Setting up an OpenStack cluster can take weeks or even months of work, but CoreOS Inc. claims that the task can now be completed in under 15 minutes.

This speedup is made possible by Stackanetes, an open-source deployment tool that the startup has developed in collaboration with Intel Corp. and launched into technical preview today. It employs Kubernetes, an orchestration system from Google, to package the core components of OpenStack into containers based on CoreOS’s rkt runtime. As a result, administrators gain the ability to manage the platform more like a web application than the complex data center operating system that it is.

Kubernetes requires fewer than 300 lines of code to perform the initial installation process and makes it possible to configure each OpenStack node according to a company’s desired parameters with similar ease. Then once everything is more or less set up, administrators can fire up the orchestration framework’s automation mechanisms to ensure that their deployments run smoothly. CoreOS says that every implementation created using Stackanetes has self-healing, a load balancer and an updating mechanism that makes it possible to apply patches without incurring any downtime.

The features are similar to what OpenStack distributor Mirantis Inc. hopes to deliver as part of its own recently announced initiative to integrate the platform with Kubernetes. Like CoreOS, the company has recruited Intel’s help for the project, but that’s where their roadmaps diverge.

Mirantis opted to use Docker instead of rkt at the container layer and is pursuing its efforts with production OpenStack environments in mind. Stackanetes, meanwhile, is more likely to find use among developers who want to quickly set up test deployments for piloting the platform and hosting applications projects.

The good news is that a recent study from 451 Research found most of enterprises using OpenStack these days are still in the experimentation phase, which means there should plenty of interest in CoreOS’s project. Stackanetes is available on GitHub under an Apache 2.0 license.

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