The OpenStack project is an open source cloud computing platform for all types of clouds, which aims to be simple to implement, massively scalable, and feature rich. Developers and cloud computing technologists from around the world create the OpenStack project. OpenStack provides an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution through a set of interrelated services. Each service offers an application programming interface (API) that facilitates this integration. Depending on your needs, you can install some or all services. The following table describes the OpenStack services that make up the OpenStack architecture:

OpenStack services

Service	Project name	Description
Dashboard	Horizon	Provides a web-based self-service portal to interact with underlying OpenStack services, such as launching an instance, assigning IP addresses and configuring access controls.
Compute	Nova	Manages the lifecycle of compute instances in an OpenStack environment. Responsibilities include spawning, scheduling and decomissioning of machines on demand.
Networking	Neutron	Enables network connectivity as a service for other OpenStack services, such as OpenStack Compute. Provides an API for users to define networks and the attachments into them. Has a pluggable architecture that supports many popular networking vendors and technologies.
Storage
Object Storage	Swift	Stores and retrieves arbitrary unstructured data objects via a RESTful, HTTP based API. It is highly fault tolerant with its data replication and scale out architecture. Its implementation is not like a file server with mountable directories.
Block Storage	Cinder	Provides persistent block storage to running instances. Its pluggable driver architecture facilitates the creation and management of block storage devices.
Shared services
Identity Service	Keystone	Provides an authentication and authorization service for other OpenStack services. Provides a catalog of endpoints for all OpenStack services.
Image Service	Glance	Stores and retrieves virtual machine disk images. OpenStack Compute makes use of this during instance provisioning.
Telemetry Service	Ceilometer	Monitors and meters the OpenStack cloud for billing, benchmarking, scalability, and statistical purposes.
Higher-level services
Orchestration Service	Heat	Orchestrates multiple composite cloud applications by using either the native HOT template format or the AWS CloudFormation template format, through both an OpenStack-native REST API and a CloudFormation-compatible Query API.

This section describes OpenStack services in detail.

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