OpenStack Xena was announced by the Open Infrastructure Foundation as the 24th OpenStack release on 6th October 2021. Read on.
The Open Infrastructure Foundation announced the release of OpenStack Xena on 6th October 2021. It is the 24th version of the widely deployed open source cloud infrastructure software, OpenStack. Since the first release of OpenStack in 2010, the infrastructure platform has had new versions released every six months or so. This overview gives you all the essential information you need to know about the latest release.
OpenStack Xena
OpenStack Wallaby follows closely on the previous releases such as Wallaby and Victoria, but with some notable changes.Globally, OpenStack is among the top three most active open source projects - there are more than 25 million cores currently under OpenStack management. The Xena release highlights the vibrant cooperation of the developer community.
For the Xena release, the open source community came together. The numbers show that - there were 15000 code changes from 680 contributors belonging to 125 organizations across 25 weeks of the development cycle. These numbers stand testament to the power of open source technology.
Here is a glance at some of the highlights of the OpenStack Xena release.
Highlights of the Xena Release
The Xena release comes with new hardware features and support, advanced integration with various OpenStack and external components, and a solid policy to reduce technical debt. Looking at some advanced hardware features with multiple OpenStack components, Nova has added support for SmartNICs through the platform. Cinder has added support to many current back-end storage drivers for features outdoing the vital driver functions (example, multiattach)—furthermore, it can effectively utilize back-end optimizations.
Furthermore, Ironic nowdelivers definite API improvements in node list retrieval performance and added reinforcement for boot_mode and secure_boot state visibility on bare metal nodes. Also included is the ability to set these states as API actions.
In Kolla, there is added integration with Hashicorp Vault to handle control plane secrets. With Neutron, the update is that it now supports ECMP routes. Neutron can consolidate multiple routes with the same destination address into a single ECMP route.
Likewise, here is a look at the various project component integration capabilities of the new release. Blazar has now added OpenStackClient support to python-blazarclient. This means that users can now interact with Blazar using OpenStack reservation commands, providing a command-line interface similar to interacting with other OpenStack projects. Glance now features added support for unified quotas. This update is made possible using Keystone limits.
There is an added role for Freezer deployment for the popular deployment tool regarding the much-discussed OpenStack-Ansible Integration. For Manila, there is a significant increase in feature parity between the manila-client shell utility and the unified OpenStackClient, enhancing the usability of the Shared File Systems API.
Moving on, here is a glance at the technical debt reduction initiatives. Cinder has now removed the long-deprecated Block Storage API version 2. Furthermore, Cyborg offers a refactoring documentation structure that includes API docs and user and contributor guides. With Horizon, the project and all its plugins now support nodejs14. Neutron has added a new quota driver called DbQuotaNoLockDriver. This driver isn't capable of creating unique locks per (resource, project_id).
The Foundational Support
The OpenInfrastructure Foundation governs the entire OpenStack project. The foundation was initially set up in 2012 as the OpenStack Foundation to manage OpenStack. In 2020, the foundation was renamed to further drive the community evolution by including newer projects under its wing, with OpenStack still at the core of operations. We have covered the history and timeline in a previous blog, so we aren't going into much detail.
The foundation now has over 100,000 members in 187 countries. Team VEXXHOST is a proud partner of the Open Infrastructure Foundation as a Founding Silver Member and an infrastructure donor.
The guiding philosophy behind the foundation's operations is the “The Four Opens” - open source, open design, open development, and open community - enabling the community to get all the benefits of all open source software (OSS) and influence its future. Apart from OpenStack, the foundation's major projects are Airship, Kata Containers, OpenInfraLabs, StarlingX, and Zuul. Furthermore, initiatives such as OpenDev, continuous integration tooling, project hosting, SuperUser, etc., are also aided by the foundation.
OpenStack Releases and VEXXHOST Cloud
At VEXXHOST, we are excited about implementing OpenStack Xena into our offerings - stay tuned for updates regarding that. We provide cloud solutions for many clients worldwide and pull all stops to ensure that, as a customer, your cloud runs on the most updated platforms available. 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!
