The term “cloud computing” conjures up different meanings and images to different people. For some, it might mean cloud storage, whether it’s music or documents. For others, it might be processing in the cloud (think Amazon EC2 or RackSpace). For others, it is applications.

However “cloud” is defined, the stakes are big. Mighty forces (i.e. IT vendors large and small) are lined up to deliver the cloud.

If one were to look up to the actual clouds in the sky, you could imagine the various players as Norse gods, ready to do battle. Based on its recent pricing announcement, we might think of VMware as Loki, the evil trickster. As he’s gained power, he threatens his subjects.

Open source is the good guy here, the Thor to VMware’s Loki. The open source KVM hypervisor is gaining strength. The formation of the Open Virtualization Alliance provides a communications medium for the players in the KVM ecosystem to extoll the virtues and capabilities of open source to help win the battle of the cloud. The open source hypervisor Xen, has also been a counterbalance to VMware for several years now. And we would be remiss, of course, if we did not mention that our own ConVirt 2.0 is providing a level of virtualization and cloud management heretofore not possible for Xen and KVM.

Other open source storm clouds are threatening VMware. The recent announcement by Citrix that it acquired open source-based Cloud.com is another potential threat to vendor lock-in.

The truth is that cloud computing is no myth. In its many forms, it is real, it is here and it would be most unfortunate for any single player to dominate the cloud with inflexible and predatory pricing.

May you find your Valhalla in the cloud(s) with open source.

Today we announced our inclusion into the OpenStack initiative, contributing resources and expertise. We look forward to making the project a success by joining forces with many others in the industry.

OpenStack is backed by 75 participating organizations from around the world in an important effort to create freely available code, standards, and a common ground to benefit consumers of cloud computing technology. We are excited to be a part of something so great.

We should note that last month, our company joined the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), which fosters the adoption of KVM as an open virtualization alternative to closed and expensive virtualization products. (Are you listening VMware?)

You see, at Convirture we’re big believers in making open source software available to and benefit all of our users. We expect to have more news to tell you about OpenStack.

Stay tuned.

Take a look at Arsalan’s (our CEO) thoughts on Xen/KVM in today’s Linux Journal.

The fact that Xen is now in the Linux kernel is a cause for celebration. Customers who want to work with a virtualization solution now have a choice of not one, but two, solid virtualization tools for Linux. This proves once and for all that Linux is not only a viable cloud virtualization platform, it is in reality the more desirable platform for use in the cloud.

Yes that’s right! Just tell us how you use ConVirt in your environment by taking our user survey, and we will give one lucky winner a brand spanking new iPad 2 (Wi-Fi 16GB)!

Just head on over to our user survey HERE, and don’t forget to register for the giveaway at the end.

We’ve always relied on the ConVirt Community to tell us where they’d like us to go next, so whatever you tell us in the survey will have an immediate impact on ConVirt’s direction in upcoming releases … so don’t be shy, speak up!

Once again, the survey is located here. Lets hear from you!