Laurent Lachal, Senior Analyst, Software – IT Solutions

In February 2013, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched the beta version of AWS OpsWorks, a configuration and deployment service for AWS public cloud-based applications and their related resources. While AWS usually creates its services from scratch, OpsWorks is based on third-party technology, namely the open source Chef-based SaaS offering, Scalarium, developed by Peritor, a small Germany-based IT service provider that AWS acquired in 2012.

OpsWorks reflects the increasingly important role of cloud computing-driven infrastructure-as-code/DevOps practices. It is a good, albeit rather limited to date, step forward that will help some AWS customers and partners to remain in control of their AWS public cloud-based solutions.

On the other hand, it is not nearly as threatening to some of AWS’s partners that many claim. In a recent report entitled Amazon Web Services’ OpsWorks: Boosting Cloud Automation, Ovum provides a detailed analysis of its …