Canonical offers free Ubuntu cloud computing system

Canonical, the commercial sponsor of the Ubuntu open source project, yesterday released its new professional services that will let enterprises build private clouds behind their firewalls.

The open source Linux-based Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) allows businesses to build their own clouds, and is free to use.

According to Canonical, private cloud computing presents tangible business advantages, such as optimised server usage and increased data efficiency, which lowers IT costs.

“Enterprises are realising that building 'private clouds' enables them to better manage variable workloads, while reducing the waste of idle servers,” said Mark Shuttleworth, chief executive of Canonical, in a statement.

He added: “Building on open-source technology also avoids the issue of vendor lock-in.”

Woody Rollins, chief executive of Eucalyptus, the product UEC is based on, said: “While the IT industry talks of future strategies and releases vapourware, UEC today allows businesses to deploy and now support a 'private cloud' on open source technologies from a renowned Linux provider.”

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