As the new year begins, let’s pause for a minute to fully appreciate how much the OpenNebula Community has actually accomplished in 2023. As it happens, last year we marked 15 years of the OpenNebula Project, and it’s all thanks to each and every member of our fantastic ecosystem. You’ve helped us become a global leader in open source cloud & edge computing. This success is due to our dedicated Community, the support from our Corporate Users, and the outstanding work of every member of the OpenNebula Team. Well done, everyone! 👏 Now, as we gear up for new developments and adventures in 2024, let’s take a moment to reflect on our shared achievements in 2023 🎉

Technology

🌌 One of the key milestones of 2023 was the release of the OpenNebula 6.8 ‘Rosette’ 🤩 This release was a big step forward, mainly focusing on enhancing virtualization features and making backup processes more efficient for our users. Here’s a summary of what’s new and exciting:

• Redesigning the OpenNebula GUI – Addition of Virtual Datacenter (VDC), User & OneFlow Service Tabs to FireEdge Sunstone, showcasing accounting & show back information.
• Better virtualization capabilities – With the updated KVM drivers, you can fine-tune CPU flags, optimize disks, customize VM video, & boost Windows performance.
• Improved backup features – Using Backup Jobs, you can now manage and monitor unified backup policies using restic or rsycn for multiple VMs efficiently.

🖖 But that’s not all! Other key highlights of the 6.8 release included:

• Support for a better integration with vSphere 8.
• The scheduler can be now configured to reach out to an external module (with a well-defined REST API) to get recommendations on initial VM placement.
• Backup jobs enable you to define backup operations that involve multiple VMs, so you can now setup unified backup policies for multiple VMs, easily track their progress, and control the resources used.
• Ability to fine-tune the selection of CPU flags.
• Option to define custom video devices for VMs.
• Enhanced support for higher performance in Windows environments.

👋 2023 also marked the end of support for our beloved OpenNebula 5.12 LTS. For a reliable long-term solution, our 6.4 LTS release is the way to go. But if you want the latest features, upgrade to OpenNebula 6.8 Rosette!

To all the automation enthusiasts, don’t forget to take a look at our new one-deploy project, which comprises a series of Ansible playbooks and roles enabling an easy, seamless setup of your OpenNebula Cloud.

Additionally, we released the results of our annual OpenNebula Architecture Survey, providing fascinating insights into OpenNebula’s usage trends and emerging technologies within our community.

📔 In 2023, as usual, we’ve kept publishing in-depth Blog Posts and Public Materials about key aspects of OpenNebula, including:

• The latest version of our OneKE, the OpenNebula Kubernetes Engine.
• An in-depth article about how Telco & 5G operators can use OpenNebula to deploy their cloud infrastructure.
• A guide on the Prometheus integration with OpenNebula EE.
• A blog post about the key features in the new and revamped OpenNebula GUI: FireEdge Sunstone.
• A guide on how to use Terraform and OpenNebula.
• A new pricing report, blog post, and landing page for users who are interested in moving away from Nutanix.

📝 Our team has also been quite busy in 2023 expanding our Knowledge Base with new articles for our Corporate Users, including these:

• Optimization tips for KVM
• A Practical guide to overcommitment
• How to Configure libvirt with TCP/IP socket secured with TLS
• How to update oneadmin password in HA setup
• Improving performance of Windows VM

Community

🥰 Last year was truly remarkable for OpenNebula, as we hit a major milestone with 1,000 ⭐ on our GitHub repo! Kudos to the whole OpenNebula Community for this fantastic achievement, and special thanks to our Community Champions and to our colleagues at:

• Storware, for officially joining our Technology Partner Program, and also hosting a live talk, discussing the versatility of OpenNebula as a private cloud solution. The full discussion is available to watch here.
• LINBIT, for writing an insightful post on setting up LINBIT SDS with OpenNebula. Delve into the details here.
• SUSE, for joining us at our webinar where we unveiled our CNCF-certified OpenNebula Kubernetes Engine, which integrates their RKE2 and Longhorn technologies.
• Grafana Labs, for joining us in showcasing the new monitoring capabilities of OpenNebula in our joint webinar on Prometheus. 
• MX, for contributing with an insightful Case Study on how they use OpenNebula for their impressive Private Cloud infrastructure.
• FullStackS, for hosting a podcast showcasing the capabilities of OpenNebula for Enterprise Clouds.

💪 And, of course, we’ve also been as active as possible in many relevant Open Source and Edge Computing initiatives, making sure that Open Source innovation remains one of our core principles:

• We have joined the Linux Foundation Europe, which reinforces our commitment to both the Linux Foundation and the CNCF.
• In January 2023 we launched the COGNIT project. Coordinated by OpenNebula Systems and funded by the EU with almost 6M EUR, this initiative is developing a new AI-powered Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) paradigm for edge application management and smart orchestration.
• We have also joined the new 6G-SANDBOX project, where OpenNebula is being used in this project as a core open source technology to build a complete and modular facility for 6G Telco experimentation.
• In November we joined the new EMERALD project, where OpenNebula will be used to facilitate the process of assessing the overall security of cloud services (both on-premise and also across the cloud-edge continuum) in highly-regulated sectors such as Banking & Finance.
• We’ve led the process by which the Cloud/Edge Working Group of the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud (that we chair), presented an updated Cloud & Edge Industrial Technology Roadmap to the European Commission.
• We’ve launched a number of Research Contracts on next-generation cloud & edge computing and 5G/6G technologies with leading RTOs like UC3M, i2CAT, and URV.
• We’ve organized in Brussels 🇧🇪 the first edition of the NexusForum Summit, a new event series that brings together the EU companies and institutions leading the development of a Sovereign Cloud-Edge Continuum.

Outreach

📡 2023 was a year full of amazing activities, including the 10th edition of the OpenNebula Conference. We had over 40 speakers representing 30 different organizations contributing with their expertise, use cases, technical skills, and unique vision about the present and future of open source cloud & edge computing! 👏 Kudos to each and every one of them, and special thanks to our sponsors: LINBIT and StorPool!

🤖 And, of course, we’ve been participating in many open source and industry events, spreading the word about the benefits and amazing features of OpenNebula, including:

• FOSDEM 2023, as official sponsors and also having not one, not two but three talks! The first talk was about how to use OpenNebula to deploy Kubernetes across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The second talk was around the role of open source in building a European sovereign cloud, and lastly, a joint discussion with our friends from the Eclipse Foundation about the concept of “European open source”. 
• Hosting our TechDay Madrid, focused on Telco Cloud & Edge, in conjunction with the European project 6G-SANDBOX. 
• Participating at the Vienna DevOps Day 2023, brilliantly organized as usual by our friends at FullStackS.
• Cloud Expo Europe Madrid 2023 as exhibitors, along with the European project COGNIT, that we coordinate.
• Taking part in a discussion about Infrastructure and the edge and how the industry is keeping up with evolving demands, organized by DCD.
• Speaking at OpenExpo Cloud Day 2023 and at Google DevFest Madrid.
• Participating at the Linux Foundation Europe Member Summit in Bilbao.

2023 has been a remarkable year for OpenNebula, and we’re excited to announce that 2024 is going to be a turning point for us. Stay tuned for the incredible developments that are coming! 🚀

The OpenNebula Team

ℹ️ Remember that our team is growing! Visit our Careers page for more details about our all-remote policy and the open positions that you can apply to. Looking forward to hearing from you!