The Linux Foundation Creates Open Controller for Software-Defined Storage

Launches OpenSDS Project to address storage management challenges and drive enterprise adoption

SAN FRANCISCO – November 8, 2016 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today is announcing it will host OpenSDS, a new open source project to address software-defined storage integration challenges and ultimately help drive enterprise adoption.

Storage management today is often overly complex and duplicative, with an assortment of plug-ins and competing software-defined storage controllers for each compute framework. The OpenSDS Project aims to radically simplify the state of storage by creating a common, open controller solution across cloud, containerized, virtualized and other environments.

The OpenSDS Project is comprised of storage users and vendors, including Fujitsu, Hitachi Data Systems, Huawei, Oregon State University, Vodafone and Western Digital. The project will also help unite open source communities of interest such as Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Docker, OpenStack, and Open Container Initiative.

An initial prototype release is expected to be available Q2 2017 with a BETA release by Q3 2017. OpenSDS will leverage open source technologies, such as Cinder and Manila from the OpenStack community, to best enable support across a wide range of storage products. More details on technical roadmap and release cadence will be available in the coming months.

Supporting Comments

Fujitsu
The OpenSDS Project will be a driving force for a revolution of software-defined storage and its enterprise adoption. Fujitsu is looking forward to industry-wide collaboration in OpenSDS.”
Yoshiya Eto, VP of Linux Development Div., Fujitsu

Hitachi Data Systems
“Hitachi has a long and productive history of supporting the open source community and believes it’s good for the storage community to have an open SDS controller to manage mixed storage environments across virtualized, containerized and bare-metal environments. We look forward to engaging with the OpenSDS initiative via our deep OpenStack Community collaboration, support and customer deployments.”
Michael Hay, VP and Chief Engineer, Hitachi Data Systems

Huawei
“This is a key milestone in the storage industry, with major vendors coming together for the common good of our collective customers. OpenSDS will make it easier to utilize storage from any vendor using the same SDS control architecture across different environments. Our goal is to work with the open source community to deliver value to customers with an open SDS controller that simplifies management, promotes interoperability, and delivers Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS).”
Steven Tan, Chief Architect, SDS Management, Huawei

Western Digital
“Western Digital is committed to engaging with other industry leaders to simplify the complexities of deploying and managing infrastructure built on software defined storage architectures. We are delighted to join the OpenSDS project to bring popular virtualized, containerized and cloud technologies together under a common storage controller to help users focus more on their business and less on overcoming the complexities of managing infrastructure.”
Dave Tang, senior vice president and general manager for Western Digital’s Data Center Systems business unit

The OpenSDS technical community will host discussions on a dedicated mailing list: tech-discuss@opensds.io. For more information about OpenSDS or to learn how to participate, please email info@opensds.io.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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