This means that Eucalyptus is moving beyond simple AWS API compatibility support, into supporting some of the killer applications that run on AWS.  In this case, Eucalyptus will support Chaos Monkey for testing the limits of a cloud deployment under stress, as well as Asgard for automating deployment of large-scale applications, and finally Edda, a dynamic querying tool, for polling AWS resources.

The Eucalyptus path is an interesting one.  Instead of following an open standard, such as OpenStack or CloudStack, they are following a single company that is leading the industry; AWS.  The bet is that enterprises will want and purchase a private cloud version of AWS, and that AWS will foster and promote it’s partners, such as Eucalyptus, for the foreseeable future.

There is, indeed, a market for the Eucalyptus technology.  I suspect that AWS will keep them at arm’s length, but leverage them when it serves their purposes.  Support for native AWS applications is more proof that they are willing to go the extra mile to maintain compatibility, and that goes directly to the value of the technology.