OpenStack/VMware vApp Quickstart Kit
So you run your vShop with vSphere and have heard about this OpenStack and want to give it a try? Wait, OpenStack? It’s an open source cloud framework that can lower the cost of cloud build-outs, free organizations from vendor lock-in, increase operational agility and help them innovate more quickly.
Because OpenStack is vendor neutral, you can use OpenStack’s open, restful and well-documented APIs to create DevOps tooling to manage workloads on VMware. This is the purpose of the VMware vCenter driver, integrated with nova-compute and available in Mirantis OpenStack 5.x and above. Since OpenStack can run anywhere, you can deploy it on VMWare VM’s just the same as other hypervisors, or even bare metal.
We have created a VMware Virtual Appliance (vApp) that you can download, import to VMware, and that offers pre-configured virtual machines for Fuel, and OpenStack. These have sufficient memory, disk and networking pre-defined so that the guesswork is gone. Simply hydrate the Fuel master node with the latest Mirantis Openstack release and get going (see download links below).
Fuel
Fuel is the discovery, provisioning, deployment and lifecycle tool for deploying Mirantis OpenStack.
After installing, you can point your browser to Fuel where you can provide some basic configuration (like selecting vCenter as the hypervisor, setting the vCenter credentials) and deploy OpenStack controllers. Once deployment completes, you can start creating and managing VMware VM’s via OpenStack’s Horizon console, or APIs.
In order to create your own OpenStack vSoup you will need the following:
Ingredients:
vSphere 5.0 and above
A vCenter cluster with DRS enabled with at least one ESXi host.
A vCenter cluster for OpenStack to create machines in (Can be the same as above)
An advanced degree in Rocketry or Brain surgery (j/k)
Directions:
Follow our four part, easy-to-follow “recipe” videos to guide you.
Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for about an hour.
Enjoy Your Mirantis Openstack + VMWare vFoo
Exec Summary: We knew you liked VMware (some of you, anyway). So we put some OpenStack in your VMware, so you could deploy it on VMware and integrate it easily with … VMware.
