What is OpenStack?

OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.

Learn more about OpenStack's compute, storage, networking, take a tour of the dashboard, or dive in and learn how to get started with OpenStack today.

If you're looking for OpenStack related products and services such as Distributions, Appliances, Public Clouds, Consultants, or Training check out our OpenStack Marketplace.

Features and benefits

Leverages commodity hardware: No lock-in, lower price/GB.
HDD/node failure agnostic: Self-healing, reliable, data redundancy protects from failures.
Unlimited storage: Large and flat namespace, highly scalable read/write access, able to serve content directly from storage system.
Multi-dimensional scalability: Scale-out architecture: Scale vertically and horizontally-distributed storage. Backs up and archives large amounts of data with linear performance.
Account/container/object structure: No nesting, not a traditional file system: Optimized for scale, it scales to multiple petabytes and billions of objects.
Built-in replication 3? + data redundancy (compared with 2? on RAID): A configurable number of accounts, containers and object copies for high availability.
Easily add capacity (unlike RAID resize): Elastic data scaling with ease.
No central database: Higher performance, no bottlenecks.
RAID not required: Handle many small, random reads and writes efficiently.
Built-in management utilities: Account management: Create, add, verify, and delete users; Container management: Upload, download, and verify; Monitoring: Capacity, host, network, log trawling, and cluster health.
Drive auditing: Detect drive failures preempting data corruption.
Expiring objects: Users can set an expiration time or a TTL on an object to control access.
Direct object access: Enable direct browser access to content, such as for a control panel.
Realtime visibility into client requests: Know what users are requesting.
Supports S3 API: Utilize tools that were designed for the popular S3 API.
Restrict containers per account: Limit access to control usage by user.

Example architecture

The example architecture requires at least two nodes (hosts) to launch a basic virtual machine or instance. Optional services such as Block Storage and Object Storage require additional nodes.

Controller: The controller node runs the Identity service, Image service, management portions of Compute, management portion of Networking, various Networking agents, and the Dashboard. It also includes supporting services such as an SQL database, message queue, and NTP. Optionally, the controller node runs portions of the Block Storage, Object Storage, Orchestration, and Telemetry services. The controller node requires a minimum of two network interfaces.

Compute: The compute node runs the hypervisor portion of Compute that operates instances. By default, Compute uses the KVM hypervisor. The compute node also runs a Networking service agent that connects instances to virtual networks and provides firewalling services to instances via security groups. You can deploy more than one compute node. Each node requires a minimum of two network interfaces.

Block Storage:The optional Block Storage node contains the disks that the Block Storage and Shared File System services provision for instances. For simplicity, service traffic between compute nodes and this node uses the management network. Production environments should implement a separate storage network to increase performance and security. You can deploy more than one block storage node. Each node requires a minimum of one network interface.

Object Storage:The optional Object Storage node contain the disks that the Object Storage service uses for storing accounts, containers, and objects. For simplicity, service traffic between compute nodes and this node uses the management network. Production environments should implement a separate storage network to increase performance and security. This service requires two nodes. Each node requires a minimum of one network interface. You can deploy more than two object storage nodes.