Welcome to our blog, where we will explore the innovative open source projects supported by the OpenInfra Foundation. These projects are enabling organizations to build scalable, secure, and flexible environments. In this article, we will delve into the details of each project and highlight their unique features and contributions to the open source ecosystem.
These projects are not confined to theoretical concepts; they are actively utilized by organizations worldwide, contributing to real-world cloud infrastructure deployments. The collaborative efforts and innovations within the open source community have propelled these projects to the forefront of cloud infrastructure advancements.
By delving into these projects, we will uncover the impact they have on shaping the future of open source infrastructure. So, let’s dive in and discover the contributions of these projects supported by the OpenInfra Foundation.
Airship
Making lifecycle management for open infrastructure simple, repeatable and resilient.
The open source project Airship is a collaborative initiative aimed at developing a collection of loosely coupled, interoperable, and containerized cloud infrastructure components. It is primarily designed to support the deployment and management of cloud-native applications in a Kubernetes environment.
Airship combines various open source technologies, including Kubernetes, Helm, and OpenStack, to create a unified cloud infrastructure solution. The project focuses on providing a declarative workflow for deploying and managing containerized applications on bare metal, virtual machines, or public cloud platforms.
Airship aims to provide a flexible and extensible platform for cloud infrastructure deployment and management. It emphasizes the use of declarative YAML-based configurations to define the desired state of the infrastructure and applications, enabling reproducibility and ease of automation.
As an open source project, Airship encourages community involvement and contributions from individuals and organizations. It benefits from the collaborative efforts of a diverse set of contributors who work together to enhance and evolve the project’s capabilities.
Kata Containers
Secure, lightweight CRI compatible virtualized containers.
Kata Containers is an open source project that provides a lightweight and secure runtime environment for running containers. It combines the benefits of traditional virtualization technology with the speed and manageability of containers. Kata Containers aims to enhance the security and isolation properties of containerized workloads without sacrificing performance.
Overall, Kata Containers provides an alternative runtime environment for containers, addressing security concerns while maintaining compatibility with existing container ecosystems. It offers a balance between the lightweight nature of containers and the strong isolation of virtual machines, making it suitable for scenarios where enhanced security and workload isolation are critical requirements.
StarlingX
Edge cloud computing infrastructure for high performance and ultra-low latency applications.
StarlingX is an open source edge computing platform designed for deploying and managing distributed edge and industrial IoT (Internet of Things) applications. It is a collaborative project developed under the governance of the OpenInfra Foundation and combines several open source technologies to create a reliable and scalable edge cloud infrastructure solution.
StarlingX is particularly suited for industries and use cases that require edge computing capabilities, such as telecommunications, energy, manufacturing, transportation, and smart cities. It provides a robust and scalable platform for deploying and managing edge applications, enabling organizations to leverage the benefits of edge computing technology while addressing the unique challenges of edge environments.
Zuul
CI/CD platform for gating changes across multiple systems/repos.
Zuul is an open-source continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) platform developed by the OpenStack community. It provides a flexible and scalable framework for managing complex CI/CD workflows, particularly suited for large-scale projects and organizations.
Originally developed for the OpenStack project, Zuul has gained popularity and is now used by various other projects and companies outside of the OpenStack ecosystem. It is designed to handle distributed version control systems (such as Git) and supports a wide range of testing and gating scenarios.
By using Zuul, organizations can automate and streamline their CI/CD processes, ensuring that code changes are thoroughly tested and meet the necessary quality standards before being deployed. Zuul’s scalable and extensible nature makes it suitable for projects of all sizes, from small teams to large enterprises.
Zuul, as an open-source CI/CD platform, is not directly connected with Netflix. However, it’s worth mentioning that Netflix has its own tool called “Zuul” that is unrelated to the Zuul CI/CD platform.
In summary, Zuul provides a robust, scalable, and customizable CI/CD platform that enables organizations to automate and manage their software development workflows efficiently.
OpenInfra Labs
Connecting open source projects to production
OpenInfra Labs is a pilot project. It is a community, created by and for infrastructure providers and operators, integrating and optimizing different layers of the infrastructure, running open source code in production, publishing complete, reproducible stacks for existing and emerging workloads, to advance open source infrastructure.
OpenStack
Programmable cloud infrastructure for VMs, containers and bare metal.
And off course there is OpenStack, an open source cloud computing platform for building and managing public and private clouds. It provides a collection of modular components that work together to deliver various cloud services, including compute, networking, storage, identity management, and a dashboard for administration. OpenStack is highly scalable, flexible, and interoperable, making it suitable for a wide range of cloud deployments. It has a vibrant community and ecosystem, with widespread adoption by organizations worldwide.
Launching in 2012, OpenStack has become one of the top 3 most active open source projects in addition to Linux and Chromium.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the open source projects supported by the OpenInfra Foundation are revolutionizing the landscape of cloud infrastructure. Through our exploration, we have witnessed the transformative power of these projects and their ability to enable organizations to build scalable, secure, and flexible environments.
From the streamlined lifecycle management provided by Airship to the enhanced security and lightweight container runtimes of Kata Containers, each project offers unique features and addresses critical needs in the industry. OpenStack empowers organizations with a comprehensive cloud computing platform, while StarlingX caters specifically to the demands of edge computing applications. Zuul plays a crucial role in dynamic routing and traffic management in microservices architectures.
The OpenInfra Foundation’s commitment to open source technologies and its support for these projects have fostered an ecosystem of continuous improvement and collaboration. As a result, organizations have access to robust, flexible, and customizable solutions that meet their unique infrastructure requirements.
In our blog, we have only scratched the surface of what these projects offer. We encourage you to further explore and engage with these projects, join their communities, and contribute to their evolution. By doing so, you become a part of a vibrant and dynamic open source ecosystem that shapes the future of cloud infrastructure.
