Apache CloudStack Arrives in New Version, Stays Popular

The Apache CloudStack project has released version 4.4.1, the new version of its private, public and hybrid cloud software. The latest revision of the open source CloudStack platform has "dozens of new features and improvements," as noted in an Apache Software Foundation release.

CloudStack includes an intuitive user interface and rich APIs for managing the compute, networking, software, and storage infrastructure resources. It was contributed to Apache by Citrix, which has a commercial arm of the cloud computing platform, although that business has gone through shakeups recently.

"We are delighted to be releasing version 4.4.1 of Apache CloudStack," said Giles Sirett, member of the Apache CloudStack Project Management Committee, in a statement. "This latest version of CloudStack reflects months of hard work by our diverse developer community and brings even more features to help our service-provider and enterprise users enhance their cloud platforms. Apache CloudStack continues to grow in both deployments and developer community size, and is the platform of choice for thousands of organizations that need to build IaaS environments quickly and securely with a proven, production-grade, technology."

CloudStack v4.4.1 reflects dozens of new features and improvements, including:

- Improved Storage Management

- Virtual Private Cloud tiers can now span guest networks across availability zones

- Support for VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler

- Improved Support for Hyper-V Zones, VPC and Storage Migration

A complete overview of all new enhancements can be found in the project release notes at http://docs.cloudstack.apache.org/projects/cloudstack-release-notes/en/4.4.1/

Many people underestimate how widely used CloudStack is, although there is variance in whether organizations use Apache's open source platform or Citrix's commercial build based on it. Among organizations running CloudStack technology are: Alcatel-Lucent, Autodesk, BT Cloud, China Telecom, DATACAENTER Services, DataPipe, Edmunds.com, Exoscale, GreenQloud, Hokkaido University, IDC Frontier, Ikoula, KDDI, KT/Korea Telecom, LeaseWeb, NTT, Orange, PCextreme, Schuberg Philis, Shopzilla, Slovak Telekom, SunGard AS, Taiwan Mobile, Tata, Trader Media Group, TomTom, University of Melbourne, University of Sao Paolo, Verizon, WebMD and Zynga.

CloudStack was submitted to the Apache Incubator in April 2012 and graduated as an Apache Software Foundation Top-level Project in March 2013.