Canonical Releases Ubuntu 14.10
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has noted that they have released a new interim version of their popular Ubuntu Linux operating system which is entitled Utopic Unicorn. Also included in the 14.10 release is the latest version of the popular container app Docker. There has been a number of articles about Docker’s meteoric rise to prominence within the cloud computing arena.
Within the 14.10 Utopic Unicorn release of Ubuntu, Canonical has also included OpenStack Juno. Cloud analysts mention that they are impressed by the addition of the latest version of OpenStack, considering Juno was just recently released. Utopic Unicorn also advances unified orchestration. The operating system can provision both bare metal and virtual machines with ease. ARM64 chips are now supported alongside IPv6, which many systems administrators believe is on the verge of going main stream.
Mark Baker from Canonical mentioned, “Until not that long ago, people built applications to run in a particular application server environment that may have been supported only on a limited number of operating systems or database environments. They had a restricted choice of options.” Baker also played up Ubuntu’s Docker implementation by saying, “Containers are extremely popular at the moment.”
One of the biggest features of this new release is called Cloud Foundry. Experts note that Cloud Foundry gives administrators the ability to implement platform services. Anything from frameworks, database services or development services can be used on top of Cloud Foundry. Baker comments, “Platform services are good for managing multiple applications in a uniform and time-saving way.”
In efforts to give systems administrators more flexibility, this interim release allows Metal-as-a-Service provisioning using Microsoft operating systems. You could theoretically use Ubuntu to deliver Windows Server 2012 throughout your organization as it is needed. This new feature will most likely perk the interest of those who have wanted to dabble in OpenStack, however, have worried about cross vendor compatibility though out their private cloud. More information can be found at Canonical.com.
