Another release for open source cloud computing project OpenStack and this one is the seventh, on April 4, Openstack announced Grizzly.
This new release saw the contribute of over 500 participants and has about 230 new features to support production operations at scale and integration with enterprise technologies, including broad Software-Defined Networking support, its development cycle focused on supporting practical use cases for deployers and operators, including Best Buy, Comcast, CERN, HP, NeCTAR, NSA, Rackspace, Samsung SDS.
Among the new features:
- OpenStack Compute: it aims to deliver production operations at greater scale, with “Cells” to manage distributed clusters and the “NoDB” host architecture to reduce reliance on a central database. Furthermore improvements in virtualization management deliver new features and support for multiple hypervisors, including ESX, KVM, Xen and Hyper-V.
- OpenStack Object Storage: quotas were added to the object storage system as well as Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) to automatically control the growth of object storage environments.
- OpenStack Block Storage: delivers a full storage service for managing heterogeneous storage environments from a centralized access point.
- OpenStack Networking: the network-as-a-service platform enables advanced network automation, allowing users to control their networking technology of choice, with support for Open vSwitch, Cisco UCS/Nexus, Linux Bridge, Nicira, Ryu OpenFlow, and NEC OpenFlow.
- OpenStack Dashboard: exposes new features across OpenStack clouds, like Networking and LBaaS.
- OpenStack Identity: A token format based on standard PKI functionality which should provideperformance improvements and allow offline token authentication by clients without requiring additional Identity service calls.
Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation affirms that
The Grizzly release is a clear indication of the maturity of the OpenStack software development process, as contributors continue to produce a stable, scalable and feature-rich platform for building public, private and hybrid clouds, the community delivered another packed release on schedule, attracting contributions from some of the brightest technologists across virtualization, storage, networking, security, and systems engineering. They are not only solving the complex problems of cloud, but driving the entire technology industry forward.
Very interesting is the point of view of GigaOM which reports concerns about OpenStack such as a possible problem of compatibility among the OpenStack implementations, from Rackspace, HP, IBM, Red Hat, Internap, Cloudscaling, Nebula etc and the pressure of the competence between HP to offer better features than IBM or Red Hat’s OpenStack clouds.