OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed and provisioned through APIs with common authentication mechanisms.

A dashboard is also available, giving administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.

Beyond standard infrastructure-as-a-service functionality, additional components provide orchestration, fault management and service management amongst other services to ensure high availability of user applications.

Source : https://www.openstack.org/software/

OpenStack is broken up into services to allow you to plug and play components depending on your needs. The openstack map gives you an “at a glance” view of the openstack landscape to see where those services fit and how they can work together.

Why would you start with OpenStack and what are the challenges? Read our analysis on the benefits and challenges of building a cloud with OpenStack.