OpenNebula.org is an open-source project delivering a simple but feature-rich and flexible solution to build and manage enterprise clouds and virtualized data centers.

Enterprise cloud computing is the next step in the evolution of data center virtualization. OpenNebula combines existing virtualization technologies with advanced features for multi-tenancy, automatic provision and elasticity, following a bottom-up approach driven by the real needs of sysadmins and devops.

Because no two data centers are the same, we do not think there's a one-size-fits-all in the cloud, and we do not try to provide a turnkey solution that imposes requirements on data center infrastructure. OpenNebula makes cloud an evolution by leveraging existing IT infrastructure, protecting your investments, and avoiding vendor lock-in.

In contrast to other open-source management tools that only provide a special-purpose implementation of popular cloud interfaces on pre-defined environments, OpenNebula aims to provide a open, flexible, extensible, and comprehensive management layer to automate and orchestrate the operation of enterprise clouds by leveraging and integrating existing deployed solutions for networking, storage, virtualization, monitoring or user management.

The OpenNebula.org project pursues the following objectives in order to lead innovation in enterprise-class cloud data center management:

• Develop the most-advanced, highly-scalable and adaptable solution for building and managing virtualized data centers and enterprise clouds
• Provide cloud builders and integrators with a modular system that can implement a variety of cloud architectures and can interface with any datacenter service
• Provide cloud developers and users with choice of cloud and system interfaces, from open cloud to de-facto standards, to support the creation of a rich ecosystem of higher level components
• Assure the stability and quality of the software distribution
• Collaborate with the most demanding users of cloud and data center management tools
• Spread awareness of the Project
• Support the ecosystem of open-source components being created around the Project
• Support the community of users and developers contributing to the Project
• Collaborate with other open-source projects and communities
• Collaborate with the main research projects in cloud computing innovation

The core values of the OpenNebula.org project are:

• Openness of the processes and the technology
• Excellence for being a project of the highest quality in every aspect of its operations
• Cooperation with open-source efforts and research projects to advance cloud computing
• Innovation in new technologies and methods to address needs of large-scale cloud deployments

OpenNebula was first established as a research project back in 2005 by Ignacio M. Llorente and Rubén S. Montero. Since its first public release of software in March 2008, it has evolved through open-source releases and now operates as an open source project. OpenNebula is the result of many years of research and development in efficient and scalable management of virtual machines on large-scale distributed infrastructures in close collaboration with our user community and the main cloud computing players. Many of its innovative features have been developed to address the requirements of business use cases from leading companies across multiple industries in the context of flagship international projects in cloud computing, such as RESERVOIR, StratusLab, BonFIRE, or 4CaaSt. Additionally it is being used as reference open stack for cloud computing in several large research and infrastructure projects.

The OpenNebula technology has matured thanks to an active and engaged community of users and developers. OpenNebula is software downloaded several thousands times per month from our site, and the code can be also downloaded from the software repository and from the several commercial and open-source distributions embedding our leading technology for cloud management. Besides an exponential growth in its number of users, different projects, research groups and companies have built new virtualization and cloud components to complement and to enhance the functionality provided by this widely used open-source toolkit for cloud computing.

In March 2010, the main authors of OpenNebula founded C12G Labs to provide the value-added professional services that many enterprise IT shops require for internal adoption and to allow the OpenNebula project to not be tied exclusively to public financing, contributing to its long-term sustainability. OpenNebula.org is a project now managed and supported by C12G Labs. In September 2013, OpenNebula organized its first ever community conference, which included presentations by leading organizations worldwide.

Our News archive provides a very good summary of the main milestones of this open-source project.