Walmart is making its OneOps platform for management of clouds and application lifecycles available to the open source community, sharing the tools it has developed for managing multiple clouds, moving from cloud to cloud and using common tools across clouds.

Initially, the open source OneOps platform will be able to deploy apps on CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) Cloud, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) Azure and Rackspace , as well as any cloud with an OpenStack endpoint.

The OneOps code is now available on GitHub, according to the announcement made in a blog authored by two Walmart execs. The announcement outlines the digital transformation the company has undergone to serve its retail customers. Walmart has long been known for its efforts to use digital technology to streamline and make its retail operation more efficient and cost effective.

The OneOps platform is the basis of the retail giant's technology efforts, including its website and its online grocery, and is used to deliver services "faster and at a lower cost in the cloud," say Jeremy King, CTO of Walmart Global eCommerce and head of @WalmartLabs, and Tim Kimmet, VP of Platform and Systems, @WalmartLabs.

Walmart now hopes to reap the benefits of improvements from the open source community, the blog states.

Other companies are trying to make a similar transition, the two note, and want to figure out how to move to the cloud to reduce the time and money spent on IT. By releasing OneOps to open source, Walmart intends to make that effort easier, they say.

See the latest happenings as telecom business services migrate to the cloud in our cloud services section here on Light Reading.

OneOps offers continuous lifecycle management of cloud-based applications and cloud portability allowing users to move things from one cloud provider to another for better prices or performance. It also offers models on which software engineers can spin up new virtual machines and the ability to leverage the greater control that Walmart has developed using OneOps tools to control interactions with cloud providers.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading