OpenStack developers have updated the project's open-source cloud software with a new graphical interface and a unified authentication-management system.
One goal behind the update is to "make OpenStack easier to use and administer," said Jonathan Bryce, chairman of the OpenStack Project Policy Board. "And we've continued to improve for extreme scale" to enable OpenStack to accommodate "tens of thousands" of servers, he added, noting that "other options out there aren't really considering that scale."
Overall, this release -- named Diablo -- will include over 70 new features and enhancements, a number of which address the goal of massive scalability. A new distributed scheduler will deploy virtual machines anywhere in the system, and a new multicluster container sync feature can replicate data across different remote clusters. The image-management service now allows users to search for specific virtual machine instances.
Developed by NASA for its Nebula cloud project, OpenStack open-source software runs large cloud installations. So far, it has been downloaded over 50,000 times.
This version of this story was originally published in Computerworld's print edition. It was adapted from an article that appeared earlier on Computerworld.com.
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