CSPs

OpenStack Cloud Software Demand Grows 30% Annually

OpenStack appears to be gaining momentum as an Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud software platform. Indeed, the OpenStack market will enjoy a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32 percent from 2015 to 2019, according to Technavio.

Still, it's important to keep that figure in perspective. On the one hand, OpenStack is open source and supported by multiple vendors. In theory, that means customers can more easily move workloads from one OpenStack cloud to another -- or from an on-premises OpenStack platform to a public cloud built on OpenStack.

On the other hand, some companies have stumbled a bit by betting too heavily on OpenStack. Rackspace, for instance, briefly lost its "Fanatical Support" edge by promoting an Open Cloud strategy to customers around 2012. That effort didn't exactly catch on -- leading to executive changes and a more recent push to partner with Microsoft on Azure consulting services.

There is, however, an emerging market for OpenStack consultants and integrators -- where companies like Mirantis have been nurturing channel partners along in a healthy way.

Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.