Ever wondered what's really inside the stacks !
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I support TelcoCloud datacenters which are managed by Red Hat OpenStack. This cloud infrastructure hosts multiple Telco applications, known as Virtual network functions (VNFs) & All the VNFs are created & managed by the OpenStack platform only. This use case has saved a significant amount of CAPEX for telecom operators by converting the traditional hardware-based applications in the form of VNFs. Operations & maintenance tasks are also easy now.
Pros
- Scaling of application components (VMs).
- Managing the networking between virtual machines.
- Management of VNFs & the underlying infrastructure.
- Availability & uptime of VMs because of features like VM migration & evacuation.
Cons
- User management really needs improvement - when compared to AWS or GCP.
- Security of the overall platform needs to be improved.
- The whole architecture needs to be modular which is not. Ex - Upgrading any particular component (nova, neutron, cinder) should be possible without upgrading the whole Red Hat OpenStack version.
- The creation of HEAT templates for complex applications is still a challenge & has a dependency on external tools.
- Stack creation still requires parameters modification at controllers & compute because of the complex nova-scheduler algorithm.
Most Important Features
- Low cost.
- SDN functionality.
- Easy scaling of VMs.
Return on Investment
- Saved CAPEX for sure (I can't quote a figure).
- Saved Opex also - because a large support community is already available.
- Increased complexity of system setup though.
Alternatives Considered
vSphere
Other Software Used
Kubernetes, Zabbix, Evernote