Kilo (OpenStack)

Kilo (OpenStack)
Name	Kilo
Developer	OpenStack Foundation
Released	2015-04-30
Latest release	Kilo.5
Programming language	Python
Operating system	Cross-platform
License	Apache License 2.0
Website	OpenStack.org

Kilo (OpenStack) Kilo is the eleventh release of the OpenStack open-source cloud computing platform, announced in April 2015. It continued OpenStack's sequence of character-named releases and introduced enhancements across compute, networking, storage, identity, and orchestration projects. Kilo emphasized stability, scalability, and production-readiness to support deployments by enterprises, research institutions, and service providers.

Overview

Kilo was developed under the governance of the OpenStack Foundation with contributions from organizations such as Rackspace, Red Hat, Canonical, IBM, VMware, HP, Intel, Mirantis, and SUSE. The release followed Juno and preceded Liberty in the OpenStack release cycle. Major projects involved included Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Glance, Keystone, Horizon, Heat, Swift, Ceilometer, Trove, Sahara, Ironic, and Zaqar. Kilo's roadmap reflected input from the Technical Committee, Project Teams, DefCore discussions, and community summits where contributors from CERN, NASA, Bloomberg, PayPal, and Wikimedia collaborated.

New Features and Improvements

Kilo introduced live migration enhancements and accelerated networking features that impacted compute and networking stacks. Nova gained features for instance migration, NUMA topology support, and scheduler refinements, improving performance for workloads deployed by organizations such as NASA Ames Research Center and Bloomberg. Neutron added support for provider networks, DVR, and improved L3 agent HA, influenced by contributions from Cisco, Juniper, Intel, and VMware. Cinder implemented multi-backend support and improved volume types to integrate storage arrays from EMC, NetApp, Huawei, and Pure Storage. Glance image import and metadata handling were enhanced for compatibility with VMware vSphere and Amazon EC2 images. Heat improved orchestration templates and resource plugins to better integrate with Ceilometer, Trove, and Ironic deployments used by banks and telecommunications companies. Identity and policy features in Keystone were refined for federated authentication and token management used by universities, research labs, and governments.

Component and Service Changes

Nova introduced libvirt and QEMU updates, integration points for KVM, Xen, and Hyper-V, and API microversioning changes affecting compatibility with OpenStack clients from Red Hat, Canonical, and Mirantis. Neutron's modular architecture saw plugin and agent updates enabling ML2, Open vSwitch, and Linux Bridge deployments common in data centers run by CERN, MIT, and Facebook labs. Cinder added drivers and backend refinements aligned with storage vendors like Dell, HPE, and IBM, while Swift saw account and container server performance tunings relevant to archival projects at universities and archives. Horizon updated dashboards and workflows to expose new features from Nova, Neutron, and Cinder for operators at service providers such as Rackspace and DreamHost. Ceilometer and Aodh improvements targeted telemetry and alarming used by cloud providers including Bloomberg and PayPal. Ironic moved toward bare metal provisioning maturity for deployments by HPC centers and telecom operators.

Deployment and Upgrade Considerations

Operators planning upgrades from Juno to Kilo were advised to consult upgrade guides from the OpenStack Foundation, vendor documentation from Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Canonical Juju charms, and Mirantis Fuel. Rolling upgrades, database migrations, and API compatibility were common concerns for enterprises like Bloomberg, CERN, and research consortia. Kilo required coordinated updates across Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Glance, and Keystone to avoid downtime for tenants in multi-tenant clouds at universities, government labs, and hosting companies. Configuration management tools such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, and SaltStack received updated modules to support Kilo deployments used by upstream integrators and managed service providers.

Compatibility and Support

Kilo maintained compatibility matrices for hypervisors (KVM, Xen, Hyper-V), storage arrays (NetApp, EMC, Pure Storage), and network hardware (Cisco Nexus, Arista, Juniper QFX) documented by vendors including Red Hat, Canonical, and SUSE. The OpenStack community and commercial vendors offered long-term support and security backports for enterprise customers at banks, telecoms, and cloud service providers. Third-party integrations with VMware vSphere, Amazon APIs, and Ceph storage were emphasized to support hybrid cloud architectures used by research institutions, media companies, and software vendors.

Notable Bugs and Security Fixes

Kilo addressed notable issues including race conditions in Nova compute agent workflows, Neutron L3 agent HA failover bugs affecting routing in production clouds, and Cinder volume delete edge cases with multi-backend configurations reported by operators at financial firms and service providers. Security fixes targeted Keystone token handling, Glance image upload validation, and Swift account server hardening to mitigate threats identified by security teams at CERN, NASA, and large hosting providers. Upstream advisories and vendor bulletins documented CVE mitigations and recommended upgrade paths for operators managing regulated workloads in enterprises and public sector institutions.

Reception and Adoption

The Kilo release received adoption among cloud operators, managed service providers, and research centers seeking features for production stability, improved networking, and storage integration. Commercial distributions from Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE, Mirantis, and VMware incorporated Kilo into their offerings, while public cloud projects and telcos evaluated Kilo for NFV and IaaS use cases. Case studies and presentations at OpenStack Summit events highlighted deployments by CERN, Bloomberg, PayPal, and telecom operators, demonstrating Kilo's role in maturing the OpenStack ecosystem.

Category:OpenStack releases