What it is

OpenStack is a collection of interoperable components that can be deployed together to provide computing, networking and storage resources. Those infrastructure resources are then exposed to end users through programmable APIs, so that capacity can be requested and managed by software rather than by hand. The project lives in the Python ecosystem and is released under the Apache-2.0 license, with development coordinated at opendev.org and documentation hosted at openstack.org.

The concrete problem it solves is coordination across a large set of independently developed components. Each OpenStack component has its own repository, and a single commit in one project does not by itself tell an operator which commits in the other projects were tested alongside it. OpenStack's continuous integration system, Zuul, gates all of the contained projects on an effective single timeline, producing a sequence of combinations that have been explicitly tested together. Gerrit's submodule tracking feature then updates a super project whenever a subproject changes, so that tested sequence is captured in the super project's commits.

Key capabilities

• Provides computing, networking and storage resources as deployable infrastructure components.
• Exposes those resources to end users through programmable APIs.
• Tracks every OpenStack repository as a git submodule in one super project.
• Records, through Zuul gating, combinations of component commits that were explicitly tested with each other.
• Uses Gerrit submodule tracking to update the super project each time a subproject is updated.
• Maps any single commit in the super project to the set of component commits tested with it.

Who uses it and how

• Operators and integrators who need a known-tested combination of component commits rather than an arbitrary mix.
• CI and release engineers who want to trace from one super project commit back to the exact component revisions Zuul validated.
• Contributors who follow the contributor portal to work on individual components rather than this repository.
• Readers of the governance site who need to understand how the project is governed.

Getting started

This repository is intended to be used in a read-only manner and is a collection of git submodules rather than a runnable deployment. Individual component repositories are found at opendev.org/openstack, and component documentation is at openstack.org/software.

When to use it — and when not to

Use this repository when the tested-together commit sequence matters, since that mapping is the whole point of the super project. Do not treat it as an installable distribution: it contains no deployment tooling of its own, and the README directs users to the individual component repositories and to openstack.org for software and contribution details. The facts given list no database, storage or mail requirements, so no operational footprint can be stated here.