Eucalyptus

Overview

Eucalyptus Systems delivers open source software that enables organizations to build on-premise private and hybrid clouds utilizing the software and hardware already in place within the enterprise's datacenter. Their Platform as a Service (PaaS) is billed as "the leading open source private cloud platform" and they're a well-funded start-up that has garnered lots of positive press in 2009.

Eucalyptus began as a research project in 2007 at the University of California, Santa Barbara; they chose the open source route for two reasons:

1. By using the components without modification, they could "automatically incorporate any improvements or upgrades that the open-source community has contributed."
2. By choosing components that are common to most freely available Linux distributions, they could ensure it would "run in pre-existing Linux installations without the addition or modification of the installed software infrastructure."

In January 2009, the team decided to commercialize the project as an open source company and Eucalyptus was formally launched.

Value Proposition

Eucalyptus helps organizations leverage their existing investment in their computing infrastructure. Their cloud architecture supports the same APIs as public clouds and are fully compatible with Amazon EC2. Customers can move applications from on-premise Eucalyptus clouds to public clouds and vice versa.

Eucalyptus adds the following capabilities: end-user customization, self-service provisioning, and legacy application support. The bottom line benefits combine a more agile and responsive IT organization with lower cost.

Products & Services

• Eucalyptus Enterprise is the cloud enablement platform based on open source systems that allows customers to leverage their existing infrastructure and turn it into a private or hybrid cloud computing service.
• Eucalyptus Professional Services provides the consulting, training, and support to customers who want to deploy the Eucalyptus cloud platform; they offer a QuickStart Program to help companies design, implement, and monitor the platform.