Rapid Ubuntu image deployment – getting up and running in record time

The Ubuntu Certified Public Cloud (CPC) programme is about providing the best possible user and developer experience on Ubuntu through our public cloud partners.  Canonical continually maintains, tests and updates the Ubuntu images that are quickly made available in locally maintained mirror repositories. This mechanism is particularly handy on the back of the news coming from Amazon Web Services.

Amazon Web Services announced yesterday that it has launched a new data centre in Frankfurt, Germany (Amazon zones EU central 1 and b) to deliver a more responsive cloud computing service to its European customers. This is AWS’s second European data centre, after Ireland. This move is of particular significance for customers in Germany who are keen to ensure their data kept securely within the country, per its strict data privacy laws.

Ubuntu is the cloud guest OS of choice, with over 70% share of instances on leading public clouds. Therefore, we are proud to announce that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is among the first guest OS options available at launch for the new AWS zone. This is something we are able to do thanks to our close collaboration with the AWS team, and using our home-grown technologies such as Cloud-Init and SimpleStreams.

Another example where Canonical’s unique CPC programme delivered real value for Ubuntu users is the recent Bash (Shellshock) vulnerability. Automatic updates were pushed to our partners’ mirrors, ensuring that fresh and secure images were live and running within minutes of patch availability, and that existing images were patched easily and seamlessly.

Addressing the full scope of the Bash vulnerability has been an iterative process. The security team has worked with the upstream bash community to address multiple aspects of the issue. The Cloud Image team has published daily updates to our partners to make these new builds available as soon as possible.

Whether it’s launching a new availability zone, pushing out a new version such as Ubuntu 14.10, or dealing with security vulnerabilities, the Ubuntu Certified Public Cloud programme is proving vital for ensuring an optimal user experience through our partners.