Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Ex-NASA OpenStack pioneer Nebula sucked into black hole

Cloudy firm goes poof, citing 'immature market'

Nebula, one of the earliest OpenStack-based cloud computing startups, has closed its doors, effective immediately.

"We are incredibly proud of the role we had in establishing Nebula as the leading enterprise cloud computing platform," the company wrote in a notice on its homepage on Wednesday. "At the same time, we are deeply disappointed that the market will likely take another several years to mature. As a venture backed start up, we did not have the resources to wait."

Nebula was founded in 2011 by a team led by former NASA CTO Chris Kemp, who was instrumental in building components of what later became OpenStack while at the space agency's Ames Research Center.

Specifically, Ames gave the OpenStack project Nova, the compute engine and fabric controller that underpinned its own infrastructure cloud – which not coincidentally was also called Nebula.

A number of key Nebula and OpenStack contributors joined Kemp in creating Nebula the company, which was based in Palo Alto, California. Sun Microsystems cofounder and serial entrepreneur Andy Bechtolsheim provided the seed funding, and the firm soon had additional investment from the likes of Kleiner Perkins and Highland Capital Partners.

From those promising beginnings, however, cloud computing has since grown into one of the most buzzed-about trends in the market. With myriad companies all now vying for a piece of the OpenStack market – ranging from startups like Mirantis to established tech titans like HP, IBM, and Red Hat –  Nebula was increasingly feeling the squeeze.

Not that the company's shutdown means Nebula customers' private clouds will grind to a halt. "Nebula private clouds deployed at customer sites will continue to operate normally, however support will no longer be available," the firm's statement said.

It noted, further, that Nebula's offering was based on the same open source OpenStack technology used by various of its competitors. Some of those will no doubt be more than willing to take up former Nebula customers' support burdens in the company's absence. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like