Ubuntu's Shuttleworth bets on Inktank for cloud storage services

Cloud storage services startup Inktank today announced that Mark Shuttleworth, the entrepeneur behind Ubuntu Linux and the first African in space, has invested a million dollars in the company. Inktank provides support and services to enterprises who want to deploy the Ceph open source distributed file system, which is designed to run spread out across multiple servers—like the arms of a cephalopod.

For companies looking to establish data warehouses or get into the business of large-scale data analytics, part of the barrier to entry is getting a storage system which can grow massive while remaining responsive at scale. It's relatively easy to store a terabyte or two of data on a single hard disk drive, but it's much more complex to store dozens or hundreds (or even thousands) of terabytes distributed between many different servers, with each server understanding its place in the whole, and with the entire cluster behaving as a unified file system. There are several large open source distributed file systems which fit the bill, including the popular GlusterFS, but Ceph is notable for already being integrated into Ubuntu 12.04 LTS as well as for its use in OpenStack, the service behind Ubuntu's private cloud offering.

Shuttleworth's investment in Inktank, whose services help companies set up their own Ceph-based storage clouds, is a strong vote of confidence by a notable industry mogul. "The distinctive architecture of Ceph gives it natural advantages over both proprietary and open source competitors," said Shuttleworth in Inktank's statement. "I'm also delighted to support the team behind Ceph in their goal of building a commercial success story around this tremendous technology, as an investor in Inktank."

Though the investment isn't an enormous one as such things go, Shuttleworth clearly has his eye on the technology. "Today Ceph is in the Linux kernel and Ubuntu," he said, following that with, "soon it will be everywhere."

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