Openstack is a set of software tools for
building and managing cloud computing platforms for public, private and hybrid
clouds. Backed by some of the biggest companies in software development and
hosting, as well as thousands of individual community members, many think that
OpenStack is the future of cloud computing. OpenStack is managed by the OpenStack
Foundation, a non-profit which oversees both development and
community-building around the project.
The cloud is all about providing
computing for end users in a remote environment, where the actual software runs
as a service on reliable and scalable servers rather than on each end users
computer. Cloud computing can refer to a lot of different things, but typically
the industry talks about running different items "as a
service"—software, platforms, and infrastructure. OpenStack falls into the
latter category and is considered Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Providing
infrastructure means that OpenStack makes it easy for users to quickly add new
instance, upon which other cloud components can run. Typically, the
infrastructure then runs a "platform" upon which a developer can
create software applications which are delivered to the end users.
Open stack comprise of many different
parts. Because of its open nature, anyone can add additional components to
OpenStack to help it to meet their needs. Just to make some standard around
OpenStack community has collaboratively identified nine key components that are
a part of the "core" of OpenStack, which are distributed as a part of
any OpenStack system and officially maintained by the OpenStack community. OpenStack consists of seven core
projects:
· Compute (Nova)
· Networking (Neutron/Quantum)
· Identity Management (Keystone)
· Object Storage (Swift)
· Block Storage (Cinder)
· Image Service (Glance)
· User Interface Dashboard (Horizon)
·
Nova OpenStack Compute (Nova) controls the
cloud computing fabric (the core component of an infrastructure service).
Written in Python, it creates an abstraction layer for virtualizing commodity
server resources such as CPU, RAM, network adapters, and hard drives, with
functions to improve utilization and automation.
·
Swift OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) is based on the Rackspace
Cloud Files product and is a redundant storage system ideal for scale-out
storage. This makes scaling
easy, as developers don’t have the worry about the capacity on a single system
behind the software. It also allows the system, rather than the developer, to
worry about how best to make sure that data is backed up in case of the failure
of a machine or network connection.
·
Cinder OpenStack Block Storage (Cinder) provides persistent block-level storage devices for use with
OpenStack compute instances. This more traditional way of accessing files might
be important in scenarios in which data access speed is the most important
consideration.
·
Neutron/Quantum Networking (Neutron), formerly called Quantum, includes
the capability to manage LANs with capabilities for virtual LAN (VLAN), Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol, and Internet Protocol version 6. Users can define
networks, subnets, and routers to configure their internal topology, and then
allocate IP addresses and VLANs to these networks. Floating IP addresses allow
users to assign (and reassign) fixed external IP addresses to the VMs.
·
Horizon is the dashboard behind OpenStack. It is the only
graphical interface to OpenStack, so for users wanting to give OpenStack a try,
this may be the first component they actually “see.” Developers can access all
of the components of OpenStack individually through an application programming
interface (API), but the dashboard provides system administrators a look at
what is going on in the cloud, and to manage it as needed.
·
Keystone group of internal services exposed on one or many points.
It provides multiple means of access, meaning developers can easily map their
existing user access methods against Keystone.
·
Glance provides image services to OpenStack. In this case,
"images" refers to images (or virtual copies) of hard disks. Glance
allows these images to be used as templates when deploying new virtual machine
instances.
·
Ceilometer provides telemetry services, which allow the cloud to
provide billing services to individual users of the cloud. It also keeps a
verifiable count of each user’s system usage of each of the various components
of an OpenStack cloud. Think metering and usage reporting.
·
Heat is the orchestration component of OpenStack, which allows
developers to store the requirements of a cloud application in a file that
defines what resources are necessary for that application. In this way, it
helps to manage the infrastructure needed for a cloud service to run.
OpenStack dominated as
top open-source Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform in 2014, gaining
global adoption in many different industries. My prediction is that in 2015
OpenStack is going to dramatically change the Integrated System landscape.
OpenStack gained significant traction in 2014 and is becoming a major platform
for establishing clouds and data centers. The advantages of OpenStack are
openness and higher levels of scalability and agility that address the needs of
many applications. Existing Converged Systems are based on closed cloud
orchestration software and thus don't provide the openness and choice that
customers expect. Retrofitting Converged Systems to leverage OpenStack is not
trivial and cannot meet the scalability and agility levels of Hyper-Convergence.
OpenStack vendors,
meanwhile, started to see actual revenues, and many multimillion-dollar deals
were publicized, as was approximately $5 billion estimated revenue expected by
2018.
As we move further
into New Year 2015, key developments to watch include:
·
Attention from bigger vendors has improved confidence among
larger enterprise customers. Thanks this push, the OpenStack community looked
into enterprise workloads and needs, too.
·
OpenStack is expected to gain adoption at managed service providers,
cloud service providers, and large enterprises that have the staff and
expertise to leverage the benefits and value of OpenStack. Over time, as the
OpenStack user base grows, and the eco-system solidifies and simplifies
OpenStack deployments, more enterprises as well as SMBs will leverage it too.
·
More and more focus would be given to an introduction to
database as a service with an emphasis
on Openstack using Trove
·
OpenStack has shifted from being a so called developer driven
project to one that is more customer-friendly. OpenStack will be easier to use,
manage, and scale.
·
Requirement for the common/central product management is now
increasingly recognized, particularly after explosion of peripheral projects
and services. We are moving in right
direction through operator- and enterprise-centric work groups.
·
Despite its pain points and deficiencies, OpenStack has the
level of product maturity and features that makes it a serious option for
enterprise adoption. Organizations now have more help than ever before to adopt
OpenStack. We expect the adoption to grow globally along with more moving in to
production.
In 2015, OpenStack
stands very solid growth and its evolution will continue as the larger vendors
continue building out their offerings geared at their customers’ requirements.