OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of computing, storage, and networking resources throughout a data center, all managed and provisioned through APIs with common authentication mechanisms.
A dashboard is also available, giving administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.
- IS OPENSTACK VIRTUALIZATION MANAGEMENT PLATFORM?
- here are a lot of similarities, but they’re not the same.
- Yes, OpenStack and virtualization management platforms both sit on top of virtualized resources and can discover, report, and automate processes in vendor-disparate environments.
- But while virtualization management platforms make it easier to manipulate the features and functions of virtual resources, OpenStack actually uses the virtual resources to run a combination of tools. These tools create a cloud environment that meets the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 5 criteria of cloud computing:
1.A network,
2.Pooled resources,
3.A user interface,
4.Provisioning capabilities, and
5.Automatic resource control/allocation.
· How does OpenStack work?
OpenStack is essentially a series of commands known as scripts. Those scripts are bundled into packages called projects that relay tasks that create cloud environments. In order to create those environments, OpenStack relies on 2 other types of software:
- Virtualization that creates a layer of virtual resources abstracted from hardware
- A base operating system (OS) that carries out commands given by OpenStack scripts.
· THE OPENSTACK COMPONENTS
OpenStack’s architecture is made up of numerous open source projects. These projects are used to set up OpenStack’s undercloud and overcloud—used by sys admins and cloud users, respectively. Underclouds contain the core components sys admins need to set up and manage end users’ OpenStack environments, known as overclouds.
There are 6 stable, core services that handle compute, networking, storage, identity, and images while more than a dozen optional ones vary in developmental maturity.
Those 6 core services are the infrastructure that allows the rest of the projects to handle dashboarding, orchestration, bare-metal provisioning, messaging, containers, and governance.
NOVA
Nova is a full management and access tool to OpenStack compute resources—handling scheduling, creation, and deletion.
NEUTRON
Neutron connects the networks across other OpenStack services.
SWIFT
Swift is a highly fault-tolerant object storage service that stores and retrieves unstructured data objects using a RESTful API.
CINDER
Cinder provides persistent block storage accessible through a self-service API.
KEYSTONE
Keystone authenticates and authorizes all OpenStack services. It’s also the endpoint catalog for all services.
GLANCE
Glance stores and retrieves virtual machine disk images from a variety of locations.