OpenStack Appliances
An Openstack [1] Appliance is the name given to software which can support the Openstack cloud computing platform on either a physical devices such as servers or virtual machines or a combination of the two.
Typically a software appliance [2] is a set of functionalities that can function without the presence of an operating system, thus they mus contain enough essential underlying operating system functionality to work..
So a strict definition might be an application which is designed to offer Openstack capability without the necessity to have an underlying operating system.
However applying this strict definition may not be helpful as there is not really a clear line between what is an appliance and a distribution.[3]
Vendors have been heavily involved in Openstack since it's inception, and have since developed and are marketing a wide range of appliances, applications and distributions.
History
editOpenstack was established as an initiative of NASA and Rackspace in 2010[4] with the following mission statement “to produce the ubiquitous Open Source Cloud Computing platform that will meet the needs of public and private clouds regardless of size, by being simple to implement and massively scalable”. [5]
The Openstack organisation has grown rapidly and is supported by more than 540 companies.[6]
In 2012 NASA withdrew as an active contributor from the Openstack and instead made the strategic decision to use Amazon Web Services for cloud based services.[7]
The Openstack Challenge
editOpenstack is a complex entity and adopters face a range of challenges when trying to implement Openstack in an organisation. For many organisations trying to implement their own project a key issue is the lack of skills available. [8] In an article in on the New Stack Atul JHA succinctly identifies 5 challenges and Organization wishing to deploy Openstack will face.[9]
Installation Challenges
editOpenstack is as much a suite of projects rather than a single product, and each of the various applications needs to configured to suit the users requirements then the installation is complex and requires a range complimentary skill-sets [10] for an optimum set-up. One obvious solution would be to take a complete vendor supplied package containing hardware and software although due diligence is essential [11]
Documentation
editThis is more a function of the nature of documentation with open source products than Openstack per se, but with more than 25 projects managing document quality is always going to be challenging. [12]
Upgrading Openstack
editAgain this is a function of the multiplicity of projects, and given that Openstack projects are constantly evolving, the requirements of the upgrades may force user to have down-time, a situation which does not occur in the public clouds.
Long Term Support
editIt’s quite common for a business to stay on a historical release of software for some time after it has been upgraded. The reasons for this are pretty obvious and referred to above. However there is little incentive for developers in an open source project to provide support for historic code. In addition Openstack itself has formally discontinued support for some old releases.[13]
Given the above challenges the most appropriate route for an organisation wishing to implement Openstack would be to go with a vendor, and source and Openstack appliance or distribution.
Selecting a Vendor
editThere are a large number of vendors offering Openstack solutions meaning that an organisation wishing to deploy the technology has a complex task in selecting which vendor offer best matches his business requirements..[14] . Barb Darrow offered this over view in Fortune on May 27th 2015 [15]pointing out that there may be some consolidation in the market that will clarify things.
There are other aspects that people need to consider for example the real costs involved.[16] How much of the actual Openstack platform is offered, some vendors will make an offer which encompasses most of the Openstack projects, others will only offer certain components, please refer to the table below for details, to what extent has a vendor injector proprietary code to manage lack of maturity in an Openstack component,[17] to what extent does proprietary code mean vendor lock in.[18]
The most authoritative information on vendor products is at the Openstack foundation website[19].
Openstack Appliances and Distros
|
Product | Block
Storage App |
Compute
API |
Dashboard | Database
API |
Elastic
Map Reduce |
Identity
API |
Image
Service |
Network
API |
Storage
API |
Orchestration
API |
Telemetry | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unbuntu | Ubuntu
Openstack |
Trunk
v2.0 |
Trunk
v3o |
Trunk | Juno | Juno
V1.0 |
Trunk
v3.0 |
Trunk
v2.0 |
Trunk
v2.0 |
Trunk
v1.0 |
Trunk
v2.0 | ||
Swiftstack | Object
Storage Platform |
Trunk
Swift V1.0 |
|||||||||||
TransCirrus | Cloud
Appliance |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
Icehouse
Celiometer v2.0 | |||||
Oracle | Openstack
for Oracle Linux |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
|||||
EasyStack | ES Cloud 2 | Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
Icehouse
Celiometer v2.0 | |||
VMWare | Integrated
Openstack |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
||||
Red Hat | Enterprise
Linux Openstack Platform |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Sahara v1.0 |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
Juno
Celiometer v2.0 | ||
Bright | Bright
Openstack |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
||||
IBM | Cloud
Management with Openstack |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
Juno
Celiometer v2.0 | |||
Huwawei | Fushionsphere
Openstack |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
Juno
Celiometer v2.0 | |||
Oracle | Openstack for
Solaris |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
|||||
Piston | Openstack | Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
|||||
Cisco | Openstack
Private Cloud |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
||||
SUSE | Cloud | Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
Icehouse
Celimeter v2.0 | |||
IBM | Spectrum
Scale for Object Store |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
||||||||||
Rackspace | Private Cloud
Software |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
||||
Platform 9 | Managed
Openstack |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
|||||
CloudScaling | Open Cloud
System |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
Icehouse
Celiometer v2.0 | ||||
Stratoscale | Stratoscale | Juno
Nova v2.0 |
|||||||||||
Mirantis | Mirantis
Openstack |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
Juno
Sahara v1.0 |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
Juno
Celiometer v2.0 | ||
HP | Helion
Openstack |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Horizon |
June
Trove v1.0 |
Juno
Sahara v1.0 |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Neutron v2.0 |
Juno
Swift v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
Juno
Celiometer v2.0 | |
Enovance | Service
Provider Cloud |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
Icehouse
Celiometer v2.0 | |||
ONXY | Electra
Stack |
Icehouse
Cinder v2.0 |
Icehouse
Nova v2.0 |
Icehouse
Horizon |
Icehouse
Keystone v2.0 |
Icehouse
Glance v2.0 |
Icehouse
Neutron v2.0 |
Icehouse
Swift 2.0 |
Icehouse
Heat v1.0 |
Icehouse
Celiometer v2.0 | |||
Breqwatr | Cloud
Appliance |
Juno
Cinder v2.0 |
Juno
Nova v2.0 |
Juno
Keystone v3.0 |
Juno
Glance v2.0 |
Juno
Heat v1.0 |
Juno
Celiometer v2.0 |
References
edit- ^ "Openstack Organisation". Openstack.org. Openstack Foundation. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ "Definition of a Software Appliance". pcmag.com. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Datta, Alana (1 September 2009). "A (SUSE) Studio to Edit and Roll Out Your Appliance". OpenSourceForYou. EFYIIndia. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ "Introduction a Bit of Openstack History". Docs Openstack. Openstack Foundation. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ "Open Stack Wiki Main Page Mission". 24 May 2010. Openstack Foundation. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ "Openstack Organisation Foundation Companies". Openstack Organisation. Openstack Foundation. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Babcock, Chris (18 June 2012). "NASA Drops OpenStack For Amazon Cloud". Information Week. UBM Tech. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
- ^ Tsidulko, Joseph (6 August 2015). "OpenStack Community Challenged By Dearth Of Talent, Complexity". CRN. The Channel Company. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Jha, Atul (December 2011). "OpenStack Has Its Issues but it's Worth a Fortune". Thenewstack.io. The New Stack. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Laube, David (12 January 2015). "Why We Threw 4 Months of Work in the Trash; or How we Failed at OpenStack - See more at: https://www.packet.net/blog/how-we-failed-at-openstack/#sthash.NaZ3x9V7.dpuf". Packet.net. Packet. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
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- ^ SVERDLIK, Yevgeniy (April 1 2015). "Private OpenStack Startup Nebula Goes Out of Business". Data Center Knowledge. Penton. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
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(help) - ^ Lester, Andy (10 January 2013). "13 Things People Hate about Your Open Source Docs". Smart Bear. SmartBear Software. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ "Releases". wikiOpenStack.otg. Openstack Foundation. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Allen, Scott (19 May 2015). "5 Questions You Should Ask a Potential OpenStack Vendor". Intel Communities. Intel. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Darrow, Barb (7 May 2015). "Is there such a thing as too many clouds?". Fortune. Time Inc. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Finnegan, Matthew (1 May 2015). "OpenStack 'more costly' than VMware and Microsoft for private clouds". Computerworlduk,com. IDG. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Clark, Jack (13 May 2014). "HP: OpenStack's networking nightmare Neutron 'was everyone's fault". The Register. The Register. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ Donnelly, Caroline (3 March 2015). "HP updates Helion OpenStack in latest hybrid cloud push". Computer Weekly. TechTarget. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
- ^ "Distro's and appliances". Openstack.org. Openstack Foundation.