OpenStack cloud operating system has “grown into a de facto standard platform for the private cloud market and now serves as the foundation for public clouds, particularly in Europe and China", according to a newly released report by Forrester Research.
Forrester noted that OpenStack is the most widely deployed open source cloud computing software. It is used globally by large and small enterprises, service providers, government/research organizations and a diversity of industries. OpenStack offers a de-facto cloud computing standard that supports containers, VMs and bare metal, offering users an interoperable footprint of compute, storage and networking resources.
The December 2016 report analyzes the state of OpenStack at the time of the October 2016 Barcelona Summit, which was convened to showcase Newton, the latest release of OpenStack software, and plan for the 14th release of the software, codenamed Ocata and expected in February 2017.
“In the past year, telcos like CableLabs, SK Telecom, and Verizon have shelved their previous objections to the Neutron networking project and flocked to the OpenStack community, contributing features like Doctor,” the report states. “Leading infrastructure & operations (I&O) professionals, application developers, and CIOs at firms like American Express, Disney, and Walmart have embraced OpenStack for their digital businesses. It’s the foundation of many private (and, increasingly, of many public) cloud services that give your company the agility it needs to respond to customer demand, from core systems to the mobile apps that deliver differentiated customer experiences.”
The report noted that for some, OpenStack underpins a bigger effort to transform the network with network function virtualization (NFV) with the Newton release focuses on container support and simple network requests.
In addition, OpenStack API service, Magnum has expanded its scope to offer other orchestration cluster tools, including Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Mesos with either VM or bare metal.
