Apache embraces cloud with Deltacloud approval

Extending its range of open-source projects to cloud computing, the Apache Software Foundation has approved the Deltacloud as a top-level project, the organisation announced Thursday.

First developed by Red Hat in 2009, Deltacloud offers a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) that can be used to interact with multiple cloud service providers. Red Hat submitted Deltacloud to Apache in 2010, and Apache accepted the project in incubator status.

The Apache acceptance “is a significant milestone” for Deltacloud, said Scott Crenshaw, Red Hat vice president and general manager, in a webcast. “It reflects the breadth of the project’s community and the strong and fair governance structure around the project. While it was started by Red Hat, it is governed by an independent community.”

Now that it is accepted by Apache as a full top-level project, the Deltacloud project will operate under Apache guidelines and will receive full support from the nonprofit organisation. Deltacloud joins widely used Apache projects such as the Apache Web server, Apache Hadoop data processing framework, the Cassandra database and the Tomcat Java servlet container.

With Deltacloud, organisations can use a single RESTful Web Service API to access resources from multiple cloud providers, such as Amazon, Eucalyptus, GoGrid, IBM, Microsoft, Rackspace, and many OpenStack services. “There is so much innovation happening that it makes no sense to adopt a closed proprietary architecture. An open cloud architecture allows you to use IT resources from many vendors in one cloud architecture,” Crenshaw said.

David Lutterkort, a principal software engineer at Red Hat, serves as chairman of the Apache Deltacloud project, which will maintain the source code, develop new releases and act as a community liaison. The software is available under an Apache License version 2.0.