One of the questions that often comes up is if you should use OpenStack to run Linux Containers, or if you should use Containers to run OpenStack. I think both are valid and interesting options, and to that end, I’ve been working with the OpenStack Kolla Project to get a better feel for how these resources all fit together.
While it wasn’t quite a seamless as it might be (there are always those little bugs that seem to cause inordinate problems), but once the process was worked through, a repeatable OpenStack deployment came together. Now that in itself isn’t much to talk about, but the fact that once you get a base Operating System up and running, that the actual deployment can just be reset and rebuilt if something doesn’t work, well that’s revolutionary.
Really, I can’t stress that enough.
If it doesn’t work, you don’t have a mess to clean up, you just delete your Containers (and your externalized config directories if you’d like), and you can rebuild in what is often a few minutes.
Interested in seeing what it is like deploying the OpenStack Kolla Project? Check out the short screencast below:
I’ve put the code used to stand up the system is on Github, so try it out for yourself!
https://github.com/rstarmer/openstack-kolla-ansible
And the Kolla project can be found here:
https://github.com/openstack/kolla
or on IRC at #openstack-kolla
We are pretty excited about the possibilities that Kolla provides for OpenStack deployment and management. It has the potential to really solve one of the major headaches I’ve had with OpenStack – upgrades. If you try it out, or watch the screencast, you can also see how it really speeds up OpenStack deployment as well!
Single node Kolla worked? Check out the multi-node Kolla Tutorial.
Need a refresher/update on the current state of Linux Containers like Docker?
Check out our recent post on how container technology is revolutionizing application delivery or check another video from our Five Minutes of Cloud YouTube channel:Introduction to Linux Containers.