OpenStack is a free set of software and tools for building and managing cloud computing environments for public and private clouds. It is considered a cloud operating system that has the ability to control large pools of compute, networks and storage resources throughout a data center, and provides the following capabilities:
- Networks
- Virtual machines (VMs) on demand
- Storage for VMs and arbitrary files
- Multi-tenancy
If you’re a regular follower of our Implementer’s Lab Blog, however, chances are you’re technically savvy and already understand the benefits that OpenStack brings to the table for building private clouds and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings. Our guess is that many of you have found yourself at the next stage of analyzing how to build an OpenStack cloud computing environment in a high performance 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE)or 40GbE network.
In anticipation of this, our engineers set out to configure OpenStack (Icehouse release) in Red Hat Enterprise 6.5 with Emulex OneConnect® OCe14100 10GbE adapters using Emulex Network Interface Card (NIC) partitioning technology. The Emulex OneConnect OCe14000 family of 10GbE and 40GbE Network adapters are optimized for virtualized data centers that have increased demand for accommodating multiple tenants in cloud computing applications. And with Emulex Universal Multi-Channel™ (UMC) and Emulex OneCommand™ Manager technology as the underlying networking essentials and tools, Emulex provides an ideal solution for building cloud computing environments.
OpenStack Cloud Convergence with Emulex OCe14000 Ethernet Adapters
After months of tests and validation, we created a solution design guide, “OpenStack Cloud Convergence with Emulex OCe14000 Ethernet Adapters”,to walk you through the steps to configure Emulex OneConnect OCe14000 adapters in a basic three-node OpenStack cloud configuration. It provides an easy to follow blueprint leveraging unique Emulex I/O connectivity capabilities for allocating bandwidth, converging multiple protocols, and safely isolating OpenStack core networks or applications.
This rest of this blog will give you an overview of the initial requirements for deploying OpenStack cloud convergence with UMC as the underlying technology, while the 47-page paper provides step-by-step instructions to configure controller, compute and network nodes for OpenStack. You can download the complete design guide here.
Configure Emulex adapters with UMC
Universal Multi-Channel (UMC) is an adapter partitioning technology developed by Emulex that provides powerful traffic management and provisioning capabilities such as dynamic rate control, priorities, MAC configuration, and Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) assignment. With UMC, the physical functions are presented to an operating system or hypervisor as independent adapters. UMC channels are presented to the operating system as a physical port with separate MAC address and bandwidth assignments.
Servers deployed with Emulex Oce14000 10GbE and 40GE adapters can utilize Emulex UMC technology for an OpenStack network providing both traffic separation and bandwidth optimization. UMC provides data centers with significant cost savings for cabling, adapters, switches, and power. UMC is switch-agnostic and works with any 10GbE or 40GbE switch.
UMC can provide up to 16 NIC functions per adapter depending on the adapter model. In this document, however, a minimum number of NIC functions assignments are defined for a basic OpenStack three-node solution shown here:
Deploy a three-node OpenStack environment
Before configuring OpenStack, your physical network requirements will need to be determined, including switches, routers, subnets, IP addresses and VLAN assignments, etc.
The following figure illustrates the basic three-node OpenStack network configuration we used in our own lab. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 is installed on all three servers. The nodes are accessed via a Secure Shell (SSH) from a remote server. The nodes can also be accessible via KVM over IP (IPKVM) device providing an alternate connection (not shown) to manage the nodes.