The community of developers contributing to OpenStack has released the latest version of the open-source cloud operating system. The latest release is called Essex, according to Rackspace, one of the biggest and first contributors to the open-source project.

While there is some new functionality, Rackspace says the real strength of the new release is in the enhancements of existing features. In a blog post, Jim Curry, general manager of Rackspace Cloud Builders, wrote that Essex took a big step forward “in terms of stability, usability, scalability and overall integration amongst the various OpenStack services.

Since its launch in 2010, OpenStack has become a major force in cloud computing, with multiple private and public clouds having been built on the framework. Rackspace and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were the first contributors to the project.

OpenStack inherited a lot of technology from the private cloud NASA developed for its employees called Nebula. Today, more than 200 developers from 55 companies have contributed to the project.

Capabilities added in the Essex release include more common features for different hypervisors, live VM migration with multi-host networking and better support for high performance computing.

Enhancements to storage include compliance and data security improvements, better protection from data corruption and better disaster-recovery capabilities.

Two entirely new features have been added as well. The OpenStack Dashboard gives adiminstrators and users a control panel with plug-in support for additional applications. OpenStack Identity offers unified authentification and identity management capability for all OpenStack services.

The next release of OpenStack is called Folsom and is expected in the fall. The biggest focus for the next release is virtualized network, which is being developed under the codename “project Quantum.”

Quantum is already available for users to download but the capability is still being worked on.