What is OpenStack?

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.

Dashboards are also available, giving administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface. There are OpenStack CLI tools and SDKs giving operators the flexibility to create OpenStack cloud applications in the language of their choice. Supported languages include Go, Python, Ruby, and Java.

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