StarlingX 10.0 is ideal for enterprises seeking a reliable, low-cost distributed cloud architecture, having been hardened in production by telcos such as KDDI, T-Systems, Verizon, Vodafone and others.
AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 26, 2025 -- StarlingX—the open source distributed cloud platform for IoT, 5G, O-RAN and edge computing—is available in its 10.0 release today. StarlingX, a project of Open Infrastructure Foundation, combines the Linux kernel, Ceph, OpenStack, Kubernetes and more to create a full-featured cloud software stack that provides everything telecom carriers and enterprises need to deploy an edge cloud on a few servers or hundreds of them. Container-based and highly automated and scalable, StarlingX is used by the most demanding applications in industrial IoT, telecom, video delivery and other ultra-low latency, high-performance use cases.
***Download StarlingX 10.0 at https://opendev.org/starlingx***
"With StarlingX running in production around the globe, the community has been able to learn about and incorporate user feedback into the platform, to ensure that it remains a perfect fit for modern-day workloads at scale and to deliver functionality that allows users to combine legacy technologies with new innovations," said Ildikó Váncsa, director, Community, for the OpenInfra Foundation. "The StarlingX 10.0 release puts an emphasis on catering to users' needs through adding new functionality to networking, increasing scalability, and making the platform even easier to deploy, configure and operate."
Highlights of the New Features and Upgrades in StarlingX 10.0
- Networking: StarlingX 10.0 adds IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack support. While IPv6 was originally introduced in the industry with the intention to replace the IPv4 address pool, that transition still hasn't been completed. With the existence of both protocols in production use, platforms like StarlingX face the requirement to support both simultaneously. The 10.0 version of the platform now enables the association of both IPv4 and IPv6 pools with networks defined in the platform with one of them serving as the primary.
- Security: StarlingX 10.0 adds support for using Harbor as a container registry by deploying it as a StarlingX system application. Once configured, users can utilize this service to securely manage artifacts in the cloud-native landscape, such as container images, Helm charts and more. Harbor is an OCI-compliant service, which allows vulnerability scanning of artifacts and provides role-based access control and the ability to sign container images and artifacts, among other features.
- User experience: Making it simple to deploy and manage the platform has always been a focal point for the StarlingX community. The 10.0 release delivers an important enhancement in this regard with the new Unified Software Management Framework. Although the abilities to patch the platform and carry out upgrades were already available in previous versions, different subsystems performed these operations and users needed to access them separately. The new framework provides a single procedure, accessible through a REST API/CLI interface, to carry out updates and upgrades for both a single cloud installation as well as a distributed cloud deployment.
- Kernel upgrade: StarlingX 10.0 includes an upgrade to the latest LTS release made available by the Yocto project, replacing the v5.10 kernel with v6.6. With the new kernel, the StarlingX platform has access to a wider range of supported hardware platforms and in-tree device drivers. This kernel version also offers improved performance and contains bug fixes which were not backported to the previously integrated version.
- Scalability: Earlier versions of the StarlingX were already able to manage up to 1,000 remote sites per system controller. The 10.0 release of the platform can now manage up to 5,000 sites, which simplifies the deployment and operation of large deployments.
- And more: StarlingX integrates a wide range of open source projects beyond the Linux kernel, and contributors have been integrating newer versions of these components in the 10.0 release cycle. For example, the StarlingX 10.0 release now offers access to Kubernetes versions up to v1.29.
Learn more about these and other features of StarlingX 10.0 in the community's release notes.
Recent Industry News Highlights Boost Mobile Adopting StarlingX to Power Open RAN Network
Boost Mobile, formerly DISH Wireless, has been and continues to lead in developing and operationalizing a carrier-grade cloud-native Open RAN 5G network at a national scale, transitioning to Wind River technology powered by StarlingX to advance innovation in the market. Remarks from the recent announcement:
"Boost Mobile is beyond proving Open RAN technology works, and is now applying component interchangeability through our new engagement with Wind River," said Eben Albertyn, CTO at Boost Mobile. "We continue to evaluate performance and the cost effectiveness of our network components and can rapidly pivot to new and different solutions. We aim to ensure our network remains cutting-edge and customers continue to enjoy the benefits of a cloud-native 5G network, including greater reliability, higher speeds and cost effective services."
StarlingX – A Simple Approach to Scaling Distributed Clouds
StarlingX is widely used in production among large telecom operators around the globe, such as T-Systems, Verizon, Vodafone, KDDI and more. Operators are utilizing the container-based platform for their 5G and O-RAN backbone infrastructures along with relying on the project's features to easily manage the lifecycle of the infrastructure components and services.
Hardened by major telecom users, StarlingX is ideal for enterprises seeking a highly performant distributed cloud architecture. Organizations are evaluating the platform for use cases such as backbone network infrastructure for railway systems and high-performance edge datacenter solutions. Managing cloud infrastructures for HCP and other demanding use cases, along with using the platform for industrial automation, are further use cases that players in the StarlingX ecosystem have been investigating.
OpenInfra Community Drives StarlingX Progress
The StarlingX project launched in 2018, with initial code for the project contributed by Wind River and Intel. Active contributors to the project include Wind River, Encora, Intel and 99Cloud. Well-known users of the software in production include T-Systems, Verizon and Vodafone. Although StarlingX is not exclusively a telecom platform, the StarlingX community is actively collaborating with the O-RAN Software Community (SC) to ensure compatibility with relevant requirements and workloads.
Community Accolades for StarlingX 10.0
"With its latest release, StarlingX is propelling cloud technology forward for mission-critical industries. As an original contributor and steadfast supporter of the project, it's exciting to witness the vibrant growth in community engagement, commercial adoption and ecosystem expansion. We are committed to supporting this momentum by delivering advanced distributed cloud capabilities through our StarlingX distribution in the Wind River Studio Operator suite. This robust solution is commercially deployed worldwide, from core to edge, supporting IT workloads and a range of critical applications." — Paul Miller, chief technology officer, Wind River
"We are delighted to see the launch of StarlingX 10.0. This release is a pivotal achievement in our quest to offer an enterprise-grade, open-source distributed edge cloud platform. Boasting a comprehensive feature set, enhanced scalability and improved reliability, StarlingX 10.0 is set to revolutionize how enterprises engage with edge cloud computing. 99Cloud remains committed to contributing to the community and collaborating with customers and partners to support and advance the adoption of StarlingX." —Shuquan Huang, technical director, 99Cloud
"It is an exciting time to witness another StarlingX milestone with the 10.0 release, which brings powerful new features like Unified Software Management and IPv4/IPv6 Dual Stack Networking. These advancements continue to position StarlingX as a robust solution for commercial deployments. As a proud sponsor and active contributor to the StarlingX project, Encora has played a key role in enhancing its user experience, particularly through contributions to virtual deployment user guides and application development guidelines. Additionally, Encora has developed a Gen-AI powered chatbot assistant designed to support StarlingX users, making it easier to access and navigate resources within the platform. StarlingX is also making strides in documentation, incorporating community feedback to facilitate smoother onboarding for new users. The future is promising, with a growing number of contributors joining the StarlingX OpenStack ecosystem, aligning with current market trends, and Encora is excited to continue supporting the expansion of use cases StarlingX will enable." —Thales Elero Cervi, software engineering manager, Encora (Brazil), StarlingX Openstack project lead, member of the StarlingX Technical Steering Committee
Project Resources
- Download the StarlingX 10.0 code
- Website // Matrix // Twitter // Mailing-list // Email: info@starlingx.io
About StarlingX
StarlingX is the open source edge computing and IoT cloud platform optimized for low latency and high performance applications. It provides a scalable and highly reliable edge infrastructure, tested and available as a complete stack. Applications include industrial IoT, telecom, video delivery and other ultra-low latency use cases. StarlingX ensures compatibility among diverse open source components and provides unique project components for fault management and service management, among others, to ensure high availability of user applications. StarlingX is the ready-for-deployment code base for edge implementations in scalable solutions. StarlingX is an Open Infrastructure Foundation project. www.starlingx.io
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