UK-based colocation and managed hosting provider Datacentred has joined the Linux Foundation to advance its core competency in open source technologies. The company has been offering cloud services based on the OpenStack project since 2012.

“Collaboration and open source are at the heart of everything we do at Datacentred. Our Linux Foundation membership and participation at CloudOpen Europe are perfect opportunities for us engage and give back to the broader development community,” said Matt Jarvis, head of Cloud Computing at Datacentred.

“Linux is absolutely essential when building massively scalable distributed infrastructure. Leveraging open source is what sets us apart from our peers, and enables us to able to provide competitive and powerful systems for IT storage and cloud computing.”

Giving back
The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium that promotes and standardizes Linux operating system and other open source technologies, for example Xen hypervisor and OpenDaylight SDN framework. It is financed by donations of its corporate members.

Datacentred specializes in open source technologies like OpenStack, with a focus on clients with large research data sets and high storage requirements. It runs its services from a 32,000 sq ft facility near Manchester.

The company says using open source instead of proprietary solutions has enabled it to offer more affordable and more flexible services.

As a Silver Member, Datacentred will have to donate between US$5,000 and $20,000 to the Linux Foundation annually. The company already sponsors the OpenStack Foundation, which promotes the development, distribution and adoption of the open cloud operating system.

Besides Datacentred, the new crop of foundation members includes Altera, Chelsio Communications, Imagination Technologies and Travelping.

In May, Datacentred raised £4m in venture capital to expand its Manchester site and improve the cloud product portfolio.