Chapter 2. Architecting the Cloud
The array of possible hardware and software combinations that can be used to create an OpenStack cloud is pretty amazing at this point. A phrase we typically hear these days is that having an integration for OpenStack is "table stakes" for a hardware or software product coming in the market. As of the Liberty release of OpenStack (November 2015), there were over 50 Cinder storage drivers and 20 Neutron network drivers. These cover a wide range of products from traditional EMC storage arrays and Cisco switches to various software-defined storage and networking products. OpenStack supports a number of hypervisors and compute platforms ranging from commodity x86 hardware to IBM Z-series mainframes.
Few of the decisions we make as architects affect the bottom line as much as hardware and software selection. While we approach the deployment of our cloud or the development of our software in an iterative fashion to reduce the risk of mistakes...