OpSource and the Virtual Computer Environment (VCE) Company announced an alliance today which will offer joint solutions aimed at helping service providers (xSPs) launch public cloud services more quickly. This joint initiative is the latest effort by various vendors to enable  xSPs to fulfill their promise as potent ‘cloud brokers’.

VCE is a joint venture formed by Cisco and EMC, with additional investments from VMware and Intel, to create a new generation of networking, storage, virtualization and management technologies to improve xSP infrastructure operations. VCE’s primary product is the Vblock™ Infrastructure Platform for virtualization, data processing, networking and storage capabilities in cloud computing environments.

In this new alliance, OpSource is adding its cloud orchestration software capabilities to VCE’s Vblock Platform to enable xSPs to handle the user sign-up, provisioning, metering, billing, and reporting requirements associated with cloud services. Together, OpSource and VCE’s combined solution promises to eliminate needless development costs, accelerate the service providers’ time to market and reduce their ongoing cost of operations.

OpSource and VCE are not the first to market with a cloud orchstration solution. BMC, HP and Parallels have also announced cloud orchestration solutions for service providers, among others. However, VCE is backed by powerful xSP vendors and OpSource adds a competitive edge based on its extensive hands-on experience delivering cloud services.

I’ve worked with nearly all of the major xSPs who are trying to win a share of the rapidly evolving cloud marketplace. They are all in a hurry to rollout cloud services, but plagued by their traditional corporate cultures, legacy infrastructures and byzantine business processes. So, none of these cloud orchestration solutions can be expected to win a lot of xSP contracts short-term. It will be a long sales process.

Beyond the obvious opportunities and challenges associated with selling these cloud orchestration solutions to xSPs, what fascinates me even more is how this alliance moves OpSource into a different position in the market.

In fact, when I was briefed by OpSource execs about this announcement, the first word that came out of my mouth was “Opsware”. For anyone who is not familar with Opsware, it was a hosting services software orchestration vendor acquired by HP after it was spun out of LoudCloud which was a hosting services company acquired by EDS a decade ago.  

Silverback Technologies went through a similar evolution in the managed services realm, shifting its business from selling services to offering a software platform to other MSPs which was eventually sold to Dell.

Now, OpSource appears to be moving down the same software path offering its ‘platform’ solution to other xSPs.

Cisco Systems Dell EMC Intel LoudCloud OpSource Opsware SilverBack Technologies VCE VMware