OpenStack says its work is largely done. Now your hard work can fill in the blanks

OPENSTACK SYDNEY The OpenStack Foundation has kicked off its summit in Sydney, Australia, with a call to current OpenStack users to help it to win more users by sharing code they've written to link OpenStack to other tools and infrastructure.

The Foundation's decided the time is right to pursue easier integration because it feels the core of OpenStack is in good shape: its myriad modules are felt to be nicely mature and to offer the functionality that users need and want.

Still missing, however, is a comprehensive set of connectors to common open source projects or other tools widely used in business.

Which is not to say those connections don't exist. It's just that they're buried inside OpenStack users, who often created bespoke tools to connect with the things they need their stacks to touch.

Hence the Foundation's integration efforts will seek out those users and encourage and/or assist them to make their custom code open source, in order to improve the prospects of the entire OpenStack ecosystem.

The Infrastructure Integration will also create verified use case templates that describe common deployments of OpenStack alongside other tools. Those templates will be verified and kept up to date. This effort has already targeted container security and edge computing, to make OpenStack a better fit in both fields.

Also at the summit, the organisation has formally launched an OpenLab “to enable the testing, reporting, and development of tools and applications for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.” The lab was initiated by Huawei, Intel, and the OpenStack Foundation, but is open to anyone who wants to play.

Another new initiative is the “OpenStack Public Cloud Passport”, which will promote clouds running the stack with free offers and also point out the useful homogeneity among clouds using OpenStack. ®