Google welcomes hybrid cloud OS based on OpenStack

Google announced it its blogpost that it has kicked up its efforts for creating a hybrid cloud based on open standards — namely OpenStack. The company plans to release a small but strategic software component that allows instances of OpenStack’s new Mitaka edition to back up data to Google Cloud Storage. Mitaka, which debuted April 7, is the latest release of the OpenStack open source cloud computing platform. And this time, it is on an all-praise stride owing to its ease of use. OpenStack, which originated as an effort by Rackspace and NASA in 2010 has derived a strong consensus within the open source community because of its readiness for real-world deployments.

Cinder driver to create an object storage system

OpenStack’s block storage service is named Cinder, which houses virtual machine data and data at rest; most organizations deem this important enough data to backup. OpenStack provides a native backup driver that allows Cinder to be backed up to various storage platforms. Google has now integrated its public cloud as a native backup option for Cinder.

“In an OpenStack deployment, Cinder volumes house virtual machine data at rest as well as, potentially, the operating system boot device. In production deployments, it’s critical that this persistent data is protected as part of a comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery strategy. To satisfy this requirement, Cinder provides a backup service that includes a backup driver specification allowing storage vendors to add support for additional backup targets,” Ben Chong, Program Manager, Google Cloud Platform explained in the blog.

Start of a new era?

A hybrid cloud workload can transfer data to Google Cloud Public directly through OpenStack’s Cinder component without requiring any built-in mechanism for reaching beyond the firewall. But there is a catch. The search giant’s platform is only supported as a backup target, which limits its usefulness. Existing customers of OpenStack need not invest in additional storage systems or build out a second datacenter for backup and recovery. They can now use Cloud Storage in a hybrid scenario, optimized via the Cinder backup driver now available in Mitaka. The one gap in Google’s plan is on the private end of the hybrid cloud, where Google’s pieces have very different levels of adoption. OpenStack, despite efforts to retool and become easier to work with, still is used primarily by verticals like telecoms and isn’t drawing as many enterprises. Containers, though, enjoy far broader adoption, in large part because they have more uses and take less work. But this does not stop Google from hedging its bets. It is all set to build a hybrid platform that can leverage as many of its pieces as possible. Coming just weeks before the OpenStack community is meeting in Austin for its annual domestic summit, its users can expect Google to continue providing pieces that complement what they build on-premises.