Overview
Welcome to stackers.network! This site is all about helping beginners with OpenStack. We make it easy and quick to get things up and running. Our main aim is to give you simple ideas and plans for using OpenStack, so you don't get stuck in the tough parts of starting from zero.
Lots of companies want to save money and be less dependent on big cloud services. They're looking at open-source options like OpenStack for more control and to avoid high costs and tricky contracts.
This site is great for businesses, people who do this for fun, or students. It gives you a quick summary of OpenStack, so you can start using it without spending too much time on the details.
What is OpenStack?
OpenStack is a open-source tool that lets businesses create their own cloud services, kind of like building something with LEGOs. It's used for things like running apps, saving data, and connecting things online. It's like what Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Azure does, but you get to set it up your way without vendor lock-in.
Think of it like playing a video game where you build a city. OpenStack gives you blocks to make and change your cloud the way you like. You can decide everything, like how big your storage is or how your network runs. Each part of OpenStack is a different block. For example, there's a block for virtual machines (called Nova), one for storage (Cinder and Swift), and one for networks (Neutron).
The cool part is that OpenStack is open-source. This means lots of people from around the world work on it, and you can change it to fit what you need. Companies use OpenStack in their own data centers for more control and privacy than public clouds.
In short, OpenStack is like a big set of LEGO for cloud stuff. It has many pieces you can use and change to build a cloud that's just right for you.
Deployment Technologies
There are many ways to deploy OpenStack. Some are more difficult than others, some require OS licensing, and some require you to pay for support. For our purposes, we will focus on one of the more trusted and efficient methods of deployment, one that also happens to be free and open-source: Kolla-Ansible. If you are curious about the other types of deployment methods, you can check the later section of this guide on other options.
Kolla-Ansible is a set of Ansible playbooks that can be used to deploy OpenStack on bare metal or virtual machines. It's a great way to get started with OpenStack because it's easy to use and doesn't require any special hardware or software licenses. It also leverages containers so it's rapid to deploy and easy to upgrade.
We will also document using Kolla-Ansible with an open-source Operating System so that we can avoid costly licensing fees. We will use Rocky Linux as our OS of choice. Debian is also another option as it is also free and open-source, but we will not be covering it initially in this guide.
For running our virtual machines, we will use KVM. KVM is free and part of Linux. It is good for virtual machines because it is fast, stable, and easy. It also works with many operating systems, so you can use Windows or Linux on your VMs.
Release Cycles
OpenStack has a release cadence of two releases per year. OpenStack has recently chosen to introduce a release cadence called the Skip Level Upgrade Release Process (SLURP). Under SLURP, the OpenStack community will still issue releases twice a year, but you will only be required to upgrade to every other release.
This means you don't have to upgrade every six months but you can skip a release and upgrade every year. This will help reduce the burden on operators and make it easier to upgrade your environment.
Kolla-Ansible typically then runs about six months after the OpenStack release to allow time to adjust for changes and allow the release to stabilize. This means that Kolla-Ansible will release a new version every six months.