2024 has been an extraordinary and transformative year—arguably a pivotal moment in our more than 15-year journey since the first release of OpenNebula in July 2008. Time truly flies! This year, we achieved significant milestones, made possible by the support and contributions of our engaged community, dedicated customers, and talented employees. Teamwork, innovation, and adaptability have been the cornerstones of OpenNebula Systems’ remarkable success in 2024.

Team Growth and Consolidated Culture

As a people–first company, we are proud to have expanded our global team by an impressive 200% this year, welcoming even more talented members from diverse backgrounds to our growing family, and enabling us to foster a culture of innovation, passion, collaboration, and simplicity. Additionally, according to the HR platform Factorial, we are proudly ranked in the top 2% of companies for diversity, bringing together perspectives from 18 different nationalities. As we look ahead, we are committed to continuing this growth and success in 2025! We have numerous job openings across various units, offering exciting opportunities to join our growing and dynamic team.

Technological Advancements

We are thrilled with the positive feedback we’re receiving on Gartner Peer Insights, a trusted platform for real user reviews of enterprise solutions. Reviews from several large companies in the US have awarded us 5-star ratings, highlighting OpenNebula’s unmatched flexibility and scalability in corporate cloud environments. These endorsements emphasize how we are redefining cloud management and empowering businesses to achieve their goals with confidence. Several media outlets have featured articles covering interviews with some of our key customers, such as Beeks in The Register and Encore Tech in Ars Technica. These customers shared their decisions to move away from VMware and embrace the openness and innovation of OpenNebula. 

In 2024, we delivered six maintenance releases and a significant minor release: OpenNebula 6.10 “Bubble”. As a Long-Term Support (LTS) version, 6.10 will receive support for the next three years, ensuring reliability and robust performance for our corporate users. This release introduced groundbreaking improvements, including enhanced backup functionality for seamless data protection, enhanced PCI passthrough for advanced hardware support, multi-tenancy developments to optimize resource allocation, and a modernized GUI based on modern web technologies such as Node.js for the new FireEdge backend and React for the frontend.

Our most significant development effort is still on the horizon. Throughout 2024, we have been diligently working to introduce groundbreaking features that will define the next generation of OpenNebula. The upcoming major release, OpenNebula 7.0, will prioritize user experience with a complete revamp of the new FireEdge Sunstone graphical user interface, offering a streamlined, fully immersive and extensible experience. This release will also deliver two transformative types of features:

• Next-Generation Cloud Computing Innovations: Redefining the future of cloud and edge environments. This includes innovative capabilities for DevOps Automation by streamlining operations through automated deployment of clusters with the new OneFormation tool; AI-driven Operations by enabling smart operations with features like prediction, optimization, and anomaly detection with the new OneAIOps tool; Hybrid Multi-Cloud by supporting the scalable operation of thousands of distributed computing nodes; and Advanced Virtualization by meeting the needs of AI and Confidential Computing.

• Enhanced Support for VMware Migrations: Addressing the critical needs of the many organizations transitioning from VMware to OpenNebula. This includes features such as Dynamic Resource Scheduling for optimized workload distribution, cluster-to-cluster migrations for seamless workload mobility, and integrations with popular SAN and backup platforms widely used in VMware environments. Additionally, the release will enhance migration tools with improved OVA/OVF import capabilities, providing a streamlined and efficient migration experience for businesses.

During 2024, we also released several versions of complementary components to enhance OpenNebula’s ecosystem, including the CNCF-certified OneKE Kubernetes, part of the OneApps suite, OneDeploy, designed to automate cloud deployments of the most common architectures, and OneSwap to fully automate VM migration from VMware.

Innovation-Driven Roadmap

2024 marked the launch of the IPCEI-CIS project, an ambitious integrated innovation effort with a budget of more than €3 billion, where the European branch of OpenNebula Systems plays a leading role in collaboration with 19 key strategic partners. This pan-European initiative includes prominent EU industry leaders such as SAP, Telefónica, Amadeus, Orange, Siemens, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, and Fincantieri.

In addition, several other projects began in 2024, with new ones set to kick off in 2025. We will continue our active participation in various Linux Foundation working groups, maintaining our leadership of the Cloud-Edge Working Group within the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge, and Cloud, and building on the momentum of our recent collaboration announcement with the Eclipse Foundation. These projects are helping to identify new innovative features for OpenNebula, contributing to the creation of an ecosystem integration framework, and building groundbreaking use cases in strategic areas such as Telco Cloud, Edge/5G, AI Processing, and Confidential Computing.

Industry Leadership and Engagement

The 11th edition of our annual community conference, OpenNebulaCon, was held on June 25-27, 2024, showcasing cutting-edge industry use cases in AI, automation, confidentiality, and multi-cloud. For 2025, we are excited to announce a significant change—our annual conference will transition to an in-person event, bringing the OpenNebula community together like never before!

At the end of 2024, we significantly expanded our Webinars and TechDay program, introducing a more frequent calendar with a focus on training sessions and VMware migration TechDays. This initiative will be further intensified in 2025, with a goal to deliver weekly webinars and host in-person monthly TechDays in major cities worldwide. We need your support to make this happen! If you’re interested in hosting an OpenNebula TechDay, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Let’s work together to bring OpenNebula closer to your local tech community!

We have also actively participated in major open source cloud events, delivering talks at conferences such as FOSDEM and the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit, and hosting exhibition booths at leading industry events like the Mobile World Congress (MWC), MSP Global, and Cloud Expo. In 2025, we plan to further intensify our presence with four scheduled talks at FOSDEM, participation with an exhibition booth at MWC Barcelona, and hosting booths at MSP Global, CloudFest, Data Center World, and Cloud Expo Europe… and this is just the beginning!

A few months ago, we announced the launch of our new Connect Partner Program, designed to establish a robust technology and business ecosystem. This program offers exciting collaboration opportunities, including dedicated support for VMware partners. Whether you are a Business Partner focused on driving sales or a Technology Partner enhancing your solutions, this program is tailored to meet your needs. Join us and be part of this transformative journey!

Looking ahead to 2025, we will begin its execution by building the integration and deployment frameworks that will enable and certify technical integrations, further strengthening our technological ecosystem. In the coming weeks, we will begin announcing new partnerships aimed at delivering integrated solutions for enterprise AI and providing a seamless migration path for existing VMware customers. Stay tuned for these exciting updates!

The number of commercial deployments continues to grow exponentially, achieving a revenue increase of over 50% compared to 2023. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a rapidly growing number of companies expressing interest in migrating from VMware to OpenNebula and taking advantage of our new VMware migration service to streamline their transition and unlock new possibilities.

Main Priorities for 2025

The summary of achievements in 2024 also highlights how we will continue our strategic efforts to deliver the next-generation cloud management platform, with a particular focus on addressing the needs of VMware customers looking to adopt an open platform, as well as providing a multi-tenant solution to meet the exponential growth in demand for enterprise AI. At the same time, we remain committed to meeting the evolving demands of the broader cloud and edge computing ecosystem.

An important lesson from VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom is that, when evaluating alternative cloud management platforms, organizations should prioritize freedom over vendor lock-in. Relying on a vendor-dependent platform might bring some short-term comfort but will end up exposing businesses to significant risks in the future, including unexpected changes in pricing or strategy resulting from acquisitions or other business decisions. Choosing an open, flexible platform ensures long-term stability and control over your cloud environment.

As we start a new year, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to our valued community, customers, and partners who have been an integral part of our journey—whether you’ve been with us from the start or joined us recently. Your trust and collaboration have been the foundation of our success.

To the amazing OpenNebula Systems team, thank you for your hard work, passion, and commitment. Your dedication not only drives our achievements but also ensures that our customers and partners feel truly supported and part of the OpenNebula family. It’s an honor to lead such an extraordinary group of people. 

I wish you, and your loved ones, good health and a wonderful 2025!