Open in the Cloud - Microsoft at OW2Con 2012

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Posted by Frédéric Aatz
Director of Interoperability, Microsoft France

This was our second year at OW2Con in Paris, which is hosted by OW2, the open source community for infrastructure software. This was a great opportunity for us to get feedback from open source communities on the openness of our technologies and continue moving forward on interoperability efforts, especially those supporting customers transitioning to the cloud.


 
“OW2 fosters the development of open source high-level components for open cloud architectures independent of underlying IaaS infrastructures,” said Cédric Thomas, CEO of OW2 Consortium. “The Windows Azure platform is part of all our interoperability scenarios and we are pleased with our cooperation with Microsoft in this endeavor.”

We’re proud to be working with OW2 and ActiveEon, the company behind the open source middleware ProActive Parallel Suite® , through the Microsoft BizSpark program. "Cloud evolution is all about heterogeneity and flexibility,” said Denis Caromel, Founder and CEO of ActiveEon. “Alongside GDF-SUEZ, we are deploying a test version of a hybrid cloud infrastructure, achieving strong interoperability with the OW2 ProActive Parallel Suite®. Our collaboration with Microsoft will help us build a more open cloud with Windows Azure.”

UShareSoft also underscored Windows Azure interoperability at OW2Con with their announcement that customers will soon be able to onboard their cloud software images, both custom and final images from UShareSoft's app store, directly to Windows Azure.

"We were very pleased to announce that UShareSoft’s UForge platform will support Windows Azure IaaS,” said Alban Richard, UShareSoft’s CEO. “Combined with UForge, the Windows Azure platform offers an end-to-end, open and interoperable solution for managing cloud software.”

With UForge, cloud providers, enterprises and ISVs can build their own dynamic app store and migrate applications to cloud. Users, partners, and customers can quickly assemble, share and customize cloud server templates, then deliver customized software stacks to public, private or hybrid clouds. UForge platform support for Windows Azure will be available to customers in the first quarter of 2013.

Check out the OW2Con 2012 site for pictures and presentation videos from the event, including my keynote with Alfonso Castro of Microsoft’s Open Solutions Group during the “Open Source Cloud” session. For more on interoperability and open source efforts in France, please see the Openness France website.