Mohammed NaserThe OpenInfra Live Keynotes, a 2-day online event celebrated the best advancements and contributions to open source. Read on,
The OpenInfra Live Keynotes, a two-day online event celebrating the best advancements and contributions to open source infrastructure development, has commenced, and what a spectacular start it was!
This two-day special edition of OpenInfra Live allows the community to meet the latest players of the OpenInfra space, interact with teams behind open source projects like OpenStack and Kubernetes, and gain insights into how open source technologies shape the public cloud economics of today. On Day 1 of the event, hundreds of users logged in live into the event, and as a Supporting Sponsor of the event, team VEXXHOST is more than happy to bring you this recap of what happened.
OpenInfra Live Keynotes - And So It Begins!
The OpenInfra Live Keynotes began with an excellent introduction and milestone recap from OpenInfra Foundation's COO, Mark Collier, and Executive Director Jonathan Bryce. It's been only a year since the foundation began, but even then, the community has seen tremendous growth, armed with the strength of a decade-long rise of OpenStack and similar projects. They mentioned that since January 2021, there have been 25% more members in the Foundation, including the tech giant, Microsoft.
Even with the challenges posed by the pandemic, every project under the foundation's umbrella had a new release, serving as a testament to open source collaborative growth. In just the past year, the number of OpenStack-based cores rose from 15 million to 25 million - a staggering 66% growth! Globally, more than 180 data centers now run OpenStack, and there exist seven companies running over a million OpenStack cores.
Furthermore, Jonathan and Mark mentioned that three of the world's top open source projects are infrastructure-related - namely, Linux (a pioneer in open source, running for over 30 years), OpenStack (a standard for open source cloud which just had its 24th release in 11 years), and Kubernetes (the go-to container orchestration solution for the world, 6 years into production). Jonathan also introduced an excellent acronym for combining these three platforms - the LOKI stack - standing for Linux, OpenStack, and Kubernetes Infrastructure. The acronym was very well received by the members and has already made it to the common parlance of the community members - it goes without saying that we love it here at VEXXHOST!
Combined, the LOKI stack is now seeing over 150000 code changes every year. Additionally, it has been found that over 70% of OpenStack users are currently running Kubernetes in their environment. This level of combined innovation through open source contributions has its waves in every industry and brings forward the concept of decentralization. And thus, the event moved on to further keynotes, starting with the topic of decentralization.
Decentralization and the Four Opens
Entrepreneur and Crypto Expert Balaji Srinivasan gave the community insights into 'The Role and Impact of Decentralization.' Starting off with the debate around what is considered decentralization, Balaji further explained why it matters as a continuous process reliant on the number of nodes in the system, the choke point analysis, the applications on blockchain as a massive database, and how blockchains are the next state after open source, since it also includes open execution.
Continuing on open source applications as a global community, OSI Foundation Board Member and Open Source Hacker Aeva Black spoke about 'Building a Successful Open Source Community with the Four Opens.' Starting with the global presence of open source, how nearly every human life has been touched by it, and the presence of open source tech even on Mars, Aeva went on to explain the story behind OpenStack and the growing communities that stemmed from it. Now, even the largest tech companies want to participate in the revolution based on the Four Opens. Furthermore, Aeva mentioned that open source projects must be democratic, inclusive, and dynamic communities that are capable of creating global changes and creating with leaders who can take them forward.
Open Source Licensing and Contributions
Next up was the topic 'Benefits and Impacts of Open Source Licensing' with Allison Randal of the foundation in conversation with Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of OSI, and Tom Callaway, Principal Open Source Evangelist of AWS. Together, they spoke about the simplicity of software adoption through open source. Open source makes the industry a level playing field by mitigating risks and reducing cumbersome ways of production. It helps companies understand what they can and can't do. From an end-user perspective, it empowers you to use the tech to its full potential or even develop further. Open source brings more freedom of choice, and ushers in new innovations, something proprietary software often fails to do.
The OpenInfra Live Keynotes then moved on to Sarah Novotny, Director of Open Source Strategy and Ecosystem at Microsoft who spoke about 'Why Organizations should Contribute to Open Source'. Sarah mentioned that companies who consider going the open source route should reflect on the choice as to what is the prime objective - are you changing the industry or creating a partner ecosystem? Additionally, open source successes are different for different goals and they can be categorized into three C's - core, context, and complement.
Taibai, the Million Core Club, and OpenSnacks!
The OpenInfra Live Keynotes event also saw the arrival of some new, exciting things to the community. First up, was the introduction of Taibai, the latest addition to OpenInfra Labs. Named after a mountain in Shaanxi province in China, Taibai is a new generation multi-cloud platform with integratable architecture meant to help a lot of end-users. The platform was introduced by Hao Wang of FiberHome in conversation with Haoyang Li of the OpenInfra Foundation. Later, Michael Daitzman of the OpenInfra Labs spoke about how to contribute to Taibai and other projects within the OpenInfra Lab.
Yet another interesting announcement was the launch of the 'Million Core Club' for OpenStack by the foundation. This club essentially includes companies that run over a million OpenStack cores and there are seven companies as its founding members, including Yahoo, Line, China Mobile, Walmart, and Workday.
The Keynotes also saw the launch of OpenSnacks, a series that will run on the next two days giving insights on how to contribute to open source projects. Introduced by Kendall Nelson, the event later saw Amy Marrich speaking on how to contribute to OpenStack and Christoph Blecker giving ideas on contributing to Kubernetes.
Additional Sessions and Day One Wrap-Up
Day one of the OpenInfra Live Keynotes also saw many other sessions. Here is a quick look on the topics:
- 'Celebrating 30 Years of Linux: The Open Source Operating System Standard' by Jim Zemlin, a Linux Foundation Executive
- 'The Hybrid Cloud Foundation', by Sean Cohen of Redhat
- Jimmy McArthur's conversation with Dr. Abhisak Chulya on 'Understanding the OpenStack Momentum in Thailand'
- Allison Price in conversation with Imtiaz Chowdhury on 'Explosive OpenStack Growth: Why Workday Doubled their Private Cloud Footprint in a Year'
Jonathan Bryce and Mark Collier wrapped up the day one events by noting that eventually, the customer makes the final decision on whether they need public or private cloud, the ability of open source enables community growth, how communication is now on steroids with 5G.
VEXXHOST as a Member of the OpenInfra Community
VEXXHOST was a Corporate Member of the OpenStack Foundation for many years. Our association with the OpenStack community began in 2011, and we've been a part of the journey so far as avid contributors and users. We are now a Founding Silver Member of the Open Infrastructure Foundation and help accompany it to new heights of open source development.
As a reputed IaaS provider, we ensure that our clients get the best cloud solutions to implement their microservices. At VEXXHOST, we provide cloud solutions for a multitude of clients worldwide. We provide OpenStack-based clouds, including public clouds and dedicated and highly secure private cloud environments, ensuring utmost security and agility.
Take advantage of our limited-time deal just to set up a one-time, OpenStack-based private cloud deployment - at 50% off! The cloud will be running on the latest OpenStack release, Wallaby, which allows you to run Kubernetes and VMs in the same environment, and can be deployed in your own data centers with your hardware. Furthermore, all these will be deployed and tested in under a month!
What are you waiting for? Learn more!