OpenStack

OpenStack is a solution that helps you create software-configurable data centers. It includes components for the organization:

• server virtualization,
• software-defined data warehouses,
• software-defined networks,
• "databases as a service,"
• cloud orchestrator.

According to the fall of 2016, the OpenStack project is supported by more than 600 companies and about 63 thousand IT specialists in 186 countries, including Red Hat, IBM, Intel, Huawei. Over 140 solutions have already been created on the basis of the platform. Among domestic companies, both private and state organizations show interest in open source software. For example, Sberbank considers the open platform as the basis for its IT systems. Experts attribute the growing interest in open-source solutions to the high level of maturity of open source developments, their more flexible and rapid development compared to proprietary solutions, as well as the lower cost of introducing, using and developing such solutions.

For the summer of 2015, the OpenStack community includes 27,300 people, more than 500 organizations support the development of the platform. Over the years, the efforts of the community of developers and users have created over 20 million lines of code.

About what cloud services can be obtained on the OpenStack, read the special project TAdviser Details.

Developers OpenStack

The software product OpenStack developed by Rackspace for commercial provision of "infrastructure as a service" and for use in NASA scientific projects. In the future, source codes were provided to the world independent community of developers, and the project continued to develop actively, and also became available for free private and commercial use.

More than 180 companies joined the development of the OpenStack project in November 2014. The highest level of membership ("platinum") in a non-profit organization with companies:

• AT&T,
• Canonical,
• HP,
• IBM,
• Nebula,
• Rackspace,
• Red Hat,
• SUSE.

In the world market, Red Hat, Mirantis, Enovance have competencies for the implementation of OpenStack-based solutions; in Russia, ASD Technologies announced itself for 2014.

Advantages

In the world, OpenStack actively use large data centers, cloud and other service providers, telecom operators, media companies, government agencies and scientific organizations.

Open source solutions for creating private clouds can be attractive in several cases. First of all, they are interesting to those companies that have their own powerful data centers and want to implement flexible resource management in them according to the cloud model.

The second target group is companies that agree that the future lies with cloud computing, but for various reasons they are not yet ready to entrust their data to the owners of public cloud services. By developing new systems for the private cloud, such companies will be able to transfer them to a public platform at relatively low cost in the future. Finally, private open source clouds are the best tool for experimenters to quickly and cost-effectively deploy a pilot site and understand in practice how cloud computing is appropriate in the context of their own organization.

OpenStack - an open platform, it helps to create a cloud solution with a high level of reliability, to avoid economic and political risks to which users of proprietary products are exposed.

OpenStack of Russia

In 2014, Russian business shows great activity in relation to this global trend, and interest in the OpenStack platform in our country is constantly growing. Several hosting providers offer products and services based on OpenStack, and a number of companies that use the products of members of this community to virtualize their own infrastructure. In particular, a number of OpenStack components use Yandex for several of its services.

2022: Softline Coster Support

Softline April 22, 2022 announced plans to support cloud infrastructures based on OpenStack as part of the Coster multi-cloud platform. Users of OpenStack solutions will have the opportunity to aggregate all information about cloud infrastructure costs as soon as possible. More details here.

2021: Expanding Integration with Aerodisk Storage

2018: Release OpenStack Queens

March 7, 2018 released the next release of OpenStack. 17th version of the cloud IaaS platform.

There are many possibilities in this release. These include support for virtual GPUs (vGPU) and advanced container integration. In addition, several projects are included in the release, including the Cyborg hardware and software acceleration resource management system.

OpenStack Queens (2018)

vGPU

Support for vGPU appeared in the project OpenStack Nova and is a continuation of the work on the creation of Placement service, which this project performed for several recent releases. This service is a dynamic inventory system in the OpenStack that tracks the resources available for deployment. Support for vGPU extends to Nvidia Grid vGPU and Intel GVT (Graphics Virtualization Technology).

"A GPU can have thousands of cores, and if you try to just trivially transfer hardware resources to the virtual machine, the entire GPU will be there. Many companies want to have a fleet of different GPU servers that can be distributed among different tasks. Until now, there was no solution for this that would be easy to manage in a multi-user environment. " Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the foundation OpenStack

Cyborg

The Cyborg project came from the telecommunications world. It provides a universal foundation for accelerating any processes, not just GPUs. Cyborg can use physical GPUs, user-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and any other accelerators. The OpenStack already had an Ironic Bare Metal service, which allows cloud operators to directly access hardware resources. Cyborg complements Ironic.

"Both are tools for direct control of equipment. Ironic is focused on managing entire servers for acceleration, and Cyborg is focused on separate hardware functions. " Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the foundation OpenStack

Containers

The Queens release also includes the popular open-source project OpenStack Helm for managing packages of the Kubernetes container orchestration system.

Helm, like many other projects, including Anonymous, aims to provide services with OpenStack configuration and deployment management capabilities.

"OpenStack Helm and OpenStack Anonymous are similar in that they are tools that should help manage OpenStack services, but they use different approaches." Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the foundation OpenStack

Helm uses Kubernetes for lifecycle management and is designed specifically for containers. But it is more convenient for some organizations to use the Anonymous configuration management tool.

LOCI

The LOCI (Lightweight Open Container Initiative) project is an alternative to the OpenStack Kola project, which represents a more complete approach to packetizing a container image.

Rocky Path

After the release of Queens, work begins on the next release, Rocky. It is likely to feature Fast Forward Upgrade, which will make it easier for cloud operators to update OpenStack releases. Fast Forward Upgrades will allow you to skip releases.

2017

Release OpenStack Pike

On September 1, 2017, the next release of OpenStack was released. The 16th version of the cloud IaaS platform is called Pike.

It is focused on simplifying deployment and updating. Pike is based on the OpenStack Ocata released in March. The feature of the release is that Pike's stability and performance orientation^[1].

Among the opportunities that have emerged:

• Nova Cells v2: Nova Cells computing architecture is required for large-scale deployments and interoperability. API The second version of this subsystem OpenStack received database scaling tools, a simple text message protocol, the ability to disable domains with errors and eliminate individual points of failure.
• Python 3.5: Support for the latest version of the Python programming language is of paramount importance, since it contains the vast majority of OpenStack subsystems and software interfaces.
• etcd v3: a distributed system for storing etcd configuration parameters set as a key/value pair is used as a low-level link for storing file content and coordinating consensus between nodes. It is being developed by the CoreOS team and has already found application, for example, in Google Kubernetes and in PaaS from Huawei. Starting with this release, etcd v3 will be used to store critical data.
• Ironic: this project entered the computing environment OpenStack along with the release of Juno. One of the goals of Ironic is to TripleO (OpenStack-on-OpenStack) or interchange complex applications without replacing the bare metal required to deploy the cloud. In the Pike release, Ironic developers added the ability to connect to Neutron networks. The modular architecture with the ability to connect various devices allows vendors to integrate their solutions organically with OpenStack.
• Ironic, along with Cinder, Neutron, Nova and Swift, has received support for the so-called rolling upgrades, allowing operators to add functionality without disabling cloud services, which will generally simplify the update of OpenStack.
• Cinder: The block storage service is OpenStack enriched with the revert to snapshot function, which is required to restore the current state of the virtual machine from a previously saved one, as well as the ability to expand volumes. Returning to a saved snapshot can be useful after data corruption or reset settings after running tests. The volume of storage expands without collapsing virtual machines, thereby maintaining the operability of online applications.
• Kolla is a container lifecycle management tool that has also received some improvements. It provides ready-made containers and tools for deployment to the OpenStack cloud. Using Kolla in conjunction with DevOps programs such as Kubernetes and Anonymous makes it easier to manage and update OpenStack.
• Swift: Object storage has OpenStack learned how to work with Erasure coding algorithms, which, due to the complexity of the computing add-in, better protect data. Swift solves the task of restoring information when the network falls through fragmented data collection through individual data centers. The vault version has acquired a fast engine, allowing users to run several concurrent processes on the server at the same time.
• Zun: final release of the industry-ready proprietary container management service OpenStack.

The main possibility of Pike is to improve modularity. The modular OpenStack architecture allows you to choose a specific functionality to connect to the infrastructure stack - be it dedicated servers for creating clouds or back up block storage without deploying a complete subsystem stack.

For example, OpenStack Ironic offers advanced integration to store Cinder and Neutron blocks, and Cinder can act as stand-alone storage for virtual machines, dedicated servers, or containers based on Docker or Kubernetes.

Thousands of large and small implementations in private and public clouds - this experience, gained over more than seven years, we transferred to Pike. Work on errors was carried out, composite OpenStack were finalized. It is time to talk about the maturation of the service for industrial use, but we also do not forget about its filling with new functionality. Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director, OpenStack Foundation

Ocata OpenStack Release

On February 22, 2017, The OpenStack Foundation released OpenStack Ocata. It does not have added features, it is focused on improving stability and performance.

The Ocata version was released as an exception earlier. This release is focused on improving the stability, scalability and performance of basic computing and network services^[2].

Presentation of Ocata release goals, (2016)

Ocata Properties:

• The Nova API for "hosting" computing, which helps users carefully allocate resources to meet application needs. Cells v2 becomes the default choice for increasing Nova scalability;
• The OpenStack Horizon dashboard supports the Keystone service federation as a user interface for the operating system profiler, which allows operators to identify performance problems of any OpenStack services;
• the federated Keystone identification service dynamically and automatically provides access to the project and, after successful authentication, assigns a specific role to the federation user;
• reliability of Ironic physical equipment provision service is improved;
• improved performance and CPU utilization for Telemetry projects. Now, using Ceilometer with the Gnocchi storage engine, you can save millions of indicators per second;
• Active/Active HA Cinder Block Storage Service can now be implemented with drivers;
• The Congress management environment has improved the policy language. It now allows operations on network addresses, which improves network and security management.

Ocata has improved network-level support for container-based applications. Using the release, you can conclude OpenStack services in containers. This simplifies the installation and management of OpenStack as a microservice application.

Added application environments on the container platform and deployment tools. These include Kolla (contained in containers services OpenStack), Kuryr (combines the transfer of services over networks with their storage) and Zun (container management).

A year ago, people thought containers meant death. OpenStack But in reality, they have become a source of momentum for the cloud platform. Using container orchestration environments to run a OpenStack as an application makes it easier to manage. This means that fewer people are needed to maintain the cloud, making OpenStack a more affordable and practical option for small cloud owners. Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director of the OpenStack Foundation Foundation

The nova-status upgrade check command has been added, it allows operators to check the readiness of their systems and see if they can be safely upgraded to Ocata. If not, you will be asked which issues should be resolved before you upgrade.

2016: HPE and Mirantis have reduced the number of developers OpenStack

In the fall, it became known about major reductions in specialists in two leading companies for the development of a free cloud platform OpenStack: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Mirantis.

Last year, 2015, HPE and Mirantis employees occupied the first two lines in the number of changes made to the code base. OpenStack According to new statistics, the contribution from them this year has significantly decreased. This trend is consistent with recent information on personnel changes in both companies. In particular, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said in an interview with ComputerWorld UK last week that HPE fired "the entire OpenStack team." The representative of HPE confirmed that the company is restructuring among OpenStack specialists, but did not name the exact figures, noting that Shuttleworth's statement was exaggerated.

According to Boris Renski, one of the founders of Mirantis, "less than 100" engineers were reduced in the company. This process began after the acquisition of TCP Cloud, which specializes in the sale of services for private cloud infrastructure based on OpenStack. This takeover led Mirantis to "balance between software engineering culture and operational expertise." The reductions affected two groups of engineers: the developers of the Fuel project (a simple installer of OpenStack), which is planned to be revised towards the IaC approach (Infrastructure as Code), and the authors of the internal PaaS project, the work on which is shifting in favor of supporting the Kubernetes container orchestration platform. In his letter, Renski emphasized that the company "does not leave OpenStack and does not leave the distribution business OpenStack" ^[3]

2015

Released version OpenStack 11 Kilo

On May 2, 2015, the OpenStack community presented the eleventh release of the OpenStack Kilo platform. About 400 improvements have been made in this release^[4]

1492 developers from 169 companies took part in the development of the product. In preparing the changes for release, the companies most actively showed themselves:

• Red Hat,
• HP,
• IBM,
• Mirantis,
• Rackspace,
• Yahoo!,
• NEC,
• Huawei
• SUSE.

As of May 2, 2015, about 500 companies and about 24,000 independent developers joined the development of the OpenStack. Cloud infrastructure deployment products on the OpenStack platform are being developed by companies:

• Rackspace,
• Red Hat,
• SUSE,
• Canonical,
• IBM,
• Cisco,
• Dell
• HP.

As of May 2, 2015, the OpenStack platform includes a set of interconnected components focused on creating public cloud services, such as Amazon EC2 and private clouds running on their own hardware and fully controlled by the company. Supported virtualization systems include:

• KVM,
• QEMU,
• Xen,
• Hyper-V,
• Citrix XenServer,
• LXC containers
• containers VMWarevSphere ESX//.ESXi

OpenStack scales well and can maintain an infrastructure of hundreds of thousands of virtual servers.

Platform Interaction Diagram OpenStack, 2015

As part of updates:

• OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) - distributed, fault-tolerant and highly reliable object storage. Stored objects are stored simultaneously on multiple cluster nodes in the datacenter, providing automatic integrity control and replication when nodes are disabled/added. The vault scales horizontally, that is, just add new nodes that are automatically configured to increase size. When a node fails, its contents are reproduced on other nodes of the network to ensure proper redundancy. Duplication of information allows you to use typical inexpensive servers to form a cluster, without taking care of the reliability of each of them individually.
  • Support for a redundancy code (EC) designed to restore the contents of data blocks based on redundant information stored in other blocks. Compared to duplicate replication, redundancy codes make it possible to do with smaller storage, but require more computing and network resources to work. Of the applications for which this method is well suited, it is mentioned that large data sizes are stored in one region, which are rarely accessed.
  • Realization of the combined tokens (Composite tokens) which allow OpenStack services to keep on behalf of the client in Swift the data, therefore, that separately not the client and not service cannot update these data without the consent of both parties. For example, a user can initiate a recording of a virtual machine snapper through Nova, Nova will send this request to Glance, which will record the image in the Swift container in the form of a set of objects. Then the user will not be able to update the image without receiving a token from the service, and the service will not be able to update the image without receiving a token from the user.
  • The ability to take into account the weight of the device when placing data, which allows you to organize the addition of new zones or regions to the cluster without initiating instantaneous movement of large amounts of data, and also leads to more efficient processing of balanced clusters in which one zone contains significantly more data.
  • Improve data replication across regions. Only one replica moves in one pass, which gives the remote region the opportunity to perform internal replication without moving extra data through an external network link.

• OpenStack Compute (Nova) is a tool that allows you to automatically create and manage the operation of large groups of VPS servers. The system is based on NASA Nebula technology and the operating time used to provide the Rackspace Cloud Servers service. OpenStack Compute is written in Python using the Tornado and Twisted frameworks, AMQP is used for messaging, Redis database is used for data storage.
  • The new Nova API (2.1) is implemented, which is backwards compatible with API 2.0 and is notable for the introduction of an innovation system through the microversion mechanism. API 2.1 also provides support for x509 certificates.
  • Support live updates as long as you need to change the database storage scheme.
  • Hyper-V driver adds support for 2nd generation Hyper-V virtual machines and SMB partitions;
  • The Libvirt driver (KVM) has the ability to attach vCPU to the guest system, SMB support and QEMU iSCSI initiator support.

• OpenStack Image Service (Glance) - a registry of virtual machine images that allows you to register new virtual machine images and ensure their delivery to the desired nodes before execution. Provides storage of virtual machine images in a wide range of formats: Raw, AMI, VHD (Hyper-V), VDI (VirtualBox), qcow2 (Qemu/KVM), VMDK (VMWare) and OVF (VMWare). To unify operations for obtaining information, adding and delivering images of virtual machines, a special Glance REST-ful API is used;
  • The ability to deactivate the image;
  • Support for image conversion during import;
  • Ability to select a hashing method other than SHA-1;
  • Metadef tag support;
  • Experimental catalog indexing API;
  • Support for resetting configuration files when receiving a SIGHUP signal;

• OpenStack Identity (Keystone) is a package for unifying authentication tools and ensuring the integration of OpenStack components with existing authentication systems, including those built on the Active Directory and LDAP platforms . You can also use regular login tools using your login/password or AWS. Keystone is responsible for managing users, projects, and access rights;
  • Federated identification is enhanced by the ability to work in hybrid systems with multiple cloud environments.
  • Implementation of hierarchical binding of project settings;
  • Support for Fsoundtokens;

• OpenStack Dashboard (Horizon) is a web interface for managing the system, built on the basis of the Django web framework and the django-openstack application. The interface is for both administrators and users. A wide range of tools is supported for managing resources, creating and launching environments, setting limits. Plugins can be connected, for example, with the implementation of monitoring tools.
• Implementation of design themes to change appearance;
  • Support for Single-Sign-On Authentication
  • The interface for managing the data processing system (Sahara) has been radically redesigned;
  • Added Launch Instance Wizard

• Networking (Neutron) - a framework for performing tasks related to the creation, configuration and maintenance of networks inside data centers. Quantum supports dynamic network configuration and can be used to configure both virtual networks and physical hosts. Quantum supports the expansion of functionality through plugins and can solve various administrative tasks, from creating ports to configuring routes and VLANs.
  • DVR adds VLAN support in addition to VXLAN/GRE;
  • New drivers: A10 Networks LBaaS V2, Brocade LBaaS V2, Brocade ML2 for switchboards MLX and ICX Brocade Vyatta vRouter Firewall, Brocade Vyatta vRouter VPN, Intel Cisco CSR VPNaaS, Freescale FWaaS, Mcafee NGFW FWaaS, IPSEC Strongswan VPNaaS;
  • New plugins: L3 routing on Brocade MLX, Brocade Vyatta vRouter L3, Distributed Virtual Router L3 switches based on Dragonflow SDN.

• Block Storage (Cinder) is a multifunctional and extensible storage of block devices and disk partitions, which also supports working with previously created partitions deployed during the use of past releases of OpenStack. Earlier, Cinder was implemented as a subproject to the OpenStack Compute service, but from now on it is allocated to a separate subsystem developed by a separate development team.
  • Ability to change the database layout without restarting;

• Support for adding/removing sections from an existing agreed group;
  • Possibility of creating an agreed group from a snapshot of another agreed group;
  • The backup service can now be applied to encrypted partitions;

• Possibility of creating private types of sections;
  • For fault tolerance, you can now bind a partition to multiple instances of OpenStack Compute;

• OpenStack Metering (Ceilometer) - aims to collect data on the operation of the system and conduct monitoring, providing users with a single source of data on the use of all services OpenStack;
  • Ceilometer RBAC API support;
  • Support for receiving metrics through Gnocchi

• OpenStack Orchestra (Heat) - Provides a service for managing the lifecycle of cloud applications and automating the allocation of computing resources, network bandwidth, and storage space for applications.

• OpenStack Database Service (Trove) - a system for maintaining the service of cloud databases (Database as a Service), based on both relational and non-relational DBMS. Trove simplifies maintenance of multiple DBMS instances by providing tools for performing operations such as DBMS deployment, configuration, patching, backup, disaster recovery, and monitoring. Full support is provided for MySQL and Percona. Experimental support is available for MongoDB, Redis, Cassandra and Couchbase;
  • Supports a new replication strategy based on MySQL 5.6 asynchronous GTID replication;
  • Storage support, Vertica Vertica Cluster, DB2 and; CouchDB
  • Extension of the managing API;

• OpenStack Data Processing (Sahara), a component for automating the maintenance and management of large data processing clusters based on Apache Hadoop or Apache Spark.
  • New plugins for MAPR, Apache Storm and Apache Hadoop 2.6.0;
  • Added event log maintenance

• Ironic (Bare Metal Provisioning Service), a new component that allows you to use existing methods to deploy virtual machine configurations to deploy systems on real hardware or for applications such as Linux containers.

Cisco and IBM bought solution developers OpenStack

In early June 2015, Cisco and IBM announced acquisitions with which American corporations can simplify the introduction of a private cloud platform OpenStack in the IT infrastructure of enterprises, writes PCWorld.

Cisco bought the startup Piston Cloud Computing, which develops CloudOS software designed to build  open-source cloud infrastructures based on  OpenStack to provide IaaS services. The features of this product are automatic installation, high level of security and compatibility with public clouds based on OpenStack.

Cisco and IBM make it easier to implement OpenStack in IT

It is noted that Piston solutions will strengthen Cisco's cloud business and add to it new practical experience with the basic infrastructure that underlies Cisco OpenStack Private Cloud.

The object of the takeover of IBM was the provider of cloud services Blue Box. It provides a OpenStack platform in the form of an Internet service that does not require installing and configuring software on client computers. At the same time, the platform itself is flexible and scalable, noted in Blue Box.

The cost of purchases made by Cisco and IBM is not specified. Also, corporations did not talk about ways to integrate the technologies of purchased firms with their products.

Experts are confident that with the announced deals IBM and Cisco will be able to ensure a large-scale implementation of the OpenStack platform in the corporate environment. However, the growth of this market is in doubt. In April 2015, Nebula, a company specializing in OpenStack, closed.

"We are very disappointed that the market will most likely need several years to mature," Nebula said, commenting on the termination of its operations.

Several dozen Nebula specialists went to work with Oracle. Thus, the American corporation showed its high interest in the OpenStack project. They are also interested in HP and EMC. The latter in 2014 bought Cloudscaling (developer IaaS OpenStack). It is worth noting that there are fewer and fewer small manufacturers of OpenStack solutions on the market.^[5]

2014: Release OpenStack Icehouse

On April 17, 2014, the next update of the OpenStack platform, Icehouse, was released.

It contains 350 not entirely fundamental innovations, made taking into account the wishes of users, mainly, and 2902 adjustments. In fact, Icehouse is a kind of embodiment of the feedback of developers with the world community. The largest amount of work on writing Icehouse code was done by engineers Red Hat, IBM, HP, Rackspace, Mirantis, SUSE, OpenStack Foundation, eNovance, VMware, Intel, Samsung, Yahoo and Comcast. Assistance in the development of Icehouse was provided by 1202 participants, which is 32% more compared to support for the previous version of Havana, published six months ago.

The main attention of developers focused on stability, testing and development.

List of major changes:

• The OpenStack Compute (Nova) module simplifies the installation of updates and enhances the requirements for third-party drivers.
• In OpenStack Object Storage (Swift), the visibility of many functional components, which in addition are available through program calls, is significantly increased.
• OpenStack Block Storage (Cinder) provides phased server migration in heterogeneous environments.
• OpenStack Networking (Neutron) is tightly consolidated with other OpenStack modules, which improves the reliability of the network and the consistency of its elements.
• OpenStack Identity Service (Keystone) supports federated authentication, OpenStack Orchestra (Heat) automatically scales additional resources across all platform subsystems, and the new configuration API simplifies application lifecycle maintenance.
• OpenStack Telemetry (Ceilometer) offers access to automatically collected data (for example, billing information).
• OpenStack Dashboard (Horizon) has added new navigation elements and support for 16 national languages, including Serbian and Hindi.

According to analysts at Forrester Research, by the end of 2014, OpenStack will de facto become another standard. IaaS

2013

Release OpenStack Grizzly

The new release of the OpenStack platform has the ability to manage much larger clouds than before. Grizzly improves network and storage management performance and capabilities compared to the previous version of Folsom.

With Grizzly, you can manage much larger computing resources: tens of thousands of server nodes. The release presents Nova Compute Cells, allowing you to scale very large systems distributed across several locations, without using databases and clustering message queues. The release includes a NoDB host architecture that reduces dependency on the central database.

Virtualization management changes are represented by support for more features that use multiple hypervisors (ESX, KVM, Xen, and Hyper-V).

Grizzly also adds protocols for distributed storage and networking features such as hot add and replace network devices, where all changes are made without any delays or interruptions.

Administrators can now set quotas to manage the growth of object-oriented environments, and perform large batch operations with this memory, making it easier to deploy and manage large clusters. The new release also added the ability to manage heterogeneous environments for storage through a single access point. At the same time, end users can now allocate storage in such a way that the necessary level of performance, efficiency and cost is observed.

Improvements to the network subsystem included support for technologies such as Big, Switch, Hyper-V, PlumGrid, Brocade and Midonet, complementing the existing support for Open vSwitch, Cisco UCS/Nexus, Linux Bridge, Nicira, Ryu OpenFlow and NEC OpenFlow. Added more scalability and increased availability, by allocating L3/L4 and by using dynamic host configuration protocol services on multiple servers.

Grizzly OpenSrack Identity has added a new token format based on the standard PKI functionality, which allows you to use offline authentication through tokens without service access to Identity.

All new computing, storage and networking features are available through the updated OpenStack Dashboard, which has added support for more languages.

Release OpenStack Havana

As a result of the vote in early 2013, the name was chosen for the new version of the cloud operating system OpenStack. It will be called Havana in honor of the intercommunal territory in Oregon.

The release will be released after Grizzly (before that there were Folsom, Essex, Diablo, Cactus, Bexar and Austin). Code names of versions of OpenStack traditionally reflect hints of settlements in which company summits are held. For example, Grizzly is a hint of a bear on the flag of the state of California. The next summit is scheduled for April 15-18, it will be held in Portland, Oregon.

The current version of the scalable cloud operating system OpenStack is Folsom, released in January 2012. It included support for network management, block storage, and Hyper-V. In September of that year, an update was released to Folsom. Grizzly is still under development, its official release is expected on April 4, 2013 (a candidate release will be available in mid-March).

The open IaaS project is OpenStack supported by the largest companies aimed at the corporate market. These include AMD, Intel, SUSE Linux, Red Hat, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, NEC, and VMware. The goal of the project is to provide an easy-to-implement and scalable solution for public and private clouds. This is achieved through a wide application of APIs.

Dell supports Windows Server Hyper-V on its platform OpenStack

Dell announced on May 27, 2013 support for Microsoft WindowsServer Hyper-V as one of the possible hypervisors in its OpenStack cloud platform. For the first time, the Windows Server Hyper-V hypervisor on the OpenStack platform is offered for private clouds. This gives customers additional flexibility and choice when running OpenStack loads in an existing Windows Server environment.

For OpenStack, Dell will support key features of the Windows Server 2012 virtualization platform, including network virtualization, policy-based isolation, Quality of Service (QoS), and multi-tenancy. Besides, Dell together with other OpenStack developers optimizes the OpenStack components, including OpenStack Compute for Hyper-V, OpenStack Block Storage for Windows and the Dell Crowbar tools. It is assumed that the basic functionality will be implemented in the future version of the OpenStack project.

"We Dell have been an active sponsor for almost three years, OpenStack said the Director Forrest Norrod General of Dell Server Solutions. - This project Dell will help the OpenStack community gain value from investing Windows Server 2012 in with the ability to further explore OpenStack-based solutions and workloads in existing environments. "

2012

Creating The OpenStack Foundation

In September 2012, after almost a year of preparations, The OpenStack Foundation began work as an independent non-profit organization. Now OpenStack, the open source software stack for creating a cloud infrastructure in the form of a service, is free from the control of the hosting provider Rackspace. The company restrictedly regulated development of community of OpenStack developers the first two years of existence of the project, but last year his heads decided that the Open source software has to develop irrespective of RackSpace. The newly created alliance was led by the leadership of the community and the trademark OpenStack.

Participation in the alliance is distributed so that no one has too much influence in the governing council, say the OpenStack. Among the "platinum" sponsors of the project are AT&T,, Canonical,, HP IBM Nebula, Rackspace, Red Hat and SUSE, among the "gold" -,, and, and Cisco Dell NetApp Yahoo soon they will be joined by NEC and. Intel VMware

Microsoft Hyper-V Opt-Out Discussion

The cloud community is OpenStack considering the possibility of not supporting the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor in it . Responsible for management of releases of OpenStack said to Thierry Cara that the Hyper-V code is planned to be excluded from nowadays developed version of the controller of the computing OpenStack Compute resources as this code "it is obviously defective and is not supported Microsoft".

The withdrawal of the code will presumably not create any problems, since no one uses the Microsoft hypervisor in projects based on OpenStack, "says Joshua McKenti, a former technical architect of the NASA Nebula platform, which became the basis of the OpenStack. According to him, Microsoft hired a contractor to integrate Hyper-V with OpenStack, but "he never finished this work."

Microsoft responded to the news of the possibility of excluding Hyper-V support code from the OpenStack by saying that "the corporation intends to work with the OpenStack development community to eliminate existing problems with this platform and Hyper-V."

Release OpenStack Essex

April 2012: Essex includes more than 150 new features. The information published on this project states that more than 200 developers participated in the development of the new version. Major improvements include the following:

• OpenStack Compute (code name Nova) - Improved code stability and integration with Dashboard and Identity components, provided equal support for hypervisors of the first type, which will help create conditions for transparent work with users. In addition, support for authorization and migration functions is improved without stopping services on a network with many hosts. Support for high-performance computer computing was also provided, new options for working with block storage were added, including for Nexenta, SolidFire and NetApp storage systems;

• OpenStack Object Storage (codenamed Swift) - new features have been introduced to simplify compliance and improve data security, as well as the ability to specify the lifetime of objects in accordance with the policy of storing documents, increased resistance to data failures and corruption, and improved disaster recovery functionality. In addition, there are new features of value to service providers, including the functions of downloading data directly from an authorized web page, limiting the maximum number of containers for one account;

• OpenStack Dashboard (codenamed Horizon) - the first full release OpenStack Dashboard provides administrators and users with the ability to access and manage cloud resources using a separate portal. It allows you to easily connect and use third-party products and services, such as monitoring services;

• OpenStack Identity (code name Keystone) - the first full-fledged release of OpenStack Identity provides a single authorization system for all the main elements of the cloud operating system. It provides the ability to authorize, including on the basis of login/password, tokens and AWS;

• OpenStack Image Service (codenamed Glance) - the virtual machine image management service has received several key updates that increase its usability, improve the authorization mechanisms and image protection.

More than 155 companies, including NASA, Rackspace, Intel, Dell, Canonical-Ubuntu, HP, SuSE, support open cloud architecture.

Folsom OpenStack Release

On September 27, 2012, Folsom released a cloud platform OpenStack with new networking and storage features, as well as Hyper-V support, and the next version of Grizzly is expected in March 2013.

Folsom included more than 185 new features and improvements, which were worked on by over 350 open source developers.

'Since the release of Essex in April 2012, developers have created a lot of new ones. The most important thing, of course, is that Quantum is now a basic project and virtual network services are already on the approach, "writes Emilien Machchi, a French OpenStack enthusiast who has been practicing at StackOps. - And for volume service now has its own separate project Cinder '.

Here what was reported about Folsom by Kevin Jackson, one of creators and the architect of infrastructure of OpenStack: 'Speaking about OpenStack Folsom, it is necessary to mention two remarkable new projects: Quantum and Cinder. Quantum provides a functionally rich and extensible API for programmatically configurable networks. It allows you to specify much more diverse network topologies than you could have done so far, such as configuring layered applications and allocating subnets. Quantum also allows you to build more complex configurations of the main node using plugins, for example, using the excellent Open vSwitch software or creating QoS and security functions. Quantum enables OpenStack users to fully control all aspects of their cloud computing environment without compromising the underlying infrastructure and security of the underlying OpenStack environment. In fact, Quantum creates the conditions for a real collective lease without any restrictions on virtual LANs. Cinder is a OpenStack block storage project formerly known as nova-volume. Isolating this important group of basic functions into a stand-alone project will allow them to be developed independently of Nova computing functions. For users, this means faster development and error correction and new features that meet modern hosting requirements. Important improvements include Folsom and renewed support for Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor.

This is the sixth release of the OpenStack in more than two years of its history. The newly created organization OpenStack Foundation expects to release its next release in six months, codenamed Grizzly.

The main developers of the Grizzly project work in the companies Rackspace, SwiftStack, Nebula, Nicira (ownership of VMware), SolidFire and Red Hat.

Gartner criticizes the project OpenStack

The English company Gartner published in the fall of 2012 a critical review of the board with the code OpenStack. Developers of the platform - the Rackspace company and other known providers of cloud services - are guided by own commercial interests, despite openness of the source code. Many companies which expressed support of OpenStack in fact do not allocate essential resources for its development, and the fragmentation arising because of collision of interests of various participants of the project reduces compatibility of cloudy systems on the basis of OpenStack, the analyst of Gartner considers.

Supporters of OpenStack in reply point to recent creation of the independent organization OpenStack Foundation which will coordinate development, release of the next version of the platform (Folsom) and fast opening of the OpenStack Summit conference where the directions of its further development will be discussed.

OpenStack is not the standard standard, the analyst and as the number of the companies specializing in service of systems on the basis of OpenStack while it is small, the risk of a binding to the supplier when using OpenStack is not lower, than when using commercial cloud platforms emphasizes. In OpenStack, for example, they are aware of the rapid increase in the number of participants in the project.

OpenStack, an open platform for managing cloud systems, was widely touted as the future of the entire cloud infrastructure, both public and private, but in fact it is a developing project, the future of which, although promising, is still uncertain.

Effects of advertising:

• The hype around open cloud management platform (CMP) leads some users to draw unreasonable conclusions that can lead to incorrect decisions when choosing a cloud management platform to create a private cloud, or when buying a cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) from a service provider.
• The marketing activities of supplier companies make Chief information officers believe that OpenStack is a stable, developed platform ready for wide distribution. In fact, this project is at an early stage of its development, has unstable source code and a limited set of functions.
• Chief information officers may confuse acceptance API with the adoption of a cloud management platform (CMP) that supports this API. Which makes them to the detriment of limiting the choice of technology platforms.
• Proponents of OpenStack argue that it will eventually be able to supplant full-featured CMP platforms in commercial enterprises, in particular VMware vCloud Suite. But currently CMP OpenStack offers only basic CMP capabilities.
• OpenStack will eventually become a reliable open core of a large and successful ecosystem of commercial offerings.

Recommendations:

• Do not assume that "open source" is the equivalent of open standards, broad interoperability, and freedom from commercial interests. In fact, the OpenStack is dominated by the interests of supplier companies, which want users to use their own offerings, and possibly include supplier binding.
• Evaluate
  OpenStack impartially as any other vendor solution, and remember that in its current state, it is most suitable for beginners with significant technical resources, high risk tolerance and the need for low-cost, high-level cloud infrastructure.
• If interoperability is a problem, use a third-party cloud API library or cloud management service that supports multiple cloud APIs, CMPs, or service providers.
• Do not make plans about future development of the data-processing center (DPC) at the heart of which there has to be OpenStack. Although this is a promising project, there is no guarantee of its future success.

OpenStack Analysis:

OpenStack is an open source CMP platform that provides some of the basic capabilities that are required for a cloud-based IaaS service, including virtual infrastructure management and stand-alone service delivery. It is not a single structure and is divided into several components, and users can select only some components at the same time.

Implications and Key Advertising Recommendations OpenStack and Reality

The initial and most important components are data processing services, Nova (similar to Amazon EC2 service) and object data storage services, Swift (similar to Amazon S3 service). In addition, other loosely coupled components were added over time, including Quantum (network controller), Keystone (identity and access control), Glance (virtual machine image catalog) and Horizon (self-service portal).

Source code is OpenStack provided under the Apache 2.0 license, there are also commercial distributions. Intermediate releases are issued every six months; Each release is assigned an alphabetical code starting with "Austin" in October 2010 and ending with "Folsom" expected in September 2012 (see Table 1).

Table 1. Main projects OpenStack

The Swift project appeared as software for the Rackspace Cloud Files service. This is the most stable and widespread part of the OpenStack project, with a successful history of large-scale use, which is usually used by cloud service providers IaaS, and has become the easiest implementation of the object data store of the S3 service type, but not compatible with S3.

Nova was created in NASA, as a result of rewriting the Eucalyptus platform code written in the Python programming language as open source CMP in Java EE, compatible with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 API. While NASA was developing Nova, Rackspace, a provider of administered hosting and cloud services, was working on a successor to the technology used in its proposed Cloud Servers service, which was obtained through the purchase of Slicehost in 2008. NASA and Rackspace decided to join forces in an open source software project (see Note 1). As a result of the consolidation of previous developments, which required a significant amount of work, a new and unstable basis for source code was created. The Nova project has a short history of mass production and operation. Currently, the first users of OpenStack are organizations with a strong technical base and high risk tolerance. As a rule, these are service providers, financial companies and research institutions. Most of them either seek assistance from consultants or invest significant technical resources in the project.

Two key service providers are in the process of widespread implementation of Nova technology. The Nova-based Cloud Servers service of Rackspace became publicly available in August 2012. New customers will be offered servers based on Nova, and existing customers will be able to run new virtual machines (VM) based on Nova, but in essence this will lead to a gradual expansion of their cloud based on Nova. Rackspace will serve two platforms at the same time until it can smoothly transfer existing customers to the new platform, but this means that it will not achieve instant mass use of Nova. HP offers Swift-based solutions, but its Nova-based solutions are in beta mode, and will only become publicly available at the end of 2012, so it will not achieve mass use either.

past, Rackspace played a major role in the OpenStack project, but it will move to an organization where voting rights will be determined mainly by the company's financial contribution. The member companies of the organization hope that combining their efforts will quickly expand the technical capabilities of the OpenStack. Their goal is to provide an alternative to AWS and VMware vCloud services. They believe that Amazon and VMware are a far greater threat to them than they are to themselves.

Gartner noted a growing number of information requests for the OpenStack platform from Chief information officers, technicians, suppliers, service providers and investors. We have concluded that active advertising of the OpenStack platform has created a number of dangerous myths that affect decisions on the selection of suppliers, partners and investments, including the arbitrary choice of the platform OpenStack without considering alternatives or performing a technical assessment. This study examines the impact of advertising, and provides recommendations based on the practical realities of OpenStack to date.

Impressions and Recommendations:

The hype around open source CMP platforms causes some customers to draw unreasonable conclusions that can lead to incorrect decisions on choosing CMP platform suppliers to create a private cloud, or buying a cloud service IaaS from a service provider.

Some people were led to believe that since OpenStack has open source, it is an open and widespread standard, with wide functional compatibility and freedom from commercial interests. In fact, OpenStack is guided by commercial interests, since for related companies it is a business development strategy, and not an initiative of the community of altruistic individual sponsors. Some participants, in particular Rackspace and other service providers are afraid of the growing influence of AWS in the market of cloud services IaaS and are not sure that they will be able to collect, independently, engineering resources necessary for the successful large-scale competition to AWS, and do not want to pay a constant license payment for commercial CMP like a set of the software of VMware vCloud.

Rackspace and HP believe that with OpenStack they will be able to offer hybrid public/private solutions if they can achieve the use of OpenStack in internal corporate clouds. Other companies, such as Piston Cloud Computing, Nebula and Cloudscaling, provide commercial distribution of OpenStack, along with professional service and support. Many companies, such as Cisco, Citrix (see Note 2), Dell and Red Hat, want to ensure OpenStack compatibility with their products, as well as limit VMware's growing market impact.

OpenStack attracted a large number of companies offering source code development, but many companies offer only specialized code, such as drivers for their hardware and prevent the creation of interoperability that requires common platforms that could facilitate switching between suppliers. The interests of companies also have a strong influence on the selection of functions to be added and the methods of their implementation, since each company wants each function to work best with its own products.

OpenStack platform is not an open standard because it provides neither interoperability nor mobility. However, it has an open community and everyone can participate in discussions and offer additions to the source code. Technical guidance is chosen by participants, although the majority of participants are employees of vendor finance companies, and in practice, technical guidance is provided by vendor employees. Voting rights on the board of directors of the future organization will be determined mainly by the sponsorship of vendors. The open nature of the community, combined with closed meetings of sponsors, sometimes leads to strong internal confrontation between community members, especially during the work of Rackspace on the creation of the non-profit organization OpenStack Foundation.

There are problems with functional compatibility between versions of the OpenStack, due to the fact that the project is in the process of emergence and constant change, although these problems decrease as the project develops and compatibility becomes a community priority. There are also problems with functional compatibility between distributions, especially if you take into account that commercial distributions of the OpenStack platform usually include private extensions that reduce the level of integration.

In addition, since OpenStack is essentially a platform for components, not a product, some distributions may use components that are not at all the same as in the base version of OpenStack. For example, instead of a Swift project, another open Ceph project can be used to store data, or they may not include any components and related functionality at all. These differences between versions and distributions extend to APIs, making it difficult for third-party libraries and tools to support OpenStack reliably. This lack of interoperability, even within the OpenStack, will also limit the ability to create fully open hybrid public-private or federated cloud systems; instead, they will most likely require the use of specific service providers and the use of distributions supported by them.

As supplier companies seek to commercialize the OpenStack ecosystem, there is a marked tendency to link to the supplier. For users there is no big difference to whom to bind, to OpenStack or licensed CMPs. In effect, as OpenStack is not the standard standard yet, the number of solution providers is strongly limited (whether it be the equipment, ON or services) that narrows the choice of users, than acceptance of VMware vCloud even more. There are few implementations of CMP OpenStack. In practice, AWS APIs have the widest ecosystem, including a large number of CMPs, both open and private, offering compatible implementations.

Recommendations:

• Evaluate OpenStack with no less care than any other licensed commercial offer.
• Do not consider OpenStack as your preferred standard when determining compatibility of the API and CMP platform in the context of selecting technology or service providers, unless you have a business or technical reason to do so.
• Government agencies should be particularly attentive and not accept the platform as OpenStack generally accepted open standard. This is especially important during the development of supplier selection requirements. Since there is only one implementation of the OpenStack CMP platform, few service providers OpenStack and even fewer alternative ecosystems (in terms of hardware, software manager, tools and libraries), due to the lack of a significant market share, currently OpenStack more restricts than increases choice.

The marketing activities of supplier companies make Chief information officers believe that OpenStack is a stable, developed platform ready for wide distribution, while in fact this project is at an early stage of its development and has unstable source code and a limited set of functions.

The Swift release has a successful experience and established code, but the rest of the releases OpenStack completely new. In the past, OpenStack has had problems with the stability of source code, although recent changes in the development process should increase the stability of future releases. However, it continues to have difficulties with project management and scope management, thus putting at risk the timely development of planned functions and overall project development.

Quality control (QA) has improved over time, but remains a problem. Supplier companies and service providers have developed the best quality control systems and testing tools, but do not put them in the open source project, since they can be competitive advantages in creating service offerings and reduce the time to market distributions and related software (software).

As a rule, supplier companies involved in the development of OpenStack believe that it will be able to achieve a level of stability and technological readiness comparable to standard commercial enterprise-class software no earlier than the end of 2013. In addition, after each new release, it takes several months to achieve source code stability, as corrections apply to all new code that was released with the release.

The projected time frame for achieving stability is constantly changing. Usually, the developers believe that this requires another one and a half to two years, but they say this for several releases, and now there is no specific plan to determine the timing of achieving stability. Typically, commercial software reaches stability by this time of its development, and the estimated time period is too long, even for complex open projects.

Constant changes in the project also make it difficult for individual organizations - whether customer organizations or supplier companies in the ecosystem OpenStack - to create and maintain open source extensions. For example, one of the advantages of using open source is that you can add any missing functions yourself, but if the method of implementing the function is incompatible with the next version, you will have to change and, possibly, completely rewrite your code. Because the OpenStack currently has a very limited set of functions, many organizations have to complement OpenStack in order to meet their requirements, so this is a serious problem that can reduce the level of competitiveness of OpenStack with other open CMPs.

The overall difficulties of the project have led many suppliers to review their OpenStack strategies. Often, suppliers, as well as users of OpenStack, speak openly and in private about OpenStack very different things. This discrepancy between public and private opinions stems from the desire of users to associate themselves with a project called the future of open cloud systems. However, their reservations about the ability of the project to create a stable product within a commercially significant time interval are very serious and, therefore, now many suppliers are reluctant to give significant technical resources to the project.

The desire of suppliers to gain a competitive advantage in the ecosystem of OpenStack leads to the fact that they are reluctant to give operational and technological capabilities to the kernel of open source code. For example, in this kernel there is neither fitter, nor mechanisms of updating or modernization as both of these crucial opportunities are left for commercial distribution kits. Updates require reinstallation and full upgrade of workloads. While the project is in its early stages of development, the new versions may differ dramatically, thereby disrupting compatibility and requiring long preparation and testing periods prior to the transition. Many of the first OpenStack users still use older versions.

Service providers are interested in differentiated functions, and suppliers are interested in differentiated private distributions, or even the sale of additional software for OpenStack (including commercial CMPs operating at higher levels of the CMP software complex). They invest exactly as much in OpenStack as they need to succeed, and at the same time they retain as much resources as they need to ensure their own success.

Recommendations:

• If you are considering using the OpenStack, perform a thorough technical assessment, determine that you have the technical skills to deploy and operate it, and calculate the total cost of ownership of the solution, since open source code is not always cheaper.
• Consider licensed CMPs, as well as free and commercial distributions OpenStack and other open CMPs, in particular, Eucalyptus (which has received an official AWS API license from Amazon, and is relatively easy to deploy) and CloudStack (which is usually chosen by service providers and everyone who wants to fully use AWS-compatible cloud systems).

Chief information officers may confuse the adoption of APIs with the adoption of a CMP that supports this API, which forces them to narrow their technology platform to their detriment.

The original API of the OpenStack platform was the AWS API, but it is in the process of migrating to its own native API, and continued support for the AWS API is a matter of dispute in the community. AWS competitors, especially Rackspace, are concerned that this may enhance the AWS ecosystem, so compatibility with AWS can be removed from the main project over time. Currently, the native API OpenStack has only modest support for third-party tools.

Fortunately, because cloud APIs are relatively simple, it is only necessary to create a connector for translating one API to another. Whether irrespective of you believe that OpenStack will become the most popular API over time, you do not need to use OpenStack CMP to use OpenStack API; to do this, you can simply use the connector.

Recommendations:

• Do not limit your capabilities. Instead of writing directly in the cloud API IaaS, use a third-party, multi-cloud libcloud or jclouds library. Consider using a cloud management tool that supports more than one cloud, such as enStratus, RightScale, or ServiceMesh. Remember that the capabilities of cloud service providers can vary greatly, so everything that works with multiple clouds can only provide cross-cloud functionality with the "smallest common denominator."
• Choose a CMP that supports multiple cloud API headers, allowing you to quickly connect libraries and tools that work with other APIs.

Proponents of OpenStack claim that it will eventually supplant full-featured CMPs in commercial enterprises, especially VMware vCloud Suite, but it currently implements only basic CMP capabilities.

Proponents of OpenStack, especially Rackspace and HP, argued that OpenStack would eventually become the preferred CMP for private clouds, including commercial enterprises, as well as service provider clouds. However, a modest set of functions OpenStack makes it unlikely that they will supplant more full-featured solutions. OpenStack this is basically a resource administrator and can be at this level it will become a common component, but the functionality of CMP - and the value advantages - exist mainly above this level.

Over time, OpenStack can add components that provide higher-level functionality, but they probably will not have the same set of features as its licensed counterparts, as is typical for open-source solutions in the rest of the IT operations management tool market. Each company that is associated with services or commercial distributions of OpenStack has different go-to-market strategies, although in some cases they may want to offer full-featured commercial CMPs that use OpenStack at the resource administrator level.

OpenStack solutions are unlikely to supplant VMware vCloud Suite or Microsoft System Center, or competitive products such as BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, over the next five years. Theoretically, OpenStack solutions do not depend on the hypervisor, but in reality they only support KVM or Xen technologies. Its support for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V will not be functional for enterprise deployment. It is also unlikely that OpenStack will displace vSphere or Hyper-V, in favor of Xen or KVM, in commercial organizations.

The Alliance OpenStack faces a very difficult battle with VMware, which already has a large base of installed equipment, market entry and a set of products whose applications go far beyond resource management. Microsoft is also rapidly growing its market share, thanks to its strong position in the corporate sector and the fact that MicroSoft often acts as a strategic supplier. Customers want to be able to incorporate hybrid cloud features into their internal virtual environments, and typically turn to their old vendors for solutions.

Of course, many commercial companies are looking for more cost-effective alternatives to VMware for hypervisor and CMP, and that many are interested in the potential cost savings offered by open solutions. However, at the moment, it is much better for such companies to add Microsoft as a second supplier than to make an open decision.

In our opinion, in the next five years, most commercial companies will accept CMPs that integrate with the functions they already have, or that offer a simpler to implement and a more advanced solution than OpenStack. This does not mean that the OpenStack will not be successful over time, but it is unlikely to be the main corporate decision in the near future.

Recommendations:

• Do not make plans for the future development of your data center, which should be based on OpenStack. OpenStack can be considered a promising project, along with a large number of suppliers who have been victims of its noisy marketing campaign, but there is absolutely no guarantee of its future success. Instead of considering the number of companies that have joined the project, it is better to judge the progress of the OpenStack by its ability to issue future releases in a timely manner, together with the planned functions and the minimum number of corrections, and to achieve universal recognition.
• To maximize deployment flexibility and interoperability that will eventually eliminate the use of multiple service providers, try to select CMP solutions that provide logical independence of service levels (access control, service management, service optimization, resource management, and core resources) from one another.

OpenStack can eventually become a reliable open core of a large and successful ecosystem of commercial offerings.

There are a number of reasons why OpenStack can be considered a promising project, namely:

• Specifications and implementations are robust and designed to deploy truly full-scale cloud systems.
• The breadth of the provider community and ease of implementation quickly made OpenStack one of the four main ecosystems of the cloud infrastructure (along with Amazon, VMware and Microsoft.)
• The basic platform provided by OpenStack allows new developments to go through the incubation period. In addition, the open nature of source code allows you to decentralize and jointly introduce new solutions.

We believe that there are three main ways in which OpenStack can succeed in the long term:

• Open source will eventually become a successful solution for those looking for basic, cheap CMP.
• Successful
  commercial products and services will be included in the open source kernel, in addition to private enhancements and features added by supplier companies.
• Cloud service providers will IaaS use the open source kernel, combined with their own capabilities or received from commercial providers, to strengthen their offerings on a wide scale.

OpenStack is in the process of transferring from Rackspace to the non-profit organization OpenStack Foundation. Once this organization has taken over the reins of government, it will have to answer questions critical to the development of the project, including the definition of the essence of the OpenStack. For example, what can be called "OpenStack" and in what context.

Potentially, this could address some of the interoperability and fragmentation issues, as well as enhance overall project guidance and administration, and would be critical to transforming OpenStack from a highly specialized, evolving solution into something suitable for common use.

Recommendations:

If you accept OpenStack:

• Join a community that needs a stronger representation of operators and users.
• In
  turn, offer your own fixes and enhancements for inclusion in open source if your organization allows it.

• Original article

2011

Cisco and Canonical Join the Project

In early 2011, it became known that Cisco and Canonical were joining the projects. The idea about cooperation with community OpenStack in Cisco belongs to the new vice president and the technical director of the company Lew Tucker who before the employment in Cisco held several months the same post in the SUN Microsystems company before. As part of the OpenStack project, Cisco will deal with "cloud" network infrastructure technologies: "So that cloud computing can fully cope with tomorrow's applications, in our opinion, you should consider the network as an infrastructure service, along with services for providing computing resources and storage," Lew Tucker writes in a personal blog. He also notes that Cisco's participation will not be limited to just designing and developing specifications - company engineers will also develop code for OpenStack projects.

Canonical's participation in the OpenStack project was somewhat unexpected, since so far this company has supported another open project with similar goals - Eucalyptus. Just a day earlier, on February 2, Canonical, together with Eucalyptus and Dell, announced a solution for creating private cloud systems. OpenStack is a direct competitor to Eucalyptus, and at one time, it was the controversial commercial model and architectural limitations of Eucalyptus that prompted NASA to create its own cloud infrastructure, which was the basis of the OpenStack project.

However, the current accession to the OpenStack is only a trial step and does not imply the abandonment of the partnership with Eucalyptus:

Our long-term goal in the case of OpenStack is to make Ubuntu the best OS for 'clouds' in this stack, both at the infrastructure level and as a guest system," writes Nick Barcet, head of cloud computing at Canonical. - In release 11.04 (Nattyy Narwhal) OpenStack 2011.1 (Bexar) will be included as a technological demonstration, and Canonica will not yet fully support this solution. We want to give our users the opportunity to test this solution and leave their feedback before we begin to position it as an environment ready for industrial operation.

The OpenStack project at this time is most attractive for developers who want to experiment with cloud computing. At the same time, the main difference between OpenStack and Eucalyptus, another well-known open source development for deploying private clouds, is absolute openness. If Eucalyptus provides full functionality only to customers of the corporate version, then the functionality of the free version of OpenStack is not limited. However, if pilot implementations are successful, companies begin to show interest in commercial-level support and support services.

The announcement of paid services shows that OpenStack is not a completely non-commercial project. According to the company's press release, the Cloud Builders commercial service will include training and certification services, integration and support for OpenStack implementations. However, there is currently no information on the cost of Cloud Builders commercial services on the site.

Since OpenStack is an open source project, formally nothing prevents its other participants from starting to provide similar services, becoming competitors of Rackspace. Until recently, such a competitor could theoretically be the Anso Labs development team, which worked on OpenStack as part of orders from the NASA aerospace agency. However, after Rackspace acquired Anso Labs, fully concentrating the key development team at home, the emergence of full-fledged competition for the Cloud Builders project soon became unlikely.

Release OpenStack Cactus

April 2011: Cactus is the third release of the project in less than a year since launch. The new release uses the imaging service introduced in a previous version called Glance. According to OpenStack Jonathan Bryce, chairman of the board, Glance reached maturity in the new release and became fully ready for industrial use. Accordingly, the Glance service received a new, more respectable name: OpenStack Image Service.

Starting with Cactus, OpenStack will come with a new API that will allow you to access an open cloud stack from a wide range of third-party applications. "The new API allows you to create extensions," Bryce says. - And in the API namespace, a special area is allocated for functions that are not related to the basic functionality of the software OpenStack. " In particular, the extensible API will allow you to program complex network functions or integrate OpenStack with equipment that is not provided for by the basic delivery.

Bryce expressed the hope that the new API would promote innovation and allow more people to benefit from OpenStack. In addition, additional functions, originally written in the form of modules, will later be able to go to the main project code.

The Cactus release also includes an advanced authentication system for cloud storage: "We are talking about a fully rewritten distributed authentication system for the needs of the project, which is now ready for industrial use," said Bryce.

In general, the development and standardization of the authentication system is one of the priority areas for the development of the project, and this course will be continued in further releases, Bryce added.

The next release of the OpenStack is expected to be released in July 2011 - it will be codenamed Diablo.

Riverbed Technology Joins Project

Riverbed Technology, which specializes in IT productivity solutions, announced in November 2011 that it was joining the OpenStack community, a global community of developers collaborating on an open cloud architecture and an open source cloud operating system. As organizations migrate their data and applications to the cloud, networking across the WAN becomes a major challenge in delivering high application performance. By joining the OpenStack community, Riverbed is working to provide support for the OpenStack platform in its WAN optimization solutions to enable efficient cloud environments.

Providing support for OpenStack in Riverbed solutions to optimize WAN continues the company's existing collaboration with the OpenStack project, in which Riverbed provided support for this platform in its virtual application delivery controllers (vADC). Riverbed's WAN optimization solutions and virtual application delivery controllers provide a technology solution that enables organizations to improve IT performance in a public, private, and hybrid cloud environment.

Mirantis launches the site www.openstack.ru

In December 2011, a new platform for communication and interaction between Russian developers working with advanced technology OpenStack - www.openstack.ru. The community, which will bring together IT professionals, was created under the patronage of Mirantis and is designed to become a convenient platform for sharing experience and knowledge related to OpenStack, Cloud Computing, Private Cloud and many others.

OpenStack technology is one of the new solutions, the popularity and demand of which is rapidly gaining momentum. It includes a series of interconnected projects that develop multiple components of a cloud infrastructure solution. OpenStack use large companies, service providers, VARS, small and medium businesses, researchers, and worldwide data centers. The OpenStack code is freely distributed: anyone can start the software, add additional settings or return it to its original state.

Since Russian developers, including Mirantis specialists, take an active part in the development of this area, one of the key tasks was to create a convenient and informative Russian-language platform. Its goal is not only to post various information on OpenStack technology, but, above all, to discuss and share the experience that developers have accumulated at the global level regarding the creation and application of OpenStack. Thanks to the www.openstack.ru web portal, Russian specialists have the opportunity to share expertise, express opinions and receive data on cloud technologies online.

In addition to describing OpenStack technology and blogs where the latest changes and news are discussed, the site OpenStack provides visitors with the opportunity to get acquainted with cloud-related events - for this, there is a calendar of events on the site. It includes all conferences, seminars and meetings that are devoted to technologies OpenStack and are held in various countries of the world. Besides, there is a section on the site "Vacancies," where developers can find an up-to-date list of open positions.

Boris Rensky, co-founder and vice president of Mirantis, comments on the appearance of the www.openstack.ru site: "OpenStack is one of the advanced modern IT technologies, which is gaining popularity very quickly. Since OpenStack accumulates the expertise of developers around the world, the exchange of experience comes first in the development of the product. Western experts have a popular and sought-after resource - www.openstack.org, which helps both developers and companies - users of technology OpenStack share current information and get answers to current questions. In my opinion, the contribution of Russian specialists to the creation of OpenStack is significant. The organization of a professional community dedicated to this technology is a response to the fast-growing market and a platform that, I hope, will contribute to both the development of the solution and the professional growth of specialists in this field. "

2010: Start of the project

The Open Cloud Infrastructure Project OpenStack was opened on July 19, 2010 at the initiative of hosting provider Rackspace and NASA to counter Amazon's offensive on the cloud front. Currently, the OpenStack includes all the services required for the cloud platform, including basic tools for computing, storage and networking, as well as additional functionality for launching common software technologies such as Hadoop and containers.

Notes