Citrix Broadens Footprint in Cloud Infrastructure Market with Project Olympus

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New OpenStack Product from Citrix Lets Any Customer Build Private or Public Cloud Based on the Most Successful Clouds in the World

SAN FRANCISCO » 5/25/2011 »

Today at Citrix Synergy™ where virtualization takes center stage, Citrix Systems announced “Project Olympus,” a groundbreaking new cloud infrastructure product based on the popular OpenStack project. By leveraging OpenStack, Project Olympus inherits all the collective experience and innovation of hundreds of experienced open source cloud developers – and a rapidly growing list of more than 60 supporting commercial hardware and software vendors. As a result, Project Olympus helps customers build real infrastructure-as-a-service clouds that are scalable, efficient and open-by-design, because they use the same architecture, approach and technology that powers the largest and most successful clouds in the world. This approach stands in stark contrast to first-generation solutions that try to simulate cloud environments by adding proprietary management layers on top of existing datacenter virtualization stacks.

What’s New

 

  • Next-Generation Cloud Infrastructure Platform: Project Olympus is comprised of two primary components: a Citrix-certified version of OpenStack and a cloud-optimized version of Citrix XenServer®. Both versions incorporate Xen® technology, the virtualization platform of choice in more than 80 percent of the public cloud today.
  • Open-by-Design: Project Olympus will support a wide range of infrastructure, management and development solutions, making it easy for customers to expand and build on it. Reinforcing the Citrix commitment to customer choice, Project Olympus will also support Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, just like it does in the desktop virtualization space with its market-leading Citrix XenDesktop® product line.
  • Ideal for both Public and Private Clouds: Project Olympus is perfect for public cloud providers who want to focus their attention on providing differentiation and innovation, rather than recreating core cloud infrastructure. It is also ideal for enterprise customers who want to build private clouds with all the efficiency and flexibility that make the real cloud so transformative.
  • Key Part of the Citrix Cloud Portfolio: Project Olympus is a key new addition to the Citrix open cloud computing portfolio. It complements the recently announced Citrix NetScaler® Cloud Gateway, which gives IT an easy, unified way to orchestrate the delivery of any mix of SaaS, web and Windows apps to end users, and NetScaler Cloud Bridge, which gives IT unlimited capacity by seamlessly and securely extending any datacenter to any external cloud service.
  • Built-In Cloud Networking: In addition to complementing NetScaler Cloud Gateway and Cloud Bridge, Project Olympus will come pre-integrated with the Citrix Cloud Networking fabric to ensure cloud applications and services are delivered with the best performance, security and reliability. It will also enable customers to fully leverage virtual switching and intelligent L4-7 capabilities in Networking-as-a-Service models.
  • Early Access Program: Project Olympus will begin shipping later this year. For customers who want to begin pilots and proof-of-concept deployments today, Citrix is also introducing the Citrix Project Olympus Early Access Program, with key support from fellow OpenStack founding members, Dell and Rackspace. The program provides a sneak peek into the upcoming Citrix solution and helps customers get everything they need to start building scalable clouds today. To help customers get started, Dell and Rackspace are offering certified solutions for the Early Access Program, including:
    • Dell Early Access Support: As a founding member of the OpenStack project, Dell understands that configuring servers, storage and the networking to build cloud infrastructures for the first time can be complex and time-consuming. To address this, Dell is providing deployment software and a fully optimized reference architecture based on the PowerEdge C server platforms for Citrix Project Olympus Early Access Program members.
    • Rackspace Early Access Support: Also a founder of OpenStack and customer of XenServer in its own public cloud operation, Rackspace is one of the largest public clouds in the world. To support the Citrix Project Olympus Early Access Program, Rackspace will leverage its expertise to provide deployment services, training and ongoing customer support for customer clouds. Rackspace Cloud Builders, a team of OpenStack experts, can help deploy and support private or public OpenStack clouds in any data center.

Why It Matters

 

Project Olympus is a game-changing new solution that provides:

  • Openness: As open source-based IaaS solutions become more prevalent, the freedom of the cloud will be extended with seamless connections between other open source datacenters. By bringing an open cloud alternative to the industry, Project Olympus not only provides IT more scalability, but it also allows them to enhance and innovate their services and apps while dynamically expanding their compute capabilities without capital expense.
  • Proven Technology: Proven technologies used by the largest clouds in the world – including Citrix NetScaler and XenServer, OpenStack and Xen – have been leveraged to provide a tested, certified, packaged version of the open source OpenStack with a cloud-optimized version of Citrix XenServer. As a result, the benefits of public cloud infrastructures are accessible to the development of private clouds for the enterprise and service providers.
  • Rich Ecosystem: Project Olympus will further accelerate the rapidly growing, rich ecosystem of OpenStack cloud solution partners, including Dell, Intel and Rackspace and a range of solutions for cloud management (e.g., Rightscale); security (e.g., Trend Micro) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) (e.g., GigaSpaces, Engine Yard).

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