Originally reported by ITPro Today. Quotes attributed to Ildiko Vancsa (OpenStack Foundation) and Glenn Seiler (Wind River Systems).
The OpenStack Foundation’s StarlingX project reached a significant milestone in mid-2019 with the release of version 2.0 of its edge computing cloud infrastructure platform. The update delivers deeper Kubernetes integration, containerized OpenStack services, and a cleaner upstream OpenStack codebase — changes that collectively make StarlingX a more practical choice for organizations deploying cloud workloads at the network edge.
What Is StarlingX?
StarlingX is an open-source cloud infrastructure platform designed specifically for edge computing and IoT use cases. Originally based on code contributed by Wind River Systems, it debuted under the OpenStack Foundation in late 2018. The platform targets environments where compute resources must operate at the edges of a network — such as 5G base stations, remote industrial facilities, and small branch offices — rather than in centralized data centers.
Unlike general-purpose cloud platforms optimized for large-scale core data centers, StarlingX is engineered around the constraints of edge deployments: limited hardware footprint, intermittent connectivity, strict latency requirements, and the need for high reliability with minimal on-site IT staff.
Key Changes in StarlingX 2.0
Kubernetes Integration
The most significant architectural change in version 2.0 is the integration of Kubernetes as the container orchestration layer. This makes it straightforward for operators to deploy and manage containerized workloads at edge sites, without needing a separate orchestration platform.
“The platform went through a drastic change with the transformation to leverage the benefits of using container technologies,” said Ildiko Vancsa, ecosystem technical lead at the OpenStack Foundation. “The community has been working hard since the 1.0 release to build an open infrastructure solution for edge and IoT use cases … utilizing multiple well-known open-source components.”
Containerized OpenStack Services
Starting with version 2.0, OpenStack services themselves run inside containers. This approach simplifies deployment, improves upgrade manageability, and isolates control plane services from the underlying host. The platform integrates OpenStack and Kubernetes components using Airship — an OpenStack Foundation project for automated cloud provisioning — to provide both flexibility and robustness.
Upgrade to OpenStack Stein
Glenn Seiler, vice president of open source strategy at Wind River Systems, highlighted the upgrade from OpenStack Pike to OpenStack Stein (released April 2019) as another major improvement. The previous StarlingX 1.0 release carried significant technical debt in the form of patches applied on top of Pike. With 2.0, the project now runs a largely unmodified “vanilla” OpenStack, reducing maintenance burden and improving long-term supportability.
Security Enhancements
Version 2.0 adds two notable security features:
- Trusted Platform Module (TPM) support: Enables secure storage of cryptographic secrets using hardware TPM devices.
- UEFI Secure Boot: Adds firmware-level boot integrity verification to protect against low-level tampering.
Precision Time Protocol (PTP) Support
StarlingX 2.0 also adds support for the Precision Time Protocol (PTP), which provides highly accurate clock synchronization across a network. This is critical for industrial automation and telecom environments where Network Time Protocol (NTP) does not offer sufficient precision — for example, synchronizing equipment across a factory floor or within a telecom radio access network.
OpenStack Is No Longer Required
Despite being an OpenStack Foundation project, StarlingX 2.0 does not require OpenStack for all deployment scenarios. Organizations that only need to run containerized workloads can deploy on bare metal using Kubernetes alone, without provisioning the full OpenStack stack.
If virtual machine (VM) support is needed, StarlingX packages the OpenStack services and VMs inside containers. Some OpenStack-derived services do remain on the controller in all configurations — Keystone for identity and secret management, and Horizon for the administrative web interface — but these do not impose an OpenStack dependency on container workloads themselves.
“There isn’t any OpenStack dependency on container workloads.”
Glenn Seiler, VP of Open Source Strategy, Wind River Systems
StarlingX in the Edge Computing Landscape
The edge computing space was already crowded with competing platforms and reference architectures in 2019. Seiler argued that StarlingX differentiates itself through pre-integration: all component dependencies, version pinning, and integration testing are handled by the project before release, rather than being left to operators to configure themselves.
Many competing projects provide reference architectures or loosely validated component combinations, but require substantial operator effort to achieve a production-ready configuration. Seiler’s position is that StarlingX aims to be genuinely deployment-ready out of the box.
Wind River has also indicated that StarlingX would form the technical foundation for a future commercial product offering, though specifics were not disclosed at the time of the 2.0 release.
What Comes Next for StarlingX?
With 2.0 shipped, the StarlingX community outlined an accelerated release cadence. Vancsa indicated that StarlingX 3.0 was targeted for later in 2019, and that subsequent releases would follow a cycle-trailing model aligned with the OpenStack release calendar — meaning two releases per year.
The community also announced expanded investment in testing, including sanity testing, robustness testing, and exploration of performance benchmarking.
“StarlingX is a very friendly and open community which is still growing and looking for participation and feedback from anyone who is interested in the platform or the use cases it is designed to provide a solution for.”
Ildiko Vancsa, Ecosystem Technical Lead, OpenStack Foundation
Summary
StarlingX 2.0 represents a substantial architectural maturation of the platform: Kubernetes is now a first-class citizen, OpenStack services are fully containerized, the OpenStack base has been upgraded and de-patched, and new security and timing features address real edge and telecom requirements. For DevOps and infrastructure teams evaluating edge cloud platforms, StarlingX 2.0 is worth examining — particularly for 5G, industrial IoT, and distributed enterprise scenarios where pre-integrated, deployment-ready infrastructure reduces operational risk.
Further reading: OpenStack Foundation Edge Computing | StarlingX Project Homepage