Working with OpenStack storage: Tips on Cinder, Swift and the cloud

Editor's note

OpenStack, a series of open source storage, cloud and computing projects, had a hard time getting a solid footing in the world of enterprise infrastructures largely because of its do-it-yourself nature. Many IT professionals were and still are wary about implementing OpenStack because it takes a special skill set to work with the technology, and should anything go wrong, there's no vendor support available. However, its DIY aspect is what lured IT administrators to try OpenStack. Open source platforms are customizable; if anything doesn't work well in a specific environment, an administrator can change the code to fix the problem. In addition, because OpenStack storage isn't tethered to a vendor, IT departments can save money by using commodity hardware.

As OpenStack continues to develop, more enterprises are using it as a platform to build their private clouds, including well-known companies such as Bloomberg and BestBuy.com. Vendors are increasingly getting behind OpenStack projects as well. Inktank, for example, sells a commercially supported version of Ceph, a unified systems option for OpenStack storage. Red Hat, along with Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP) to name a few, also sell their own distributions of OpenStack storage.

Even so, working with OpenStack storage and OpenStack-based clouds can be overwhelming for any IT professional. This guide will help with the decision to transition to an open source platform. You'll learn the basics of OpenStack storage, tips for working with OpenStack block and object storage (code-named Cinder and Swift, respectively) and how the technology fits into an open source cloud implementation.