QTS Realty Trust has announced availability of a private, fully managed OpenStack cloud solution available from any of QTS’ geographically diverse and highly secure data centers.

Built on Ubuntu OpenStack the world’s most popular OpenStack distribution, and using Canonical’s application modeling service Juju, as well as Canonical’s Bare Metal as a Service (MaaS), QTS’ private, fully managed OpenStack cloud enables enterprise customers to perform quick and easy provisioning, orchestration, and management of cloud resources. Examples include: 

  • Building software-as-a-service applications, either as new developments or as improvements upon existing solutions.

  • Serving as a base for delivering self-service storage and service on demand to users who need IT services.

  • Delivering object storage or block storage on demand.

  • Saving on licensing fees associated with virtualization technologies.

According to a 2016 report by Moor Insights & Strategy, OpenStack interest and adoption by end users has increased significantly over the last six years. The OpenStack User Survey April 2016 reveals top priorities contributing to adoption are cost savings, operational efficiency, increased agility/innovation and avoiding vendor lock-in.

QTS announced its OpenStack solution and partnership with Canonical in August. Since then the company has finalized beta testing customers, including Equinox, a leader in providing open source software solutions to libraries around the world.

"We have had a long and productive relationship with QTS as our trusted data center provider and appreciate their responsiveness and innovation," said Galen Charlton, infrastructure manager at Equinox Software. "We are pleased that QTS continues to expand its managed and cloud offerings, and are excited to have had the opportunity to test OpenStack Cloud as part of our evolving hybrid cloud strategy for our Sequoia platform.”

The new OpenStack solution is the latest addition to QTS’ expanding portfolio of scalable, secure and compliant Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions and complements QTS’ purpose-built clouds serving public sector, healthcare and enterprise workloads.

“OpenStack is now a proven cloud platform for increasing agility and reducing costs for large and midsize enterprises,” said Jon Greaves, Chief Technology Officer, QTS. “We are pleased to now deliver a fully managed OpenStack Cloud service backed by industry leading support and a commitment to serve as a highly valued extension of our customers’ IT team.”