The latest version of the OpenStack infrastructure platform sees release-- "Stein," featuring updates to container functionality, edge computing and networking upgrades, as well as tighter integration with the Kubernetes container orchestration platform.

The 19th release of the OpenStack platform since its 2010 launch by NASA and Rackspace, Stein follows on the 18th "Rocky" milestone. It is the result of a collaboration involving multiple vendors, including the likes of Canonical/Ubuntu, SUSE, VMware and Red Hat. Technically it is not a single piece of software, but a framework bringing together an integration engine and nearly 50 interdependent modules, each serving a specific function.

Google uses the Cloud Next event in San Francisco to announce Anthos-- a Google Cloud open platform allowing users to run applications anywhere, be it on on existing on-premises hardware or in the public cloud.

Possibly named after either a lost Greek play or an obscure character from the Marvel comics, Anthos is the next version of the Google Cloud Services Platform. However, while Cloud Services Platform managed hybrid clouds spanning on-premises datacentres and the Google cloud, Anthos ups the ante by running on 3rd party clouds, including biggest rivals AWS and Azure.

The global public cloud services market is to grow by 17.5% in 2019 to reach $214.3 billion Gartner reports, up from $182.4bn in 2018, as organisations continue to adopt cloud-first strategies.

The fastest growing market segment is cloud system infrastructure services (aka IaaS), with 27.5% growth in 2019 bringing revenues worth $38.9bn, up from $30.5bn in 2018. The 2nd fastest growing segment is cloud application infrastructure services (aka PaaS), with revenue growth of 21.8%.

“At Gartner, we know of no vendor or service provider today whose business model offerings and revenue growth are not influenced by the increasing adoption of cloud-first strategies in organisations," the analyst says. "What we see now is only the beginning, though. Through 2022, Gartner projects the market size and growth of the cloud services industry at nearly three time the growth of overall IT services.”

The open-source cloud-native container orchestration platform Kubernetes gets a major update in version 1.14, one adding 10 enhancements including production-level support for Windows Nodes.

Kubernetes has supported Windows containers in beta since version 1.19, but the 1.14 release brings production support for Windows Nodes as a stable feature. Such support allows users to schedule and manage Windows operating system containers with Kubernetes, bringing the ability to orchestrate workloads on hybrid operating system clusters.