OpenStack is an open source project that consists of a series of software elements for creating cloud platforms. Thus a large community can work on the further development. With its multitude of components, OpenStack offers an open and modular architecture for setting up individual cloud infrastructures. These can run on standard hardware. The project was originally initiated by Rackspace and NASA. A number of well-known companies are now supporting the open source project. These include AT&T, HP, Canonical, Suse Linux, Intel, Red Hat, Huawei and IBM.