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OpenStack: open source cloud software marks third birthday

"In spite of all the press, I still get people asking me if OpenStack is 'actually used in production anywhere.'"
Written by Joe McKendrick, Contributing Writer

OpenStack, the open source cloud software provider, celebrates it's third birthday on July 19th.

As with all things disruptive, the open-source "cloud operating system" started off enabling many under-funded organizations to start building their own clouds. Now, it has already worked its way up into Fortune 1,000 territory:

"OpenStack is maturing, it’s coming of age and new users being announced every week (Fidelity, Comcast, Best Buy, Bloomberg).Over the past three years, we’ve also seen OpenStack grow internationally. There are now over 40 global user groups and more than 10,000 community members across 121 countries. And we’ve recently crossed the 1,000 authors threshold to the code base."

Some comments from OpenStack community leaders:

Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph, automation and tools engineer at HP: "In spite of all the press that I see, I still get people asking me if OpenStack is 'actually used in production anywhere.' It’s a great opportunity for me to rattle off my list of Fortune 500 companies who use it, but it seems like the press for that hasn’t quite penetrated as far in the industry as we may like."

Clint Byrum, HP Cloud Services: "Much like Linux, I’d like to see OpenStack get to a point where it is just obvious that this is the place you go to contribute. I’d like to see OpenStack as the platform that the leaders stand on to drive innovation in the IT space."

Wayne Walls, cloud architect at Rackspace: Two compelling arguments for OpenStack: 1) "The community ecosystem is friendly, brilliant and engaging.  OpenStack is like a family, sure there are disagreements, but at the end of the day everyone is looking out for each other and wants to make OpenStack the best it can be for the world to use; and 2)  OpenStack unlocks the ability to pick the right place for your application to get the best benefit.  It’s a true hybrid cloud strategy."

 

OpenStack Timeline

 

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