About CIQ
CIQ was founded on April 1st, 2020 to create the next generation of high performance computing (HPC-2.0). When CentOS was discontinued, CIQ funded and played a key role in establishing the successor, Rocky Linux, to ensure continuity from CentOS.
At CIQ, our mission is to provide secure, reliable, and open infrastructure solutions that empower businesses and individuals to do the impossible! This started with our CEO and founder, Gregory Kurtzer, the driving force behind many of our innovative products. Greg’s commitment to open-source principles and community driven development has been instrumental in shaping the direction of CIQ. Today, CIQ is known worldwide as the founding support and services partner of Rocky Linux and the creator of the next generation federated computing stack.
But first, let’s rewind the clock a bit. Greg created, founded, and built several large open source projects and communities in the open source realm, with install counts in the millions of users. One of Greg's earliest and most influential projects was Warewulf, which he founded back in 2001. Warewulf has played a pivotal role in advancing computational and high-performance computing (HPC) research from its very beginnings.
Shortly thereafter, Greg embarked on the journey of creating cAos Linux, a precursor to CentOS, which ultimately emerged in 2004. CentOS quickly gained recognition as a reliable, secure, and cost-effective alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It found widespread adoption across various sectors, particularly in high-performance computing (HPC) and web hosting.
However, the landscape underwent a significant transformation when Red Hat announced the discontinuation of CentOS in late 2020. Instead, they shifted their focus towards a different rolling-release model known as CentOS Stream. This shift marked a significant change in the CentOS ecosystem, impacting its users and the wider open-source community.
This move stirred concerns about the future of Enterprise Linux, so Greg took action. It all started with a blog comment…
CIQ is Founded
CIQ was founded on April 1st, 2020 to create the next generation of high performance computing (HPC-2.0) and is headquartered in Reno, Nevada. When CentOS was discontinued, CIQ funded and played a key role in establishing the successor, Rocky Linux, to ensure continuity from CentOS. On December 8, 2020, Greg declared on the CentOS website his intention to launch a new project that aligns with CentOS's original objectives. Greg’s passion for open source solutions and dedication to the community led him to create Rocky Linux, ensuring a free, supported, robust, and reliable drop-in replacement for CentOS for users worldwide that's 100% binary compatible with RHEL. The project was named "Rocky Linux'' in honor of an early CentOS co-founder, Rocky McGaugh. By December 12, Rocky Linux's code repository had risen to become the top-trending repository on GitHub.
The Rise of Rocky
Widely popular as a free and open source enterprise Linux distribution, Rocky Linux has earned its reputation as the trusted successor to CentOS. Every Rocky Linux release is built 100% in the open, by the community, for the community. It is under intensive development by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF).
As the popularity of Rocky Linux grew within large organizations, so did the need for services and support. CIQ, being a founding sponsor for Rocky Linux, created a support model to help users gain access to dedicated technical experts. CIQ continues to build on the vision for the next generation of software infrastructure, adding value on top of our base support to provide turn-key solutions and capabilities to people.
CIQ's Role in the Rocky Linux Ecosystem
CIQ is the official founding support and services partner for both the Rocky Linux project and the RESF. We made the decision early on that critical key open source projects and standards should not be owned by any single company, so Rocky and the RESF were founded as independent entities. The governance structure of Rocky Linux and RESF is designed to prevent dominance by any single entity, including CIQ. The RESF operates with a community-based board of directors, ensuring decisions, resources, and infrastructure remain community-driven. CIQ’s primary objective is to ensure the success and longevity of Rocky Linux by offering services, support, and additional enhancements to customers.
Read our frequently asked questions to gain a better understanding of why—and how—CIQ is dedicated to ensuring the stability and success of Rocky Linux.
CIQ Products
CIQ leverages capabilities from enterprise, cloud, hyperscale, and HPC to create scalable, secure infrastructure. We actively contribute to advancements in these fields, offering powerful solutions that benefit a wide range of industries and applications, including:
We’ve also created additional powerful offerings as part of our full software stack solutions, including CIQ Mountain, Ascender, and Fuzzball:
Meet the Leadership Team
At CIQ, we have built out a talented group of veteran technology executives who can drive execution, challenge us with new ideas, and help us scale as we bring the next generation of software infrastructure to enterprises all over the world. The executive team at CIQ possesses unparalleled experience in developing and managing large-scale Linux-based systems for highly demanding applications.
Learn more about our leadership team, advisors, and investors.
Our Mission
We believe that companies should work in harmony with open source projects and communities, recognizing the mutual benefits of collaboration, sharing expertise, and fostering an environment that encourages innovation and continuous improvement. It is our role to be contributors to open source communities, adding value both to the community at large and to any business offerings we build around that open source project.
Read more about our open source ethos, which reflects our genuine dedication to these communities.
