A Beginner's Guide to OpenStack: Origins, Architecture, and Learning Path

OpenStack has become a hot topic in recent years, attracting growing attention as a key open‑source cloud computing platform.

The story begins in 2002 when Amazon launched AWS, offering storage and compute resources as web services, followed by the introduction of EC2 in 2006, which added elasticity to cloud offerings.

In 2010, Rackspace, unable to compete with Amazon, open‑sourced its cloud storage service together with NASA, creating the OpenStack project.

The OpenStack Foundation now governs the project with a board, technical and user committees, and three membership tiers—individuals, platinum, and gold members—supporting its development.

Since its inception, OpenStack has released 17 versions, each named after the host city of the Design Summit, and holds bi‑annual Design Summits to announce new releases.

The architecture consists of many components; the core ones include Nova (compute), Keystone (identity), and Horizon (web dashboard), each acting as independent services within the IaaS stack.

OpenStack’s rapid deployment, flexibility, and low cost have driven widespread adoption, now involving over 180 countries, 677 companies, and more than 87,000 community members, with code exceeding 20 million lines.

Major telecom vendors such as Huawei (FusionSphere) and ZTE (TECS) build commercial solutions on top of OpenStack, highlighting its relevance to the communications industry.

Learning OpenStack is accessible thanks to abundant official documentation, community tutorials, and numerous expert blogs; beginners can download, install, and experiment with minimal barriers, though mastering it requires extensive practice.

The article recommends three groups to start learning OpenStack: IT professionals, university students in telecom/electronics/computer science, and telecom industry workers.