Cloud Foundry

Developed by VMware, Cloud Foundry provides deep and varied products and services as a
platform as a service (as part of Pivotal software, funded by both VMware and EMC). A large
open community of Ruby developers and users support Cloud Foundry, focusing not only on the
codebase but also the hosted services the PaaS provides. Among the services Cloud Foundry
offers for its hosted solution are MySQL DB, VFabric Postgres, MongoDB, Redis, and
RabbitMQ. A fairly straightforward model, Cloud Foundry provides mechanisms for deploying
applications, designing apps for the cloud, pushing apps, using services, migrating databases,
using environment variables and mapping custom domains. Additionally, Cloud Foundry offers
client tools like the cf command line tool, an Eclipse plugin, and a build integration tool. Cloud
Foundry also has application logging, third party log management services integration, Splunk
integration and app manifests. The project considers their key competitors right now AppScale,
Heroku, OpenShift, and Google App Engine.

Cloudify
Primarily focused on automation, Cloudify automates installation, deployment, monitoring,
remediation and auto-scaling of application stacks based on usage. Cloudify uses technology
created by the Oasis Foundation called TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for
Cloud Applications) who state their technology "works to enhance the portability of cloud
applications and services. TOSCA will enable the interoperable description of application and
infrastructure cloud services, the relationships between parts of the service, and the operational
behavior of these services (e.g. deploy, patch, shutdown), independent of the supplier creating
the service, and any particular cloud provider or hosting technology. TOSCA will also make it
possible for higher-level operational behavior to be associated with cloud infrastructure
management." Using TOSCA blueprints, you can specify a "recipe" that becomes your
application stack template. Cloudify supports integration with OpenStack, AWS, CloudStack,
Microsoft Azure and VMware.

OpenShift
OpenShift PaaS is a premier service from Red Hat; the company currently supports a private
cloud version of the software, OpenShift Enterprise. OpenShift allows deployment of binaries
that run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Supported languages include JavaScript, Ruby, Python,
PHP, Perl, Java, Haskell, and .NET. Among the databases OpenShift supports are MySQL,
PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Microsoft SQL Server. Some of the most popular and widely used
web-application frameworks can be found under OpenShift like Rack for Ruby, WSGI for
Python, PSGI for Perl and Node.js for JavaScript. Additional frameworks include Laravel,
CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Ruby on Rails, Django, Perl Dancer, Flask, Sinatra, Tornado, and
Web2py. To stay competitive (namely against AppScale, Heroku, Cloud Foundry, Google App
Engine, Jelastic and ElasticBox), OpenShift offers features for the enterprise like accelerated
application service delivery, minimized vendor lock-in, self-service and on-demand application
stacks, and standardized developer workflows. The PaaS is also a polyglot, supporting a number
of programming languages and frameworks, enterprise apps with Java EE6, built-in database

services as well as multiple environment support (development, testing and production). Other
OpenShift features include dependency and build management, continuous integration and
release management, source code version management, remote SSH login to application
container, IDE integration, remote debugging of applications, rich command-line tool set, a
responsive web console, and much more.

Stackato
ActiveState's Stackato offers the usual faire, including a customizable app store, a web
management console, activity stream and self-service. Other features you'll find in Stackato are
end-to-end development, auto-configuration, centralized cluster administration, dynamic load
balancing & elastic scalability, placement and availability zones, application auto-scaling and
persistent file-system sharing. With an essentially self-service model, ActiveState allows for
deployment in minutes rather than weeks. Being developer-driven, the Stackato team put
together a great development, build and release tool. With a focus on the agile enterprise
audience, time-to-market is a key driver in ActiveState's design model for Stackato. Reporting
features include time to market, downtime, usage, and performance.

WSO2 Stratus
Rated by Gartner as a "visionary," WS02 Stratos touts itself as "the most complete, enterprisegrade cloud solution." It supports more core services than other available PaaS options today and
is a good option for enterprises that seek to "extend the flexibility and innovation achieved from
implementing heterogeneous environments on-premises, into the cloud." Among its features,
WSO2 Stratos offers extensible cartridge architecture (plugin third party run-times such as PHP,
MySQL, and Tomcat, support for Puppet based cartridge creation for WSO2 Carbon products,
provisioning to add multi-tenant or single tenant cartridges), enhanced cloud deployment Support
for multiple IaaS (fully tested on Amazon Web Services EC2, experimental support for
OpenStack and vCloud, capability to support any IaaS via jclouds API, cloud-bursting to scale to
multiple IaaS at the same time; available for private, public and hybrid cloud solutions), as well
as easy SaaS app development (built-in support for multi-tenant and single-tenant models,
support for user identity management, metering and billing). The PaaS also provides data storage
with easy access, caching, and queuing, along with a SaaS app as a multi-tenant application,
allowing each tenant to deploy their own customized logic alongside it. Artifact Distribution
Coordinator (ADC) with support for external Git and GitHub repositories and the ability to
publish application logs into a centralized location for easy monitoring are also included.

Apache CloudStack

Despite rumors to the contrary, Java continues to prove central to many major cloud applications.
At the heart of Apache CloudStack is a host of functions written in Java including user
management, multi-tenancy and account separation, network, compute and storage resource

accounting, web-based management console, native API and Amazon S3/EC2 compatible API,
and primary/secondary storage support. Apache CloudStack works with hosts on
XenServer/XCP, KVM, Hyper-V and VMware. Used to deploy and manage large networks of
virtual systems, Apache CloudStack has been chosen by many providers deploying private,
public, and hybrid cloud solutions to customers. Additional features include high availability, a
scalable infrastructure as a service cloud computing platform, and a significant community of
users and developers who keep the technology and feature improvements moving forward.
Eucalyptus

Though currently only available on CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Eucalyptus is already
getting notice as a complete IaaS solution. Comprised of a Cloud Controller (CLC), Walrus
(persistent data storage), Cluster Controller (CC), Storage Controller (SC), Node Controller
(NC), and an optional VMware Broker (VB), Eucalyptus is a full-featured product. Each
component is a stand-alone web service (excluding VB), with the aim of allowing Eucalyptus to
provide an API for each service (language-agnostic). This Linux-based system allows users to
implement private and hybrid clouds within existing infrastructure with an industry-standard,
modular framework. In particular, Eucalyptus provides a virtual network overlay isolating
various traffic, allowing multiple clusters to be transparent on the same Local Area Network
(LAN) while maintaining data integrity. Additionally, Eucalyptus is API compatable with
Amazons EC2, S3, IAM, ELB, Auto Scaling, and CloudWatch services, ideal for hybrid cloud
implementation options.
OpenNebula

A combination of functional project and research, OpenNebula purports to be the next step in the
evolution of data center virtualization. From a research perspective, the project seeks to develop
advanced and adaptable virtualization data centers and enterprise clouds. Through collaboration
with other open source projects and researchers in cloud computing, OpenNebula hopes to
achieve stability and quality of cloud computing software, as well. The project's core values
include process and technology openness, excellence across all project lifecycles, and innovation
in cloud development. Regarding their actual functional product, key features of this are
currently reported to be an intuitive self-service portal, automated service management catalog,
administration and super user interfaces, appliance marketplace, performance and capacity
management, high availability, business continuity, virtual infrastructure management,
enterprise-level security, third-party tool integration and excellent product support and SLAbased commercial support directly from the developers.
OpenStack

Of all the IaaS offerings, OpenStack is one of only a couple that appear in multiple product areas
of cloud computing architecture. A global project, OpenStack was founded by Rackspace and
NASA, who produced a massively scalable cloud operating system, freely available under the
Apache 2.0 license. OpenStack has no proprietary hardware or software requirements, and is
designed to operate within both fully virtual and bare metal systems. Multiple hypervisors are

supported, including KVM and XenServer, as well as container technology, including LXC.
OpenStack is used anywhere from service providers deploying IaaS to its customers, to
enterprise IT departments providing private cloud services to project teams and departments.
OpenStack works with Hadoop for big data needs, scales vertically and horizontally to meet
diverse computing needs, and offers high-performance computing (HPC) for intensive
workloads. Key features include VM image caching, role based access control, VM image
management, LAN management, VNC proxy via web browser, floating IP addresses, and much
more. See: OpenStack For Private & Hybrid Clouds: Costs, Benefits & Risks