Networking Challenges in OpenStack Clouds

Did you decided that is time to implement OpenStack to build your Cloud? Have you tested in the lab? Evaluated many distributions available and hired specialized OpenStack resources? However, when the environment goes into production, Neutron is not integrating with the physical network?

If the above story closely resembles what you have faced, this post will unconceal the many challenges of Networking with any OpenStack distribution and how VMware NSX is the missing piece for your Cloud.

Networking and Security Challenges with OpenStack

Since its creation, the biggest challenges of OpenStack Clouds implementations are automation, integration and orchestration of the required networking and security components at the physical infrastructure layer. The main difficulty is that these environments are extremely heterogeneous and most of the devices do not have an open and programmable interface for configuration and, thus, the initial way of running OpenStack was to pre-provisioning the network manually and only use basics functionalities when implementing security services.

With the rise of Network Virtualization solutions and evolution of Open vSwitch, some of these challenges were solved, making it possible to create an abstraction layer from the physical elements of infrastructure and automate the virtual network through the programmable interface Continue reading

Networking Challenges in OpenStack Clouds

Did you decided that it is time to implement OpenStack to build your Cloud? Have you tested in the lab? Evaluated many distributions available and hired specialized OpenStack resources? However, when the environment goes into production, Neutron is not integrating with the physical network? If the above story closely resembles what you have faced, this... Read more →