Canonical thrusts Ubuntu towards the cloud

Ubuntu developer Canonical is making a push to establish itself as a force in the Linux server and cloud computing markets.

The company, which has long been known as a champion for the expansion of Linux into the consumer and developer markets, said that Ubuntu will also play a part in the next generation of cloud computing platforms.

Speaking in a keynote address at the 2012 LinuxCon North America convention in San Diego, Canonical vice president of cloud Kyle MacDonald told attendees that the company sees itself performing particularly well in the scale-out server market.

He noted that social networking firms such as Instagram have favoured Ubuntu builds for their services. Canonical has also developed a number of developer tools aimed at helping to enable cloud computing platforms.

"We are actually spread across a number of different parts of the cloud," MacDonald said.

"We have learned a lot of lessons about how you build things at a cloud scale."

The company is also touting a series of partnerships with vendors aimed at furthering Ubuntu and OpenStack's place in the server market. While MacDonald said that Canonical would not be looking to compete with established vendors in markets such as high-availability servers, the company is looking to offer bundled systems for the scale-out market.

The Canonical cloud boss said that the hardware partners include HP and RackSpace, while Dell has worked with the company to develop a pre-configured system designed for OpenStack.

"The message I want you to get is that lots of people are turning to Ubuntu," MacDonald told convention-goers.

"I want you to hear about the people that are putting serious bets behind OpenStack."