, maintenance of code, and quicker turnaround time on bug fixes. Also, depending on the scale of implementation, with pure open source, everyone has the ability to introduce upgrades, changes, or new ideas all together that your company can benefit directly. A current OpenStack example is shown in Figure 4.2. Making a decision of this magnitude is not straightforward and requires many internal discus- sions to decide which solution is needed. Many chose to go the pure open-source route to prevent vendor lock-in while also providing a resilient cloud platform across the globe. The identification of this target state platform would enable a pivot from longstanding use of proprietary solutions to an open-source software-based environment. For the core of the NFVI platform, AT&T choose OpenStack as the de facto standard for building and automating AIC. OpenStack is one of the best- known, pure open-source solutions in the world, with support from more than 500 companies and 30,000+ individual members located in 170 counties, and with over 20 million lines of code written to date (14, n.d.) (15, n.d.). The use of open-source products to reduce cost, while allowing for customer internal tool cre- ation, means that new partnerships are needed with experienced third parties. Credible third parties are required to serve the industry as integrators of the open-source code, and to execute the required changes. For instance, some organizations have contributed deployment automation capabilities to the open-source community that allow placement of OpenStack nodes on multiple racks that span mul- tiple network segments. This capability provides greater flexibility and scalability required for larger OpenStack deployments. Operational features such as these are key to maturing any new technol- ogy. Additional functionality, such as Neutron, the project that provides networking-as-a-service Contribution by companies Company Reviews Mirantis Mirantis 34269 Red Hat Red Hat 27636 16930 Rackspace Rackspace 15225 12780 Intel Intel Hu