Intel Discontinues Its Own Lustre Distribution and Shifts Development to the Open‑Source Community

Combining the earlier dissolution of the OpenStack research team and the cancellation of the Intel Developer Forum, we seem to have identified a pattern. This article is excerpted from ZD至顶网.

Intel chooses this headline to announce the Lustre cancellation

Intel has decided to stop offering its own version of the Lustre file system—a system designed for high‑performance‑computing scenarios that efficiently manages massive data‑storage collections across large Linux clusters.

Trish Damkroger, General Manager and Vice President of Intel’s Technical Computing Project (the high‑performance‑computing division), sent an email this week to partners and customers explaining the decision.

From today Intel will contribute all Lustre functionality and enhancements to the open‑source community, meaning we will no longer provide an Intel‑branded Lustre version but will instead integrate our work and support into the community distribution.

The email also states that these changes aim to increase Intel’s participation in the open‑source community and accelerate Lustre’s technical innovation, allowing participants to more easily obtain the latest stable Lustre releases and benefit from a faster roadmap.

Damkroger added that Intel will continue to invest heavily in the community version of Lustre, expecting it to deliver the same high‑quality results as the Intel‑branded version, and that the community‑maintained version will be treated as a Long‑Term‑Support (LTS) release.

The LTS version will be Lustre 2.10, planned for release in May 2017. Intel‑branded Lustre users will receive assistance to upgrade to 2.10, and Intel will retain its Lustre support services.

Intel has also launched projects on GitHub such as the Hadoop Adapter for Lustre and the HPC Adapter for MapReduce/YARN (HAM), and Damkroger promises more code contributions in the future.

So, is all of this important?

Lustre users may not care much; the community version is evolving rapidly and will continue to benefit from Intel’s strong investment. The chip giant has reasons to stay involved to keep high‑performance‑computing customers loyal to the Xeon processor family rather than being drawn to low‑power ARM chips. Moreover, the HPC community has sufficient expertise in deep file‑system internals to integrate Intel’s ongoing code contributions. Although the file system’s commercial prospects have dimmed, it still retains considerable vitality.

Nevertheless, as an important symbol this decision means Intel has made a major move: it abandoned the OpenStack partnership, cancelled its own developer forum, and halted its proprietary Lustre distribution—a spring‑cleaning‑like overhaul that, together with recent AI‑related streamlining, suggests a significant shift in Intel’s operational strategy.

Warm tip: please search “ICT_Architect” or scan the QR code below to follow the public account for more great content.

When re‑posting this article, please credit the author, source, QR code, and full information.