The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache CloudStack as a Top-Level Project

FOREST HILL, MD, March 27, 2013 (Press-News.org) The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of nearly 150 Open Source projects and initiatives, today announced that Apache CloudStack has graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a Top-Level Project (TLP), signifying that the Project's community and products have been well-governed under the ASF's meritocratic process and principles.

"When CloudStack first became an Apache Incubator project, it was a well-established cloud management platform with a mature codebase," said Chip Childers, Vice President of Apache CloudStack. "Our work in the Incubator has focused on growing a really strong community around the code and establishing the governance practices expected of a top-level project within The Apache Software Foundation."

Widely used in production by many organizations, CloudStack is formerly the product of Cloud.com, which was acquired by Citrix in 2011, and was submitted to the Apache Incubator by Citrix in April 2012.

Apache CloudStack is a complete software suite for creating Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing in private-, public-, and hybrid cloud environments. It has been proven to be both stable and highly scalable, underpinning production clouds with more than 30,000 physical nodes, in geo-distributed environments.

"Becoming a TLP is an important step in the project's evolution and growth," added Childers. "CloudStack had the advantage of having many long-term, large deployments which had proven the stability and scalability of the technology. This helped us concentrate on adopting the 'Apache Way' of governance, which is well understood and open, delivering so many great pieces of software over the years."

CloudStack's target environments include service providers and enterprises; it is used by many service providers to set up an on-demand, elastic cloud computing services and by enterprises to set up a private cloud for use by their own employees. Apache CloudStack is also available to individuals and organizations that wish to study and implement an IaaS for personal, educational, and/or production use.

"We believe that Infrastructure-as-a-Service is the next generation of IT infrastructure, and that people will demand open standards and open governance for such an important layer in their IT stack," explained Childers. That is why having the CloudStack project meet the rigorous standards of ASF governance is so significant."

Underscoring the ASF's edict of "Community over Code", Childers said: "we've managed to build a diverse, friendly and very open community around CloudStack. New participants receive a really warm welcome and we make sure that all contributors are on an equal footing, whether they are writing code or helping with any other aspect of the project. Anybody thinking of getting involved in the project would quickly find what a great community we are. In addition to online involvement, we've already had a global collaboration conference and there are many CloudStack groups established in many different countries."

Availability and Oversight
Apache CloudStack software is released under the Apache License v2.0, and is overseen by a self-selected team of active contributors to the project. A Project Management Committee (PMC) guides the Project's day-to-day operations, including community development and product releases. Apache CloudStack source code, documentation, mailing lists, and related resources are available at http://cloudstack.apache.org/.

About the Apache Incubator
The Apache Incubator is the entry path for projects and codebases wishing to become part of the efforts at The Apache Software Foundation. All code donations from external organizations and existing external projects wishing to join the ASF enter through the Incubator to: 1) ensure all donations are in accordance with the ASF legal standards; and 2) develop new communities that adhere to our guiding principles. Incubation is required of all newly accepted projects until a further review indicates that the infrastructure, communications, and decision making process have stabilized in a manner consistent with other successful ASF projects. While incubation status is not necessarily a reflection of the completeness or stability of the code, it does indicate that the project has yet to be fully endorsed by the ASF. For more information, visit http://incubator.apache.org/.