SwiftStack and HGST Launch First Public Test Cluster for the OpenStack Community

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - May 13, 2014) - Today, SwiftStack and HGST announce they have joined forces to build a public test cluster based on Intel technologies for the OpenStack Community to test and validate the OpenStack Object Storage project known as Swift. This will be the first public, fully accessible and automated testing ground for Swift deployments, made newly available for the OpenStack community.

The cluster will be built, managed and hosted by SwiftStack, the leader in object-based private cloud storage, and tested on hardware provided by cloud-computing leaders Intel and HGST. By testing on real machines and hardware readily available to the public instead of virtualized clusters, this cluster will provide the OpenStack community with a real-world platform, enabling better QA, reliability and quality control over code and releases in building storage systems for users.

"This is the first time the OpenStack community will have a real-world public testing ground for development and innovation," said John Dickinson, Director of Technology at SwiftStack and OpenStack Swift Project Technical Lead. "The purpose of the OpenStack Object Storage test cluster is to provide the community with improved test coverage against a physical cluster and to demonstrate Swift's capabilities on modern storage hardware. Thanks to the strong collaboration with Intel and HGST, we're able to make this a reality."

Components of the cluster include:

• Intel® Atom™ Processor C2750 (4M Cache, 2.40 GHz)
• HGST's 6TB Ultrastar® He6 helium-filled HDDs
• Running Ubuntu and Red Hat operating systems

"By working with SwiftStack and HGST to provide this new capability to the OpenStack Swift community, developers will be able to test on standard, broadly available Intel®-based storage servers," said Bev Crair, General Manager of Intel's Storage Division. "The continuous integration testing of Swift on real hardware will help accelerate the time-to-market of new features and capabilities that will enable the community to innovate faster."

"We're excited to be working with the OpenStack community to create a distributed Swift cluster on which developers can run real tests," said Brendan Collins, vice president of Product Marketing at HGST. "OpenStack Object Storage is the engine that runs some of the world's largest storage clouds, and the 6TB HGST Ultrastar He6 Helium-filled drives enable the highest density and most efficient storage nodes possible, so it is a natural fit for an OpenStack Swift cluster."