Apache Deltacloud hits 1.0 – complete with Amazon EC2 integration

Apache’s cloudy REST API hub emerges out of the incubator with a snazzy Amazon EC2 frontend
The Apache Software Foundation have announced that their
cloud REST API project Apache Deltacloud has reached its first
generally available release.
The Top Level Project entered the Apache Incubator
back in February,
automatically becoming the centrepiece of open
source foundation’s cloud moves this year. Devised and developed at
Red Hat before donation to the ASF, Deltacloud bundles several
cloud interacting Web Service APIs under one roof.
In addition to this, the project provides a number of
implementations for the most popular clouds, such as
Amazon, Eucalyptus, GoGrid, IBM, Microsoft, OpenStack and
Rackspace. Multilingual client libraries are thrown
into the package as well.
There’s three different API frontends in Deltacloud: the
Classic API which formed the basis of the project itself, the Cloud
Infrastructure Management Interface, and
arguably the most important move yet – a frontend used by Amazon
EC2.
Familiarity could be the key to Deltacloud’s success and
obtaining a frontend used by the dominant AWS effectively gives the
project a gold standard. Its flexible approach to cloud services is
also incredibly appealing – you can mix and match cloud
infrastructures with these APIs, for example merging VMware’s
vSphere with the EC2 API. Having no vendor lock-in might just break
the cloud walls down.
David Lutterkort, Vice President of Apache Deltacloud, was
proud of what had been achieved in a short time for Deltacloud at
the ASF, saying:
The release of version 1.0 is a logical step in the evolution of the project. The native Deltacloud API has reached a level of maturity that makes calling this release 1.0 very appropriate.
The EC2 frontend really just started as a ‘let’s see how hard this can be’ prototype – we found that it was actually quite easy to add that additional API to Deltacloud. The Deltacloud codebase is very well suited to translating between cloud API’s, making it possible for clients using one API to talk to clouds offering a completely different one.
Now it’s out in the open, it’ll be interesting to see where Deltacloud heads next with their cloudy REST API. It’s a great day for the Deltacloud team, and should see developers in their droves flock to the project, in hope of abstracting cloud differences. If you’re intrigued, check out the Deltacloud website for more information, (and be sure to check out the driver compatibility page too).