OREANDA-NEWS. April 22, 2011. Fujitsu today announced the launch of six support services for building and operating cloud environments that employ open source software (OSS)(1) in Japan.

The new services are aimed at corporations and organizations that are building and operating private cloud environments with OSS, as well as cloud services providers that deploy public cloud services using OSS. By using templates that have been pre-verified to work with both Fujitsu hardware and OSS, these OSS clouds can be efficiently and quickly built in a short period of time as roughly two weeks.

As Fujitsu will also be extending the use of the same templates to its On-Demand Virtual System Service(2), OSS cloud environments can also be built on Fujitsu's On-Demand Virtual System Service public cloud. This will enable customers to use this as back-up for their own systems in times of emergency, or to supplement their own systems during periods of peak demand.
Background

To optimize ICT costs and keep pace with changes in their business operating environments, corporations and organizations are rapidly adopting cloud computing. In accordance with this trend, there is a rising need - particularly among cloud service providers, local governments and universities - to economically construct cloud environments that leverage the low-costs and flexibility of OSS.

In order to address this need, Fujitsu is offering six support services for building and operating cloud environments that employ OSS.

The new support services offer OSS cloud platforms and 18 different OSS cloud templates, in which the OSS has been pre-verified to work with hardware, including Fujitsu PRIMERGY PC servers and ETERNUS storage systems. Three services—(1) OSS cloud platform building service, (2) OSS cloud template building service, and (3) OSS cloud system building service—use these components to build OSS cloud environments. The remaining three services are designed to provide operational support after the cloud deployment: (4) SupportDesk OSS cloud platform operational support service, (5) SupportDesk OSS cloud template operational support services, and (6) SupportDesk OSS cloud system operational support services.

Since 1999, when the company began offering Linux support for its PC servers, Fujitsu has been offering products and services to support the building and operation of systems that use OSS. Fujitsu is now leveraging its experience in building OSS systems to deliver a powerful one-stop suite of services, from deployment to support, to assist customers in building and operating cloud environments that use OSS.
Service Features
1. Use of pre-verified OSS cloud platforms and templates enable OSS cloud environments to be built quickly

The new services provide OSS cloud platforms along with 18 types of OSS cloud templates designed for different purposes, such as email or web platforms. By developing pre-verified templates, in which the hardware compatibility and operability of various OSS combinations has been tested and confirmed, Fujitsu has made it possible to build OSS cloud environments in a short period of time as roughly two weeks. In addition, with the new operational support services, Fujitsu's technical support personnel, who have both OSS and platform expertise, provide one-stop support, enabling worry-free OSS cloud system operations.
2. Rich templates catering to PaaS and SaaS

The 18 different types of templates include PaaS-layer templates for application development and implementation using Java, PHP, and Ruby, as well as middleware such as Apache and Tomcat. This makes it easy to create applications necessary to the user's business. In addition, as there are templates covering the SaaS layer, such as for email and workflow, it is possible to quickly initiate operations without the need to develop applications.
3. Interoperability with Fujitsu On-Demand Virtual System Service

The 18 types of OSS cloud templates are also offered as part of Fujitsu On-Demand Virtual System Service. Offering a uniform environment enables the interoperability of the On-Demand Virtual System Service with cloud systems built and operated using OSS. For example, an identical system built with OSS in a private cloud environment can also be constructed in the On-Demand Virtual System Service public cloud and used by customers as back-up for their own systems in times of emergency, or to supplement their own systems during periods of peak demand.
Glossary and Notes
1
Open Source Software (OSS):
Software for which the source code is publicly disclosed, and can freely be used, copied, revised, and distributed by users.
2
On-Demand Virtual System Service:
A public cloud service delivering bundled virtualized ICT infrastructure, such as servers and storage functionality, over a network from Fujitsu's datacenters, providing resources that can be employed on-demand in accordance with the customer's needs. With a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%, the reliability of the service is assured to be high enough for corporations to use it in their mission-critical systems.