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Find out how it works OpenStacka platform for cloud computing flexible and scalable for building and managing applications and services.
OpenStack is a highly scalable and flexible open source cloud computing platform that provides a cloud computing infrastructure on which you can build and manage various applications and services. As a user, you benefit from access to virtual resources, such as virtual machines, storage, and networks, which are automatically provisioned and orchestrated by OpenStack. With its many interconnected components, such as Nova, Neutron, and Cinder, OpenStack enables efficient resource management in a cloud computing environment, providing a comprehensive and powerful solution to meet your needs.
What is OpenStack?
A Brief Introduction to OpenStack
OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform that enables the creation and management of private, public, and hybrid cloud environments. It offers infrastructure as a service (IaaS) for provisioning and managing computing resources on demand, such as virtual machines, storage, and networking.
OpenStack's primary goal is to provide a flexible, scalable, and resilient cloud computing solution, giving businesses complete autonomy in managing their IT resources. Thanks to its modular architecture, OpenStack allows the platform to be adapted to the specific needs of each organization, while ensuring high interoperability between the various components.
Origin and evolution of OpenStack
OpenStack was created in 2010 through a partnership between NASA and Rackspace, a web hosting company. The two organizations decided to collaborate to develop an open-source cloud computing solution that could compete with proprietary offerings already on the market. Their goal was to create a platform that was free, scalable, and completely vendor-independent.
Since its inception, OpenStack has experienced significant growth and become one of the most popular open-source projects in the cloud computing field. It now has thousands of contributors worldwide and is supported by a large community of users and developers. Over the years, many companies and organizations have adopted OpenStack as their cloud computing solution, contributing to its development and evolution.
OpenStack architecture
OpenStack components
OpenStack is made up of various interconnected services that enable the automated creation, management, and deployment of computing resources. The main components of OpenStack are:
- Nova: the computing service that allows you to create and manage virtual machine instances.
- Swift: The object storage service that provides a distributed and highly available storage solution.
- Neutron: The network service that allows you to create and manage virtual networks and configure connections between different instances.
- Cinder: The block storage service that allows you to provision and manage storage volumes for instances.
- Keystone: The identity service that handles authentication, authorization, and management of users and projects.
- Glance: the virtual image management service for storing, cataloging and sharing instance images.
- Heat: the orchestration service that allows you to deploy and manage complex infrastructures using user-defined templates.
- Horizon: The graphical user interface that allows you to view and manage OpenStack resources.
Communication between components
OpenStack's various components communicate with each other via RESTful APIs (application programming interfaces). This allows services to exchange information and perform actions using standard HTTP requests. For example, when you create a virtual machine instance with Nova, that service communicates with Neutron to configure the network, with Glance to retrieve the instance image, and with Keystone to verify user authentication.
This modular architecture and communication between components allow for great flexibility and extensibility of OpenStack. Users can add or remove services as needed, and developers can create new services or customize existing ones using OpenStack APIs.
Resource management with Nova
Nova Component Overview
Nova is the core component of OpenStack that manages computing resources, such as virtual machine instances. It allows instances to be created, deployed, scheduled, and monitored across compute nodes.
With Nova, you can provision instances on demand, specifying their size, operating system, and required resources. Nova then takes care of booting the instance on the appropriate host and configuring the network to enable communication with other instances and other OpenStack services.
Allocation of resources to bodies
In Nova, compute resources are managed from a resource pool. When you create an instance, Nova dynamically allocates the necessary resources from this pool, based on the specifications you provide. This ensures efficient use of resources, avoiding waste and optimizing performance.
Quotas can also be set to limit resource consumption per project or per user. These quotas can be adjusted according to the needs of each user or project, in order to optimize the use of available resources.
Managing scheduling and load balancing
Nova also incorporates advanced scheduling and load balancing features. It can consider various criteria, such as resource availability, system load, and security policies, to determine which compute node an instance should be deployed on.
Additionally, Nova allows for dynamic load balancing mechanisms, automatically redistributing instances across different compute nodes based on system load. This ensures balanced resource utilization, avoiding bottlenecks and ensuring high service availability.
Storage with Swift
Introduction to the Swift storage service
Swift is OpenStack's object storage service. It allows you to store large amounts of unstructured data, such as images, files, videos, or documents. Swift offers a distributed, highly available, and redundant storage solution, ensuring data resilience and security.
Swift's principle is based on distributing data across multiple storage nodes, called "rings." Each ring is responsible for a portion of the storage and contains multiple physical disks. Data is replicated across different nodes to ensure its availability in the event of hardware failure or outage.
How the distributed storage system works
When you store an object in Swift, it is fragmented into multiple pieces and distributed across the different storage nodes in the ring. Each piece of the object is replicated across multiple nodes, ensuring data availability and resilience.
When you want to access an object stored in Swift, it is reconstructed from the various parts present on the storage nodes. The transparency of this operation guarantees easy and fast access to the data, even if one or more nodes fail.
Swift also offers advanced features such as data compression, metadata management, and content indexing and search. This makes it a powerful and versatile storage solution suitable for various use cases.
Network with Neutron
Neutron basics
Neutron is OpenStack's networking service. It allows you to create and manage virtual networks, subnets, gateways, and security policies. Neutron offers complete flexibility in network configuration, allowing you to define complex topologies and apply advanced security policies.
With Neutron, you can create isolated networks for each project or user, using private IP addresses. You can also set security rules to control data flow between different instances and other networks.
Creation and management of virtual networks
In Neutron, you can create virtual networks by specifying their characteristics, such as IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and security rules. Once the network is created, you can attach subnets, gateways, and virtual machine instances to it.
Neutron also offers the ability to connect virtual networks created in OpenStack to external physical networks, using virtualization mechanisms or hardware gateways. This allows OpenStack virtual networks to be extended beyond the platform boundaries, connecting them to other existing infrastructures.
Routing and Security Configuration
Neutron allows you to configure advanced routing rules to direct traffic between different instances and other networks. You can define static routes or use dynamic routing protocols, such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) or Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), to optimize network paths and ensure high performance.
When it comes to security, Neutron offers advanced features for enforcing security rules at the network, subnet, or instance level. You can define access control lists (ACLs) to control inbound and outbound data flows, as well as security groups to enforce consistent security policies across multiple instances.
Orchestration with Heat
Introducing the Heat Orchestration Service
Heat is OpenStack's orchestration service. It allows you to model and deploy complex infrastructures using user-defined models, called templates. With Heat, you can create and manage resource stacks in an automated manner, specifying dependencies between different resources.
A Heat template is a text file in Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) format that describes various resources and their properties, as well as the relationships between them. For example, you might define a template to create a stack that contains a virtual machine instance, a storage volume, and a network.
Infrastructure modeling and deployment
With Heat, you can model your infrastructure by describing the required resources, their properties, and their relationships. You can define resources for virtual machine instances, storage volumes, networks, SSH keys, security groups, and more.
Once your infrastructure is modeled, you can deploy the stack using the Heat template. Heat then creates the requested resources, respecting the dependencies and constraints specified in the template. You can also update or delete an existing stack by modifying the template or specifying the actions to be performed.
Heat also offers advanced features for error handling, event management, and stack change tracking. This effectively automates infrastructure management and maintenance, ensuring consistent and reliable deployments.
Identity and Security with Keystone
Roles and Permissions in OpenStack
Keystone is OpenStack's identity service. It provides authentication, authorization, and user and project management. With Keystone, you can assign roles and permissions to users to control their access to OpenStack resources.
In Keystone, users are associated with projects, which are isolated workspaces in which they can create and manage resources. Roles are used to define user permissions and privileges within a given project. For example, you can assign a user the role of administrator, giving them full rights to the project.
User and project management
With Keystone, you can create, edit, and delete users and projects, assigning them roles and permissions. You can also configure security policies to control access to resources by specifying authentication rules and security levels.
Keystone also offers integration mechanisms with other authentication systems, such as LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) or Active Directory, making it easier to integrate OpenStack into existing environments.
Dashboard with Horizon
OpenStack graphical user interface
Horizon is the graphical user interface for OpenStack. It is a web-based dashboard that allows you to view and manage OpenStack resources in an intuitive and user-friendly way. Horizon offers a user experience simplified, which allows users of all skill levels to interact with OpenStack.
With Horizon, you can access various OpenStack features, such as creating and managing instances, networks, storage volumes, virtual images, etc. You can also monitor instance performance, manage security policies, configure routing rules, and more.
Main Features and Uses
Horizon offers many features that simplify OpenStack management and administration. You can create custom dashboards to organize and display the information most relevant to you. You can also set up alarms and notifications to be notified of important events.
Horizon also provides access to reports and statistics on resource usage, allowing you to optimize resource allocation and control costs. You can also perform automated actions using custom scripts and workflows to automate repetitive tasks and improve efficiency.
Image management with Glance
Virtual image storage and management
Glance is OpenStack's virtual image management service. It allows you to store, catalog, and share instance images, which serve as templates for creating new instances. With Glance, you can create, import, update, and delete virtual images, ensuring their availability and integrity.
Virtual images are files or snapshots of virtual machine instances that contain the operating system, applications, and associated data. They can be used to create new instances quickly and efficiently.
Using images in OpenStack
In Glance, you can store images of various types, such as system images, application images, or data images. You can also create images from storage volumes or snapshots of existing instances.
Once you've imported or created an image in Glance, you can use it to create an instance in Nova. When creating the instance, you simply specify the image you want to use as a template. Nova then boots the instance using that image and configures the operating system and associated applications.
Glance also offers advanced features such as image compression, image sharing between users or projects, metadata management, and image search using filters. This makes it easier to manage and use images in OpenStack.
Queueing system with Zaqar
Message queuing and distribution
Zaqar is OpenStack's queuing service. It provides an asynchronous messaging solution that allows messages to be queued and distributed between different OpenStack services. With Zaqar, you can communicate reliably and efficiently between different instances, even in distributed or large-scale environments.
When you queue a message with Zaqar, it is temporarily stored in a queue before being processed. Messages are then distributed to the services or instances waiting for them, using publish/subscribe or routing mechanisms.
Integration with other OpenStack services
Zaqar is tightly integrated with other OpenStack services, facilitating communication and coordination between different instances and services. For example, you can use Zaqar to send notification messages between different instances, coordinate tasks between different instances, or synchronize states between different instances.
Zaqar also offers advanced features such as message persistence, priority management, message duplication, and queue replication. This makes it a reliable and efficient messaging solution suitable for many use cases.