Roll back the calendar four years ago, and OpenStack was mostly associated with cloud software. Yet, the range of use cases where OpenStack’s technology is currently being applied, from network function virtualization in the telecommunications world to supporting over 200,000 computer processing cores at Wal-Mart Inc., offers hints that the picture is changing.

“You’re beginning to see us talk about open infrastructure,” said Lew Tucker (pictured, right), vice president and chief technology officer of cloud computing at Cisco Systems Inc., in a discussion of OpenStack’s status. “Now it’s proven, it’s industrial grade, it’s being deployed at very large scale across many industries.”

Tucker spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host John Troyer (@jtroyer), chief reckoner at TechReckoning, at OpenStack Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was joined by Alan Clark (pictured, left), chairman of the board of the OpenStack Foundation, and they discussed the evolution of OpenStack as a provider of infrastructure services and the group’s growing role in edge computing. (* Disclosure below.)

Move to containers and continuous integration

The evolution of OpenStack from an open-source cloud software provider to a player in the delivery of enterprise infrastructure services can be seen in recent moves within the container and continuous integration ecosystem.

“Back in 2017, we recognized as a board that it’s not going to be just about the projects within OpenStack,” Clark explained. “We have to embrace adjacent communities and embrace [other] technologies. That’s why you’re hearing a lot about Kubernetes and containers and networking.”

OpenStack is also playing a more significant role in edge computing. The foundation recently published a white paper outlining use cases and issued a call for action in cloud edge computing. Last week, embedded computing module maker Kontron S&T AG announced the addition of OpenStack and Kubernetes to its open-source edge platforms.

“We’re seeing this relationship between what you want computed at the edge … and then what you back in the centralized data center,” Tucker said. “Now we’re seeing the communities working together because that’s what our customers want.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of OpenStack Summit. (* Disclosure: The OpenStack Foundation sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither the OpenStack Foundation nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE