The OpenStack open source cloud operating system project has this week announced a new software release across three areas — OpenStack Compute, Object Storage, and Image Service.
Dubbed the 'Cactus' release, much of the development and documentation efforts have apparently been spent extending the API. In total, 40 features have been added over and above the previous release of OpenStack, which was known as Bexar.
In the 10 weeks between Bexar and the arrival of Cactus, more than 4,700 code commits have been considered and a total of 60 organizations are now participating in the OpenStack community.
According to Stuart Simms, vice president of Cloud at Rackspace, "The OpenStack project now supports all major virtualization technologies including Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, LXC, QEMU, UML, VMware vSphere, Xen, and Citrix XenServer — and we're very pleased to see it grow so quickly.
The Cactus release extends across the previously available OpenStack Compute and Object Storage, as well as the newer OpenStack Image Service. The OpenStack Image Service (codename "Glance") works as a discovery, public registration, and delivery service for virtual disk images. It now features security enhancements including image verification, as well as a new command-line tool for a better user experience.
"OpenStack is the fastest growing open source cloud project right now. In less than a year, we've have three successful code releases, contributions from 200+ open source developers, and the backing of more than 60 participating organizations like Canonical, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and NASA. It is already in production with Internap, NASA, NephoScale, and Rackspace, with more deployments expected this quarter," added Simms.
The Cactus release's new features also include a new OpenStack API 1.1 with support for extensions, which (if implemented properly) should allow developers to innovate more quickly by adding extensions to their local OpenStack installations ahead of the code being accepted by the OpenStack community as a whole.
