ABOUT THIS BOOK xix
Despite the differences in clouds and the types of organizations that are best posi-
tioned to take advantage of them, the clouds themselves can be built using the same
technologies. Although the ingredients that make up cloud resources might be the
same, the recipes and methods of consumption can be very different.
OpenStack is a powerful framework for constructing both private and public
clouds. Fundamentally, OpenStack abstracts and provides a common
API for the hard-
ware and software used in building clouds. The framework provides two very impor-
tant things:
Abstraction of hardware and software resources, which prevents vendor lock-in
of any particular component
A common API across resources, which allows for complete orchestration of
connected components
The first aspect is nice from a financial perspective, but the second is the key to a mod-
ern IT transformation. For enterprise
IT, OpenStack brings the same level of transfor-
mational efficiency to cloud deployment.
Why OpenStack in Action?
This book is intended as a step-by-step, bottom-up guide for constructing computa-
tional clouds of resources. My intended audience includes researchers, administra-
tors, and students interested in the deployment of an OpenStack environment. There
are no technical prerequisites beyond a basic operational knowledge of Linux, and
the material is suited to people with very different backgrounds and technical abili-
ties. Similarly, OpenStack is suited for many use cases.
Despite separate use cases utilizing the same OpenStack framework, the require-
ments and design of private clouds can vary greatly from those of service providers.
Enterprises are interested in providing private resource clouds for their organizations.
These private clouds don’t just represent additional services; they can represent a
transformation in the way organizations provide computational resources.
This book comprises
An introduction to OpenStack through the automated deployment of a single-
node development environment
A deeper understanding of OpenStack through a step-by-step manual deploy-
ment of a multi-node environment
The impacts of private cloud technologies (OpenStack, Ceph, Juju, and the
like) from the perspective of
IT operations
The deployment of a production OpenStack environment using vendor-
provided automated deployment and management tools
The architecture covered in the book is appropriate for small (5-node) to large enter-
prise (100-node) private cloud deployments. In addition, chapter 12 walks you
through the use of application orchestration tools like OpenStack Heat and Ubuntu
Juju on your newly constructed private cloud.
Licensed to tracy moore <nordick.an@gmail.com>