, “somethings about Eucalyptus and MySQL are exactly the same but many things are opposite,” Mickos told The VAR Guy. “MySQL was a disrupter of the old. Eucalyptus is an innovator of the new. MySQL was fiesty. Eucalyptus is more serious in tone because we have to explain our concepts. With MySQL we were disrupting [Oracle] and that was easily understood. At Eucalyptus we had to explain how we’re creating a platform and a market.”
Same Person, Evolving Approach
At the same time, associates close to Mickos say has management style has mellowed a bit in recent years. Back at MySQL he often tried to force issues and agendas forward. Now, Mickos increasingly seeks to partner and also leans heavily on the Eucalyptus team, those associates say.
And for good reason. The Eucalyptus founding team has six Ph.D.’s, each of which has played a key role in defining private cloud services. That thought leadership has attracted investors. The company has so far raised $55 million in venture capital, and today released Eucalyptus 3.1, a private cloud platform that remains compatible with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The new release features:
FastStart, which enables users to deploy on-premise AWS-compatible IaaS clouds in under 20 minutes.
Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux with EC2, EBS, S3 and IAM using Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and VMware virtualization platforms.
The complete source code for Eucalyptus 3.1 is now publicly available on Github. All new development activity will occur on Github as well. Defect and feature tracking will also be publicly available, Eucalyptus said.
Becoming More Agile
The company shifted to an Agile software development methodology for the new release. “We had a separate QA (quality assurance) effort in parallel with development,” said Mickos. “We spun up half-a-million instances of [3.1] to make sure it works.”
Also, Eucalyptus 3.1 represents a return to the company’s open source roots. “We had a separate enterprise edition but now there’s just one platform that’s free and open source. I think we needed to simplify with one code base to make things faster and easier for customers and partners.”
Speaking of partners, Eucalyptus now has 240 partners. Most are innovative software and cloud vendors, Mickos said, but integrators are catching on to Eucalyptus as well.
And what about alleged competition from cloud platforms like OpenStack and emerging offerings from VMware? That’s a conversation for The VAR Guy’s sister site, Talkin’ Cloud. More updates there soon.
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