Eight Important Facts About the OpenStack Cloud Platform

Eight Important Facts About the OpenStack Cloud Platform

by Sean Michael Kerner

Private Cloud Deployment Leads the Way

There are multiple types of cloud deployment models. For OpenStack users, the most popular deployment type is as an on-premises private cloud.

Pulling the OpenStack Deployment Strings With Puppet

When it comes to deploying an OpenStack cloud, 45 percent of those surveyed used Puppet for deployment of their production OpenStack clouds.

KVM Is the Leading OpenStack Hypervisor

The OpenStack Nova compute project can leverage any number of different virtualization technologies. The most widely deployed is KVM, at 87 percent of production deployments. In contrast, VMware’s ESX hypervisor represents 6 percent of production OpenStack deployments.

Open vSwitch Is the Most Popular Network Driver

The Open vSwitch network driver accounts for 43 percent of OpenStack product deployments.

Ubuntu Dominates Among OpenStack Operating Systems

OpenStack runs on top of an operating system, and more often than not, that operating system is Ubuntu Linux. In the new user survey Ubuntu accounted for 64 percent of OpenStack production deployments.

An Assortment of Storage Choices

The open-source Ceph block storage driver is the most widely deployed storage choice among OpenStack clouds, though there are lots of choices, including Gluster, NetApp, EMC and HP 3PAR.

OpenStack Users Don’t Use All OpenStack Projects

The OpenStack platform is comprised of multiple projects, but not all projects are actually used by all cloud operators. Core services—including Compute (Nova), Identity (Keystone), Image (Glance) and Dashboard (Horizon)—are used by 80 percent or more of OpenStack production deployments.

OpenStack Cloud Operators Also Use Other Clouds

Many OpenStack operators do not use OpenStack exclusively. The study showed that 31 percent will also use Amazon.