VirtualBox is a popular hypervisor available for download for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. Unlike VMware Workstation Pro for Windows and VMware Fusion for Mac, VirtualBox is free and open source. It's ideal for testing or developing, and allows you to set up multiple operating systems on one system. VirtualBox is considered to be a Type-2 hypervisor, which is intended to run on a host operating system. Type-1 hypervisors, also known as native or bare-metal hypervisors, run directly on a host's hardware.

To make deployment of your practice COA exam environment simple and easy, this book provides you with an OVA or Open Virtual Appliance to easily import into VirtualBox. An OVA is a compressed .tar file containing the following:

• Virtual Machine Disk File (VMDK): A snapshot of a disk's contents. The particular VMDK included in your OVA contains a previously configured OpenStack Newton environment.
• Open Virtualization Format (OVF): An XML file that describes how the VMDK should be run. It includes information on the number of virtual CPUs, memory size, network configuration, and virtual devices.
• Manifest (MF): This contains a hash of each file to validate the authenticity and integrity of the package.

A typical production OpenStack cloud consists of the following:

• Controller: The controller is the backbone of the OpenStack cloud. It usually contains:
  • MariaDB database: A community-developed fork of the MySQL relational database. Most OpenStack services use a SQL database for storing data in tables of columns and rows. For example, imagine viewing all the tables inside a Nova database. You would see names of the instances, their unique identifiers (UUIDs), the projects that own those instances, and other Nova-related metadata.
  • RabbitMQ: A popular message queue service that provides messaging services via the AMQP protocol. RabbitMQ allows the daemons within a specific service to communicate status information and coordinate fulfillment of specific actions. Although OpenStack supports a variety of message queue programs, RabbitMQ is most commonly...

The provided virtual appliance contains all core OpenStack services on a single virtual machine. To download the appliance, please go to the official book repository at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Preparing-for-the-Certified-OpenStack-Administrator-Exam.

See Figure 2.1. The appliance runs inside VirtualBox which runs on your host operating system. Figure 2.2 provides some additional information about the virtual appliance details. We will talk more about this as we progress through the chapters.

Although VirtualBox has minimal system requirements, the included all-in-one OpenStack Newton Virtual Appliance requires:

• 2 GHz or faster 64-bit (x64) processor with Intel VTx or AMD-V support
• 6 GB available RAM
• 10 GB available hard disk space

Once you are on a system that meets the minimum system requirements, proceed with the following steps:

1. Navigate to the VirtualBox downloads page at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.
2. Download and install the latest version of VirtualBox for your host operating system.

1. Launch the VirtualBox application.
2. From the VirtualBox menu bar, select Preferences.
3. From the VirtualBox Preferences menu, select the Network icon.
4. Verify that Host-only Networks is highlighted.

1. If you can see vboxnet0 on the list, highlight and click on the tool icon.
2. If you do not see vboxnet0, click on the + icon. Next, highlight and click on the tool icon. Click on OK to save your settings. See Figure 2.3.

1. If you can see VirtualBox...

1. From the VirtualBox menu bar, select Import Appliance. This will be under the File menu in Windows.
2. Click on the folder icon to browse your local drive.
3. Select coa-aio-newton.ova and click on Import or Open.
4. Click on Continue to proceed with installation.

5. Click on Import.
6. Once importing has completed, verify that the virtual machine has the proper network settings. See Figure 2.6.

7. Start up the virtual machine by highlighting the appliance and clicking on Start. See Figure 2.7.

8. Give the appliance time...

You should now have your very own working OpenStack environment, fully deployed and running on your laptop or desktop! This chapter discussed VirtualBox and the convenience of the OVA format, as well as the components that make up a traditional OpenStack environment.

At this point, you should be able to connect to the virtual appliance via the Horizon dashboard and terminal client on your system. You are certainly free to use your own OpenStack environment, but the exercises and practice exam in this book will require resources previously created in the provided virtual appliance.

In the next chapter, we will discuss the Keystone identity service and work through all Keystone exam objectives via the CLI and Horizon dashboard. Let's get started!