Skip to main content

OpenStack

OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform (infrastructure-as-a-service) for deploying and managing private and public clouds using pooled compute, storage, and networking resources.

  • Modular Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform for private and public clouds (cloud infrastructure)
  • Virtual Machine (VM) lifecycle management and scheduling across compute nodes (compute virtualization)
  • Block, object, and shared file storage provisioning and management (software-defined storage)
  • Virtual networking, routing, and security groups for tenant isolation (software-defined networking)
  • Multi-tenant identity, policy, and dashboard-based administration (cloud management and governance)

More About OpenStack

OpenStack is an open-source cloud infrastructure platform (infrastructure-as-a-service) designed to manage large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources in data centers and to expose these resources through APIs and a web-based dashboard. It targets operators that need to build private clouds, hosted private clouds, or public cloud services using commodity hardware with an open, modular control plane.

The project is composed of multiple services that can be deployed together or separately. The compute service (compute virtualization) manages VM instances, scheduling them across a cluster of hypervisor nodes and handling lifecycle operations such as provisioning, resizing, and termination. Storage capabilities are split across block storage for persistent volumes attached to instances, object storage for durable, scalable storage of unstructured data, and shared file system services (software-defined storage) that provide network file shares to workloads.

Networking in OpenStack is handled by a dedicated service (software-defined networking) that provides tenant networks, subnets, routers, floating Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), and security groups. It supports multi-tenant network isolation and integration with various plugin backends, allowing operators to Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) the logical network model to their physical networking infrastructure. Identity and access management (identity and access management) is provided by a central authentication and authorization service that handles users, projects, roles, and service endpoints, and can integrate with external identity providers.

OpenStack exposes Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs for all core services (cloud infrastructure APIs), enabling integration with orchestration tools, Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, and external management platforms. A web-based dashboard (cloud management) provides operators and project users with a graphical interface to manage instances, networks, volumes, images, and quotas. Additional services cover image management for VM templates, orchestration of composite applications using templates, telemetry and metering, and placement and resource tracking (operations and observability categories where applicable).

Enterprises and institutions use OpenStack to implement private and hybrid cloud strategies, host internal line-of-business applications, support virtualized network functions, and provide self-service infrastructure to development teams. The platform’s modular architecture and plugin model support integration with diverse hypervisors, storage backends, and network technologies, making it a fit for heterogeneous environments. From a directory perspective, OpenStack is categorized as an open-source cloud infrastructure platform, providing a control plane for compute, storage, and networking resources with multi-tenant management, API-driven provisioning, and extensible service components.

Mentions