In this document, you will learn how OpenStack can be used as a cloud management platform on top of a vSphere compute and storage infrastructure. Using the appropriate drivers, OpenStack enables self-service consumption of compute and storage in the form of Nova compute instances and Cinder block storage volumes with VMware vSphere as the provider.
vSphere has a long history of being a stable and resilient platform that offers many benefits to host cloud infrastructures. As an enterprise-class hypervisor with production-level features and support, vSphere is an excellent solution for enhancing OpenStack. Many vSphere features facilitate the implementation of OpenStack by simplifying configuration and reducing the number of steps required to provide resources.
vSphere platform capabilities are exposed to OpenStack using drivers that map OpenStack requests into equivalents that VMware solutions can interpret. VMware provides these drivers to the OpenStack community free of charge. Drivers for Cinder and Nova, illustrated in Figure 2, are examples. Significant effort is being applied to the creation of additional drivers, such as one that leverages VMware NSX™ to provide advanced networking functionality via Neutron.
vSphere has a long history of being a stable and resilient platform that offers many benefits to host cloud infrastructures. As an enterprise-class hypervisor with production-level features and support, vSphere is an excellent solution for enhancing OpenStack. Many vSphere features facilitate the implementation of OpenStack by simplifying configuration and reducing the number of steps required to provide resources.
vSphere platform capabilities are exposed to OpenStack using drivers that map OpenStack requests into equivalents that VMware solutions can interpret. VMware provides these drivers to the OpenStack community free of charge. Drivers for Cinder and Nova, illustrated in Figure 2, are examples. Significant effort is being applied to the creation of additional drivers, such as one that leverages VMware NSX™ to provide advanced networking functionality via Neutron.
