Upcoming release of OpenStack Cloud platform to add new network features

Open source OpenStack Cloud platform will add a lot of network features. The OpenStack Havana will be unveiled on October 17, which will include a new generation of security and load balancing as a service function.

OpenStack has always included network functionality, although the initial features are limited and apply only to the Nova computing project. The OpenStack Quantum project began in 2011 and has recently been renamed Neutron.

The Quantum/neutron project was originally created by Dan Wendlandt, Wendlandt is currently head of VMware OpenStack product management. For the Havana version, VMware is just one of the main contributors to neutron, he notes.

"Our contribution code is from the community perspective as well as from the VMware driver's perspective," Wendlandt said, adding that we have added support for all the good features from the VMware NSX. ”

In August, VMware launched its NSX network virtualization platform, offering a new approach to software definition networks (SDN).

One of the features supported by NSX is distributed 3-tier network transmission.

"From a logical point of view, you can have a router in your topology, this does not mean that you need to forward packets to separate devices that are specifically routed," Wendlandt explains, "So a single virtual switch can do the right thing with the packet and send it directly to the right destination. ”

Network Services

In the previous version of the OpenStack, "Grizzly", the load Balancing Service (LBAAS) was officially unveiled. Through Havana, this service has been improved and provides a wide range of network features in the OpenStack cloud, including load balancing and firewalls as services.

Wendlandt says that in Havana, multiple vendor integrations can provide a powerful load-balancing function. The network is the service function part is the VShield technology based on VMware.

"OpenStack is a framework that has a common API and a driver for inserting different technologies," Wendlandt says, "These drivers can be used for open source technology, or may be used for closed sources, depending on the customer's choice of solution." ”

In the context of load balancing and firewalls as services, VMware contributes to the entire framework of deployment functionality.

Heat choreography

The main new feature in OpenStack Havana is to join the Heat choreography project, heat can connect to neutron to help orchestrate load balancing and other network functions.

"Everything in OpenStack is done through the API," Wendlandt explains, "so you can ask for neutron load balancing in the same way that you neutron create a network." ”

OpenStack Heat resembles Amazon's cloudformation, which can define a template based on policy on what might happen.

2 Layer of Modular network

An interesting add-on added to OpenStack Havana is the ML2 plug-in, or modular 2-tier network plug-in.

Wendlandt said: "The idea here is that if I want to use a VLAN, but I want to use technology from multiple vendors, it will allow devices from different vendors to interoperate in a good way." ”

Looking to the future, OpenStack still have some aspects of the network can be improved, wendlandt that need to improve ease of use, and better management and operations.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)