Major IT companies bring in contributors for cloud research project

Monday, September 27, 2010

Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo recently announced four new organizations will join an open source test project for the advancement of cloud computing research.

Open Cirrus is a global, multiple data center open cloud computing research testbed aimed at supporting research into cloud design, provisioning and management. Now with 14 locations worldwide, Open Cirrus is one of the most geographically diverse cloud testing beds available to researchers.

China Mobile Research Institute, the Supercomputing Center of Galicia, China Telecom’s Guangzhou Research Institute and the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems are the latest to join the research effort.

Open Cirrus was created in 2008 to promote open collaboration among industry, educational and government institutions by removing some of the financial and logistical barriers of the cloud. With the expansion of Open Cirrus, researchers hope to access new approaches and skill sets and realize the cloud’s full potential.

Recent IDC research indicated the cloud market would grow to $55 billion in 2014. While cloud computing can significantly reduce costs for software providers and customers, providing research and development professionals access to next-generation cloud resources has posed a real challenge to its advancement.