The European Commission has just published a report entitled Advances in Clouds – Research in Future Cloud Computing where a Group of Experts provides a state-of-the-art view on cloud computing technologies, its position in and its relevance for Europe. The Group of Experts was conveyed in 2011 and includes representatives from major Cloud players, like IBM, NEC, Google, Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, France Telecom, Oracle, British Telecom, or T-Systems. The report brings valuable information for people defining Cloud Computing strategies, developing innovative research lines, or exploring emerging market opportunities beyond today’s Clouds.

The report features OpenNebula as one of the most widely used platform to build cloud infrastructures, and elaborates on OpenNebula and OpenStack as open cloud managers addressing different types of cloud needs, and implementing different distribution models and interoperability strategies. Both, OpenNebula and OpenStack, deliver fully open-source software to build IaaS clouds, released under Apache license, and developed with an open and transparent process over the Internet. However, the report highlights relevant differences between both projects:

• While OpenNebula offers a comprehensive solution for data center virtualization management, enabling the users to easily build their own private and hybrid clouds, OpenStack mainly serves the needs of public service providers, focusing on AWS-like public cloud features.
• OpenNebula is delivered as a single integrated package comprising key functionalities for cloud computing with a single install, whereas OpenStack delivers a set of products for individual functionalities and capabilities.
• OpenNebula is committed to implementing major de-facto and de-jure standards, such as Amazon APIs, or the specifications by OGF, DMTF and SNIA. OpenStack builds loosely up on AWS, but primarily incorporates its own standardization working group, trying to incorporate the requirements from the participating companies.

Clearly, different open-soure cloud management tools will coexist and fit together in a broader cloud ecosystem.