Just days after Amazon launched its Virtual Private Cloud to try and attract enterprises to EC2, OpSource has announced what it’s calling “the first true enterprise cloud.” OpSource is essentially offering a similar “hybrid cloud” operation that allows customers to access resources in the cloud over a secure VPN connection. IT can decide just how accessible their instances are and can apply the same type of firewalls and other security policies that they would in a datacenter.
“Companies want to take advantage of the Cloud’s pay-only-for-what-you-consume and collaborative nature but they have been held back by the lack of security, performance and control,” said OpSource CEO Treb Ryan. The OpSource cloud aims to make up for that lack of security by translating traditional IT practices to the cloud. There will also be an SLA backed up by 24-hour support, which is basically standard if you want to be taken seriously in the enterprise space.
Though OpSource will be hard pressed to seriously compete with Amazon’s enterprise cloud offering, the two companies do agree on one key fact. Both OpSource and Amazon are snubbing the movement towards the private cloud, where cloud-like architecture is moved into a completely separate enterprise environment.
This short burst of announcements could signal a trend towards cloud computing, compromising just enough to meet the needs of enterprise IT and bring hold-outs into the fold.
The one significant difference between the OpSource release and Amazon VPC is that the former supports a multi-tier architecture. The company is going to have to rely on speedy innovation and the addition of more features like that if it wants to capture significant market share from the EC2 juggernaut.
The product will be fully launched at VMWorld next week and will leave private beta in early October. For a closer look now, you’ll need to apply here for the private beta.
