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The age of the OpenStack hybrid cloud has arrived, and traditional datacenter virtualization is passé. So says Red Hat (RHT), which on Wednesday rolled out Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure to drive hybrid deployments

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11), one of the leading open source Linux operating systems for the enterprise, reached a major new milestone July 8 with the introduction of Service Pack 3 (SP3). From virtualization to next-generation storage to clustering, the update offers customers an array of new features and make SUSE, the Attachmate subsidiary that develops the OS, a strong contender in the enterprise server market.

NoSQL databases are a driving force in the evolution of Big Data. That could have important implications for Oracle (ORCL), as we wrote last week. At the same time, it's an impetus for integration across the channel, as Talend and Neo Technology highlighted this week with a partnership designed to encourage enterprise adoption of open source graph NoSQL databases.

Is Hadoop secure, fast and reliable enough to meet the production Big Data needs of enterprises around the world? Some vendors, such as RainStor, seem to think Hadoop may still be a little immature. But MapR made its alternate viewpoint clear this week at the Hadoop Summit in San Jose, where it announced significant performance benchmarks for its Hadoop distribution and flouted its widespread adoption by big-name companies around the world.

Gartner predicts Microsoft (MSFT) Windows will have only 15 percent market share in 2014. How can that be? The Gartner estimate extends beyond PCs to include tablets and smartphones -- where Apple iOS and Google Android remain in growth mode. Here are the estimates and the implications for channel partners.

Can Ubuntu smartphones and mobile devices connect with mobile carriers and telecom companies? Eager for a positive answer, Canonical has launched the Carrier Advisory Group (CAG) -- which aims to shape Ubuntu for the mobile industry. The move comes a few weeks after Ubuntu Founder Mark Shuttleworth told The VAR Guy that the world needs a Google Android alternative.

Red Hat OpenStack was mentioned 32 times during the Linux company's Q1 2014 earnings call earlier this week. The open source cloud platform is receiving tons of hype. But here's the reality check: Red Hat (RHT) concedes OpenStack will NOT drive any material revenues, billings or bookings for the next 12 months. Does that mean customers can ignore OpenStack for now? Not necessarily. Here's why.

The public cloud's heyday has passed, and enterprises should focus on hybrid cloud investment. So say executives at Rackspace (RAX), the OpenStack-powered cloud hosting vendor. And if deals like the one Rackspace just announced with Fidelity Investments to build an OpenStack cloud is any indication, Rackspace's vision is on the mark. Here's the scoop.

Is the NoSQL database trend a threat to Oracle (ORCL)? This is a big week for the company, which announced somewhat disappointing Q4 new software licenses yesterday. While cloud computing and hardware sales are Oracle's big challenges, you can't overlook the open source database wars as well. Indeed, Oracle and MySQL faces challenges from smaller NoSQL vendors.

Cumulus Linux, which bills itself as "the first true, full-featured Linux operating system for datacenter networking," has emerged from stealth mode. Backed by several VMware (VMW) veterans, Cumulus sounds like a next-generation software-defined networking (SDN) player. And the company has $15 million in venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures and others.

How important is Mark Shuttleworth's to Canonical, Ubuntu, Linux and open source? Officially, Shuttleworth's role at the company behind Ubuntu, which he founded in 2004, has been limited to product strategy and design since he stepped down as CEO in December 2009. Still, his presence looms much larger in the Ubuntu community.

When Red Hat (RHT) announces Q1 2014 earnings on July 19, customers will gain a reality check. Is Red Hat successfully pushing beyond Linux to monetize virtualization, storage and cloud services? And if so, are channel partners profiting from those moves?

It's easier than ever to store and analyze Big Data, but that doesn't mean it's always clean and accurate. That's why data quality is a growing part of the Big Data world. And the channel is acting to meet the demand, as a partnership announced this week between open source Big Data vendor Talend and Loqate, which provides address verification services, highlights.

The French revolutionary Georges Danton famously said, "After bread, education is the people's first need." And while the French Revolution and the channel may not have much in common, there are few places in which this populist message resonates better than the open source ecosystem, where providing development and other skills to volunteer contributors is vital to long-term success—which is exactly what the Linux Foundation is doing starting this week with its 2013 Linux Training Scholarship Program.

Has OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform, come into its own? Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux—which happens to be the most popular OS for OpenStack deployments—is saying so this week as it touts the rapid maturity of the software. Now, the question becomes: Does the channel agree?

It's been a big week for solid-state device (SSD) storage and the channel. Earlier this week, Intel (INTC) unveiled a new line of SSD hardware for the cloud and Big Data. Then, a day later, SolidFire, which provides SSD storage infrastructure for cloud hosts, announced a partnership with Red Hat (RHT) that will integrate the company into Red Hat's OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network. Here are the details on this latest news.

The battle to decide which database technology will define the future of Big Data continues to rage, but the NoSQL camp scored a victory today with the announcement of a new partnership between Talend and Couchbase. The agreement will connect Talend's open source Big Data platforms to the enterprise NoSQL software developed by Couchbase.

Red Hat (RHT) has teamed with CommVault (CVLT), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Intel (INTC) and Supermicro to develop reference architectures for data backup, content clouds, Big Data storage and other industry-specific storage solutions intended to handle large amounts of unstructured data.

BeyondTrust recently combined its "context-aware" approach to vulnerability assessment with user-privilege management on Windows. Now, it has taken another step in the same direction with new software that delivers similar features for systems reporting, analytics and password security on Linux and Unix servers.

Securing Big Data is complex, and few enterprises are doing it correctly. That was the central message of a recent chat with Brian Christian, CTO of Zettaset, which sells a Hadoop orchestration platform. But Christian offered more than criticism of Big Data security practices. He also explained how his company aims to address the issues, and why security for the open source Hadoop cluster infrastructure could become a new driving force in the channel.