A screen shot of Anso Labs' partnering companies page
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting provider Rackspace (www.rackspace.com) announced last week it acquired cloud computing developer Anso Labs (www.ansolabs.com), the developer of NASA Nebula Cloud and a main contributor to OpenStack. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
The move came just days after Rackspace announced it had released the “Bexar” code of OpenStack Compute and Object Storage.
Despite the acquisition of the cloud operating system contributor, Rackspace president and STO Lew Moorman denied allegations that the company will be assuming control of OpenStack and said it will continue to allow it to run as a community-driven open-source project.
Rackspace also discussed the Anso Labs acquisition during its Feb. 10 earnings call, but declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.
In the earnings call, Moorman also disclosed that Rackspace is currently in discussions with Microsoft about providing a managed version of Windows Azure.
Anso Labs designed and developed Nova, the backbone of NASA’s Nebula private cloud platform.
NASA developed Nova’s code to the OpenStack project while Rackspace has contributed mainly to the OpenStack Object Storage.
“Through this strategic talent acquisition, we are increasing our investment in the success of OpenStack and our open-source strategy,” said Moorman.
Launched last July by Rackspace and NASA, OpenStack is an open-source cloud operating system within the cloud.
The project currently has 50 partner companies and 1,000 independent contributors.
Prior to the acquisition, the OpenStack board comprised of two seats held by Rackspace, one by Anso Labs and one by Citrix.
But by acquiring Anso Labs, Rackspace takes control of another seat, creating a three out of four majority.
Additionally, Rackspace controls controls eight of the nine seats on the project oversight committee since Anso previously owned three of the seats.
OpenStack General Manager Jim Curry says its “long-term vision is one in which this open community continues to thrive, with more and more contributions and direction coming from the diverse group of organizations and people joining the project every day.”
Moorman reaffirmed this message later by saying that Rackspace’s “commitment to collaborating with the industry and user community to build the open cloud standard has never been higher.”
In other Rackspace news, company CEO Lanham Napier told Forbes the company was “not for sale,” responding to speculation triggered by the recent acquisitions of Terremark and NaviSite.
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