April 15th, 2008
openQRM goes solo after Qlusters dumps open source strategy
openQRM is looking for a new sponsor following its separation from Qlusters earlier this month.
On April 9, on the release of openQRM 3.5, Qlusters announced it decided to donate the open source data center management provisioning and monitoring project to the community on SourceForge. The project, which will continue to be led by active project lead Matt Rechenberg, is alive and well and looking for support, Rechenberg maintains.
“My plan is to continue openQRM as a full community-driven, open-source project,” Rechenberg wrote in an email to ZDNet.
When asked if there are any vendors vying for control of the project, Rechenberg offered no direct comment but hinted that help is needed. “I am happy that it is now the time for the community to drive the openQRM project. We, the openQRM-Team, will focus on keeping the project open and free. Of course, this does not mean that we are not looking for new sponsors of the openQRM project.”
It is not clear why Qlusters tossed the project, which was founded in January of 2006. openQRM is a very promising technology that provisions software on both physical servers and virtual machines.
Following the announcement on April 9, the 451 group issued a report about the departure and speculated that Qlusters corporate could be in trouble. Qlusters, GroundWork, Hyperic and Zenoss were designated by the research firm last year as the ”Big 4″ open source systems management companies.
Qlusters, which received $10 million in funding last July, would not provide its reasoning for getting out of the open source business but said the company is not shutting doors.
”The speculation that something happened to Qlusters is absolutly false. Qlusters has not folded and has no intention to do so,” said Amit Ashman, Vice President of Products at Qlusters, in an e-amil response. “We indeed decided not to continue our activities in the open source arena, but as you know, the open source activity around openQRM was not the only thing Qlusters did.”
“I cannot disclose at this time what new initiatives we are working on, but I can say that we continue to build on our unique expertise and experience and we intend to continue to be a leading provider of advanced solutions to the modern dynamic data center,” Ashman added.
One open source consultant said Qlusters may have been too ahead of its time.
“As far as OSS provisioning, it’s still a really immature market. To a certain extent, Qlusters was early and ran out of steam,” said Chris Maresca, a founding partner of Olliance Group, Palo Alto, Calif. “I know Levanta just tanked as well, which makes one wonder.”
Paula Rooney is a Boston-based writer who has followed the tech industry for almost two decades. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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