fuel-docs/index.rst

Introduction

Introducing Fuel™ for OpenStack

OpenStack is an extensible, versatile, and flexible cloud management platform. By exposing its portfolio of cloud infrastructure services – compute, storage, networking and other core resources — through ReST APIs, OpenStack enables a wide range of control over these services, both from the perspective of an integrated Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) controlled by applications, as well as automated manipulation of the infrastructure itself.

This architectural flexibility doesn’t set itself up magically. It asks you, the user and cloud administrator, to organize and manage an extensive array of configuration options. Consequently, getting the most out of your OpenStack cloud over time – in terms of flexibility, scalability, and manageability – requires a thoughtful combination of complex configuration choices. This can be very time consuming and requires that you become familiar with a lot of documentation from a number of different projects.

Mirantis Fuel™ for OpenStack was created to eliminate exactly these problems. This step-by-step guide takes you through this process of:

• Configuring OpenStack and its supporting components into a robust cloud architecture
• Deploying that architecture through an effective, well-integrated automation package that sets up and maintains the components and their configurations
• Providing access to a well-integrated, up-to-date set of components known to work together

Fuel™ for OpenStack can be used to create virtually any OpenStack configuration. To make things easier, the installation includes several pre-defined architectures. For the sake of simplicity, this guide emphasises a single, common reference architecture; the multi-node, high-availability configuration. We begin with an explanation of this architecture, then move on to the details of creating the configuration in a test environment using VirtualBox. Finally, we give you the information you need to know to create this and other OpenStack architectures in a production environment.

This guide assumes that you are familiar with general Linux commands and administration concepts, as well as general networking concepts. You should have some familiarity with grid or virtualization systems such as Amazon Web Services or VMware, as well as OpenStack itself, but you don't need to be an expert.

The Fuel User Guide is organized as follows:

• About_Fuel, gives you an overview of Fuel and gives you a general idea of how it works.
• Reference-Architectures, provides a general look at the components that make up OpenStack.
• Create-Cluster-UI, takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a high-availability OpenStack cluster using Fuel UI.
• Deploy-Cluster-CLI, takes you step-by-step through the more advanced process of creating a high-availability OpenStack cluster using the command line and Puppet manifests.
• Production, looks at the real-world questions and problems involved in creating an OpenStack cluster for production use. We discuss issues such as network layout and hardware requirements, and provide tips and tricks for creating a cluster of up to 100 nodes.
• With the current (3.1) release Fuel UI (aka FuelWeb) and Fuel CLI (aka Fuel Library) are integrated. We encourage all users to use the Fuel UI for installation and configuration. However, the standard Fuel CLI installation process is still available for those who prefer a more detailed approach to deployment. Even with a utility as powerful as Fuel, creating an OpenStack cluster can be complex, and FAQ section covers many of the issues that tend to arise during the process.

Lets start off by taking a closer look at Fuel itself. We'll start by explaining How-Fuel-Works and then move to the process of installation itself.