IBM remodels RefStack Project, aiming to make cloud computing more interoperable

The news was outlined at the OpenStack Summit in Austin, TX. RefStack is a project that launched last year to more easily more data and apps across clouds. IBM is a lead contributor. For IBM, the RefStack and more interoperability could enable it to become one of the go-to cloud vendors along with AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google.

Part of the dream behind OpenStack is to create a platform where customers can operate clouds and co-mingle them. IBM is contributing usability enhancements to RefStack, plug-in enablement and stability enhancements. IBM is also pitching developers on an interoperability challenge in October. Developers will demonstrate interoperability between on-premise, public and hybrid OpenStack deployments.

Among other OpenStack Summit-related vendor announcements:

• Red Hat launched Open Innovation Labs, which include services to integrate open clouds. There is also a DevOps residency program. Red Hat also said that it has launched its first Ceph software defined storage microserver cluster. The converged microserver was developed by WDLabs, an incubator within storage giant Western Digital. In addition, Red Hat said the University of Cambridge chose the company as an OpenStack partner for hits HPC-as-a-service effort.
• The OpenStack board approved Chinese startups EasyStack and UnitedStack as gold members of its board. The OpenStack Foundation also said its Certified OpenStack Administrator exam is now generally available.
• PureStorage said it is expanding its OpenStack efforts with a reference architecture as well as new certifications.
• Verizon said it has completed its Network Function Virtualization OpenStack deployment across its five data centers. The NFV project was among the largest known.