OpenStack has reached to the 15th release with the debut of its all-new version called Ocata. Focused entirely on stabilisation, the newest cloud computing software brings scalability and performance.
Unlike bringing new features that mainly were a part of the last release, the OpenStack community is aiming to improve the existing features of the cloud platform through its 15th release. The OpenStack Ocata version is a result of the contribution received by over 50 project teams that comprise nearly 2,000 developers from 52 countries and 265 organisations. These joint efforts have upgraded the model with greater support for container-based application frameworks and enabled containerisation of major OpenStack services.
“Using container orchestration frameworks to run OpenStack like an application makes it easier to operate. That means it takes fewer people to run the cloud, making OpenStack a more accessible and practical option to those running at smaller scale,” said Jonathan Bryce, executive director, OpenStack Foundation.
OpenStack Ocata comes with a new Nova compute “placement” API that allows you to intelligently allocate resources based on your application needs. The Horizon dashboard on the cloud platform has also received support for the keystone-to-keystone federation as a new os-profiler UI. The OpenStack developers have uplifted the ironic bare metal service with some networking and driver enhancements. Additionally, there are improved performance and CPU usage for Telemetry projects to handle millions of metrics per second using Ceilometer with Gnocchi storage engine.
The Ocata version has some new container-based application frameworks and deployment tools. You can use Kolla to containerised OpenStack services, Kuryr to bring container networking and storage and Zun to manage your existing and new containers.
Safety check for upgrade
To make the upgrade to Ocata safe enough on a variety of deployments, the OpenStack community has designed a new ‘nova-status upgrade check’ command line interface. This new development enables operators to test the readiness of their deployment to see whether they should safely upgrade to the newest OpenStack version or what needs to be addressed upgrading.
A safety check through a solution like the new command line interface is vital as OpenStack’s adoption shows increasing maturity. The latest OpenStack User Survey reveals that there is a 20 percent increase in production deployments year-over-year, reaching 71 percent in production or full operational use.
You can download OpenStack Ocata from its official website today. It comes with a contracted development cycle of four months.
