The Battle of the distros - OS Summit Atlanta2014

The Battle of the Distros

Edgar MaganaPrincipal Engineer

May, 14 2014 – Atlanta OpenStack Summit

Which one is better for my Cloud

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Community member since 2011 Neutron core developer since 2012 Working with OpenStack distributions since … well since were

created! I DO NOT represent any specific vendor/company My current employer (Cisco) doesn’t offer a distribution My goal - OpenStack in Production everywhere! (neutron

included) My passion is simple - OpenStack!

Introduction – Who am I?

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Big Thanks to Great Developers in OpenStack Community & OpenStack FoundationInformation presented here are sources from my own experience as OpenStack developer/user and from OpenStack Foundation & CommunityViews and technical points expressed here are solely presenter’s and does not reflect his employer’s view/positions or OpenStack foundation in anywayInformation has been collected from all web resources availableIf something is missing or wrong here, so sorry but I could not find information about it! – personal feedback!

Acknowledgments

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Session Goals!

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Bummer but I will not tell you which distro you should get!Get a better idea of “few” available OpenStack distributions and products.

Understand the factors to be aware when selecting a specific vendor or solution.

Provide you with a set of weapons to use when a sales person calls you or during your walking over the expo floor.Evaluate whether it is possible or not to independently support an OpenStack deployment, without any company behind your data center – all open source. and …

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Wake you up!

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Distribution Vs. Product

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Distribution: It is basically the open source “trunk” code that is packaged without a “lot” of proprietary components on top of it ready for production.

• Mirantis• RDO• Suse• Rackspace• …

Product: It is a personalized version of the “released” code with “proprietary” features and unique deployment model considered as a final product.

• Nebula• CloudScaling• PistonCloud• …

OpenStack Distros vs Products – Are they the same?

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What are the right questions?

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Hardware – OS – Hypervisor Reference Architecture (High Availability) Code Upgrades & Scalability Licensing - Cost Model Plugins and Drivers Customer Support - Documentation Easy to use – Time to deploy

Factors to consider when choosing a vendor

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Hardware – OS – Hypervisor

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• Generic/flexible on the supported hardware or very specific• Provides the tools to interconnect vendor specific drivers• Open to multiple vendor combinations• Nested Virtualization (Services as VMs)• Support very specific hardware (most of the cases)• Certificated by the OS (Enterprise Model)• Watch up for vendor’s lock-in!!

Hardware – OS – Hypervisor

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Reference Architecture(High Availability)

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You need to understand the HA model and should be compatible with your current IT best practices.

HA in OpenStack is hard, make sure that all OpenStack components (nova, neutron, cider, etc.) are covered.

All those components should follow very similar HA model. Minimize the madness in your Cloud!

Understand the risk of HA. Troubleshooting your Cloud will be a beautiful nightmare.

Participate on the HA design.

Reference Architecture (High Availability)

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Code Upgrades & Scalability

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Simple! – Be able to upgrade and scale my OpenStack Cloud! OpenStack releases a new version every 6 months Community work is amazing, do not loose that advantage! Ecosystem is growing and best practices and tools for

operation will be available! Adding new zones should be possible Adding new compute nodes should be ridiculous simple

Code Upgrades & Scalability

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Licensing – Cost Model

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You pay per server, socket or per subscription-based Besides paying for Distro/Product OS license (i.e. RHEL, SUSE Enterprise) Support (should be included but watch out) Upgrades (same than before) Installation/Deployment Testing - PoCs

Licensing – Cost Model

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Plugins and Drivers

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How flexible is the solution if I want to use plugin X for Neutron and plugin Y for Nova

Let me select any storage back-end Messaging, DB back-end systems How easy is to change those selections – yeah I changed my

mind! Mirantis DriveLog: http://staging.stackalytics.com/driverlog/ OpenStack marketplace:

http://www.openstack.org/marketplace/drivers/

Plugin and Drivers

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Customer Support & Documentation

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You will have issues – Who will fix them? The closer your deployment is to “main trunk” the more

chances to get your issues solved Is support really 24x7x365? Action and Reaction Plans Installation/Deployment Docs about vendor’s sauce Knowledge on the code!http://www.stackalytics.com/

Customer Support & Documentation

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Easy to use – Time to deploy

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Understand the add-ons and customization Able to deploy a new cloud by yourself Time constrains during deployment The more vendors, the longer will take your deployment Create your own testing plans

Functionality Performance Load Scaling Upgrades

Time to deploy & Testing

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May OpenStack be with you!

If not!

Outsourcing will be with you!

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OpenStack Marketplace

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Thanks!

OpenStack@CiscoWe are Hiring!openstackhiring@cisco.com