HP has announced it will run its upcoming public cloud offerings on the Ubuntu operating system (OS).
The open source OS from Canonical will be the "lead host and guest operating system" for HP's recently announced public cloud services HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage which are still being trialled as private betas.
The two firms said they had been working closely together throughout the development, with the aim of making "the most secure, scalable, business-class cloud [for] companies of all sizes."
Although Ubuntu is seen as the natural choice for OpenStack-based clouds, like the HP Public Cloud, Canonical still saw the deal as a big win and massive corporate endorsement.
"Ubuntu is the reference OS for OpenStack but like in any other open source project we need to earn our keep on a daily basis and having HP select us is a great endorsement of Ubuntu as a Cloud OS," read the company's blog.
"If Ubuntu can power one of the world's largest public clouds for one of the biggest names in technology what can we do for you?"
Although blogs have already appeared confirming the partnership, the deal was set to be officially announced at the OpenStack conference in Boston.
The big news from the show last week was Rackspace was donating the IP for OpenStack to the wider community and the fact it would be forming a not-for-profit foundation to take over the management.
There is still no firm date for the launch of HP's public cloud services.
