The CloudStack community recently launched a CloudStack user adoption survey. As many of you will know, CloudStack is great, production grade, software in widespread use in both service providers and enterprises. However, one thing we haven’t done well to date is communicating this to the outside world. CloudStack is “the best kept secret in the Cloud”.
A lot of work has started to happen recently in changing this perception issue. In short, at long last we have some basic marketing activity happening. One of the key elements to this activity is being able to support our claims of “widespread adoption” with cold, hard facts.
I recently published a list of known Cloudstack users and I’m pleased to see that the project has now published a similar list. But we know that there are companies out there who are benefiting from CloudStack who’s names haven’t made the list. Personally, I don’t feel its much to ask: you benefit from great software, you just share your feedback about it.
Of course, there’s no obligation to complete this survey: the mission of the Apache Software Foundation is to give away software “for the greater good”. However, getting the message out there about user adoption is a critical step in ensuring that this great software continues to be relevant for future users.
Add to that, that its also your chance to give feedback straight into the developer community. What you like about CloudStack, what you don’t like. In a meritocratic open source community its hard to say that your feedback will “help form the roadmap” , but unless you tell us what you like and don’t like about the software,we have no way of helping you.
So, if you’re using Cloudstack in your organisation, please take the survey
Giles is CEO and founder of ShapeBlue and is responsible for overall company strategy, strategic relationships, finance and sales.
He is also a committer and PMC member of the Apache CloudStack project, and Chairman of the European Cloudstack User Group, actively helping promote brand awareness of the technology.
