Openstack auto provisioning with Puppet and razor

To build and operate big Openstack infrastructure solutions you have to be able to deploy and provision quickly and effectively many new servers.

This is not definitive list but as a simple task you will need to make sure that all your servers have the right OS version, all dependency packages are installed and finally that the right Openstack code (projects like nova, cinder, etc) are deployed  This list is only as very simple example what you need to think about. As a demonstration in this blog I wanted to show an example how this can be achieved with a Puppet razor tool.

Problem

How to provision and configure Openstack servers.

Analysis and results description

Openstack+puppet+razor: all details of how to run this can be found here: http://wiki.debian.org/OpenStackRazorHowto

References

1. http://puppetlabs.com/blog/introducing-razor-a-next-generation-provisioning-solution/
2. http://wiki.debian.org/OpenStackRazorHowto
3. http://purevirtual.eu/2012/07/02/how-to-get-started-with-razor-and-puppet-part-1/

Event flow when a cloud instance is provisioned in Openstack

Many people think that cloud is alike virtualizastion or other way around. Both technologies have a lot of things in common and with a sophisticated virtualization manager or orchestration tool (example can be a VMware vCenter or vCloud) we get a look and feel that cloud promise but in essence cloud is not the same like virtualization.

In this post instead to polemize who is right or not I would like to rather take a look at the events that are happening when we provision a cloud server, either in cloud or VMware. The inside view is only for the Openstack although.

Problem

What is happening in the Openstack cluster when a cloud server is provisioned and booted.

Solution

Before a VM can be marked as booted and fully provisioned there are number or messages and requests exchanged between the core openstack components[4].

This slides show event after event what is happening: Openstack cloud request flow [2].
This diagram [3] below is an additional visualization of interaction between the components.

References

1. Python Code level analyse
   http://www.laurentluce.com/posts/openstack-nova-internals-of-instance-launching/
2. http://www.slideshare.net/mirantis/openstack-cloud-request-flow
3. Slides on Technical Architecture of Quantum (9/12) from the http://wiki.openstack.org/Quantum
4. http://www.openstack.org/software