OpenStack has become the de facto standard platform for the private cloud market.

The open source cloud computing software has become the most widely deployed open source cloud computing software and in addition to becoming the standard for private clouds, it is also now serving as the foundation for public cloud.

That’s according to the latest Forrester Research Report titled, ‘OpenStack’s Global Traction Expands For Its Newton Release.’

The December report, which analyses the state of OpenStack at the time of the October 2016 Barcelona Summit, found that the cloud has become the foundation for many private, and increasingly many public, cloud services.

The report said: “In the past year, telcos like CableLabs, SK Telecom, and Verizon have shelved their previous objections to the Neutron networking project and flocked to the OpenStack community, contributing features like Doctor.

“Leading I&O professionals, application developers, and CIOs at firms like American Express, Disney, and Walmart have embraced OpenStack for their digital businesses. It’s the foundation of many private (and, increasingly, of many public) cloud services that give your company the agility it needs to respond to customer demand, from core systems to the mobile apps that deliver differentiated customer experiences.”

OpenStack Private2016 has been a mixed year for OpenStack with the likes of HPE and Cisco seemingly distancing themselves from the technology with HPE selling off its OpenStack assets to SUSE and Cisco deciding to stop selling its Intercloud public cloud, based on OpenStack, next March.

HPE has frequently been one of the leading code contributors to OpenStack releases, while Cisco was one of the last large vendors that had been banking on the technology for public cloud success.

The flip side to that is that vendors such as Red Hat continue to be heavily invested in the technology. Last week the open source company released its dual-support mode OpenStack Platform 10, which aims to make it easier to install and run the open source cloud.

2017 will certainly bring plenty of questions for the OpenStack community to answer but this analyst report certainly seems to point to successes in the future.