Explain infrastructure as a service (Iaas) using openstack/ owncloud.
Infrastructure as-a-service (IaaS)
IaaS includes the delivery of computing infrastructure such as a virtual machine, disk image library, raw block storage, object storage, firewalls, load balancers, IP addresses, virtual local area networks and other features on-demand from a large pool of resources installed in data centres. Cloud providers bill for the IaaS services on a utility computing basis; the cost is based on the amount of resources allocated and consumed.
OpenStack: a free and open source cloud computing platform
OpenStack is a free and open source, cloud computing software platform that is widely used in the deployment of infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions. The core technology with OpenStack comprises a set of interrelated projects that control the overall layers of processing, storage and networking resources through a data centre that is managed by the users using a Web-based dashboard, command-line tools, or by using the RESTful API. Currently, OpenStack is maintained by the OpenStack Foundation, which is a non-profit corporate organisation established in September 2012 to promote OpenStack software as well as its community. Many corporate giants have joined the project, including GoDaddy, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Mellanox, Mirantis, NEC, NetApp, Nexenta, Oracle, Red Hat, SUSE Linux, VMware, Arista Networks, AT&T, AMD, Avaya, Canonical, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Ericsson, Yahoo!, etc.
OpenStack computing components
OpenStack has a modular architecture that controls large pools of computing, storage and networking resources
Compute (Nova): OpenStack Compute (Nova) is the fabric controller, a major component of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and has been developed to manage and automate pools of computer resources. It works in association with a range of virtualisation technologies. It is written in Python and uses many external libraries such as Eventlet, Kombu and SQLAlchemy.
Object storage (Swift): It is a scalable redundant storage system, using which objects and files are placed on multiple disks throughout servers in the data centre, with the OpenStack software responsible for ensuring data replication and integrity across the cluster. OpenStack Swift replicates the content from other active nodes to new locations in the cluster in case of server or diskfailure.
Block storage (Cinder): OpenStack block storage (Cinder) is used to incorporate continual block-level storage devices for usage with OpenStack compute instances. The block storage system of OpenStack is used to manage the creation, mounting and unmounting of the block devices to servers. Block storage is integrated for performance-aware scenarios including database storage, expandable file systems or providing a server with access to raw block-level storage. Snapshot management in OpenStack provides the authoritative functions and modules for the backup of data on block storage volumes. The snapshots can be restored and used again to create a new block storage volume.
Networking (Neutron): Formerly known as Quantum, Neutron is a specialized component of OpenStack for managing networks as well as network IP addresses. OpenStack networking makes sure that the network does not face bottlenecks or any complexity issues in a cloud deployment. It provides the users with continuous self-service capabilities in the network’s infrastructure. The floating IP addresses allow traffic to be dynamically routed again to any resources in the IT infrastructure, and therefore the users can redirect traffic during maintenance or in case of any failure. Cloud users can create their own networks and control traffic along with the connection of servers and devices to one or more networks. With this component, OpenStack delivers the extension framework that can be implemented for managing additional network services including intrusion detection systems (IDS), load balancing, firewalls, virtual private networks (VPN) and many others.
