• The Ceph storage project gets a dedicated open-source foundation

  Ceph is an open source technology for distributed storage that gets very little public attention but that provides the underlying storage services for many of the world’s largest container and OpenStack deployments. It’s used by financial institutions like Bloomberg and Fidelity, cloud service providers like Rackspace and Linode, telcos like Deutsche Telekom, car manufacturers like BMW and software firms like SAP and Salesforce.

  These days, you can’t have a successful open source project without setting up a foundation that manages the many diverging interests of the community and so it’s maybe no surprise that Ceph is now getting its own foundation. Like so many other projects, the Ceph Foundation will be hosted by the Linux Foundation.

• The Linux Foundation Launches Ceph Foundation To Advance Open Source Storage

  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announces over 30 global technology leaders are forming a new foundation to support the Ceph open source project community. The Ceph project develops a unified distributed storage system providing applications with object, block, and file system interfaces.

• Cloudy weather ahead for IBM and Red Hat?

  The world is buzzing about the software industry’s largest acquisition ever. This “game changing” IBM acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion eclipses Microsoft’s $26.2 billion of LinkedIn, which set the previous record. And it’s the third largest tech acquisition in history behind Dell buying EMC for $64 billion in 2015 and Avago’s buyout of Broadcom for $37 billion the same year.

  Wall Street certainly gets nervous when it sees these lofty price tags. IBM’s stock was down 4.2 percent following the announcement, and there are probably more concerns over a broader IBM selloff around how much IBM is paying for Red Hat.

  This sets the stage for massive expectations on IBM to leverage this asset as a critical turning point in its history. Given that IBM’s Watson AI poster child has failed to create sustainable growth, could this be their best opportunity to right the ship once and for all? Or is this mega merger a complicated clash of cultures and products that will make it hard to realize the full potential?

• A Slow Motion Strategic Train Wreck With The Color Blue

  IBM's high premium price for the Red Hat buyout places its stamp of approval on Linux cloud services while cheapening its own brand value.

• Road to ansible-bender 0.2.0

  I’m pleased to announce that ansible-bender is now available in version 0.2.0.

  I would like to share a story with you how I used ansible-bender to release the 0.2.0 version.

• VMware Buys Kubernetes-based Heptio to Boost Its Multi-Cloud Strategy

Most data centers include Linux, but there are many Linux server distros to choose from. Deciding which one is the right fit for your data center can be confusing, but there are three main options: Ubuntu Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CoreOS.

Linux is flexible, reliable, agile and secure, which makes it a strong contender for enterprises and SMBs. If you want your Linux OS to cover a wide range of use cases, you cannot go wrong with Ubuntu Server 18.04. This Ubuntu version is a long-term support release, and it's capable of serving large scale-out needs, as well as some more specific workloads, such as database servers, web servers, lightweight directory access protocol servers and OpenStack.

Ubuntu Server supports the ZFS volume management/file system, which is ideal for servers and containers because it includes all the tools you need for containers and clustering, as well as snap universal package support. It is also certified as a guest on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Joyent, IBM, Google Cloud Platform and Rackspace.

When it comes to Linux server distros, Ubuntu Server has many customization options and few system requirements. Ubuntu Server is terminal-only; you can install a GUI desktop environment, but that can consume precious system resources.

Also: Docker invites elderly Windows Server apps to spend remaining days in supervised care

• Docker Enterprise 2.1 Accelerates Application Migration to Containers

  Docker Inc. announced the release of Docker Enterprise 2.1 on Nov. 8, providing new features and services for containers running on both Windows and Linux servers.

  Among the capabilities that Docker is highlighting is the ability to migrate legacy applications, specifically Windows Server 2008, into containers, in an attempt to help with the challenge of end-of-life support issues. The release also provides enterprises with the new Docker Application Convertor, which identifies applications on Windows and Linux systems and then enables organizations to easily convert them into containerized applications. In addition, Docker is boosting security in the new release, with support for FIPS 140-2 (Federal Information Processing Standards) and SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) 2.0 authentication.

  "We've added support for additional versions of Windows Server, and we're the only container platform that actually supports Windows Server today," Banjot Chanana, vice president of product at Docker Inc., told eWEEK. "All in all, this really puts Windows containers at parity with Linux counterparts."

• Why VMware Is Acquiring Heptio and Going All In for Kubernetes

  VMware is the company that did more than perhaps any other to help usher in the era of enterprise server virtualization that has been the cornerstone of the last decade of computing. Now VMware once again is positioning itself to be a leader, this time in the emerging world of Kubernetes-based, cloud-native application infrastructure.

  On Nov. 6, VMware announced that it is acquiring privately held Kubernetes startup Heptio, in a deal that could help further cement VMware's position as a cloud-native leader. Heptio was launched in 2016 by the co-founders of Kubernetes, Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda, in an effort to make Kubernetes more friendly to use for enterprises. Financial terms of the deal have not been publicly disclosed, though Heptio has raised $33.5 million in venture funding.

  VMware's acquisition of Heptio comes a week after IBM announced its massive $34 billion deal for Red Hat. While Heptio is a small startup, the core of what IBM was after in Red Hat is similar to what VMware is seeking with Heptio, namely a leg up in the Kubernetes space to enable the next generation of the cloud.

• The Kubernetes World: VMware Acquires Heptio

  One week ago, a one hundred and seven year old technology company bet its future, at least in part, on an open source project that turned four this past June. It shouldn’t come as a total surprise, therefore, that a twenty year old six hundred pound gorilla of virtualization paid a premium for one of the best regarded collections of talent of that same open source project, the fact that containers are disruptive to classic virtualization notwithstanding.

  But just because it shouldn’t come as a surprise in a rapidly consolidating and Kubernetes obsessed market doesn’t mean the rationale or the implications are immediately obvious. To explore the questions of why VMware paid an undisclosed but reportedly substantial sum for Heptio, then, let’s examine what it means for the market, for Heptio and for VMware in order.