OpenStack, the open cloud intiaitive from RackSpace, NASA and a growing line of high-profile industry supporters, is rolling out its latest version.  Called the Cactus release, OpenStack is going after larger enterprise clients with a focus on stability and reliability for larger-scale cloud deployments.  This is the third major release from OpenStack, barely six months after first launching, as this project continues to rapidly gain traction.

Building on OpenStack’s previous offerings, primarily Compute and Object Storage, the Cactus release drills down into existing APIs, with added support for a number of popular enterprise technologies.  OpenStack is really looking to extend on its foundation, while also ensuring its able to fit with already-present products that most cloud clients have.  When it comes to optimizing around scale while maintaining performance, cloud services have a number of options for deployment, and seek as little friction as possible for any transition around this.

The Cactus release is accompanied by several new features for OpenStack Compute, including support for all major virtualization technologies, spanning Hyper-V, KVM, VMware vSphere, Xen and Citrix XenServer.  The network management features have been enhanced, including IPv6 support for flat networking.  Equally as important is the new OpenStack API 1.1, which comes with support for extensions, allowing even more custom options around local stack installs and managing code.

One notable aspect of the Cactus release is the completion and availability of the OpenStack  Image service, which is now production-ready.  Formerly a sub-project code-named “Glance,” the Image Service is specific for managing images, enabling users to take, store and provide copies of images of virtual running machines.  Adding to the centralized management capabilities OpenStack is after, this particular product ties in with analysis demands companies now need in order to assess and modify their business goals and action items.

So far, the updates are readily welcomed by the growing OpenStack community.  The initiative has garnered more than 60 partners, with participation from the likes of Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Intel and Microsoft.  “We’re proud to say that OpenStack is the fastest growing open source cloud project right now,” an OpenSource representative writes us.  In less than a year, we’ve have three successful code releases, contributions from 200+ open source developers, and the backing of more than 60 participating organizations…with more deployments expected this quarter.”

It’s been a pretty good ride for OpenStack, still less than a year-old.  Its presence reminds us of the importance of open source standards and industry discussions, as nearly all of the major players like EMC are launching their own similar projects.  VMware’s recent Cloud Foundry, for instance, aims to extend the open source involvement of its clients and developer community.

“We are always happy to see companies opening up their technology, and think the open source movement (specifically under the Apache 2.0 license that contributed to the success of OpenStack, and which will be the license for Cloud Foundry) has made a significant impact on the cloud computing market,” OpenStack went on to write.  “While we have not yet had any formal discussions with the community nor had a chance to dig into the code, we are optimistic that Cloud Foundry and OpenStack have potential to integrate and could be complementary projects.”

That certainly seems to be the case.  VMware CTO Steve Herrod even mentioned Cloud Foundry could be implemented on top of OpenStack in a recent blog post.