Preface

Since its first official release in 2010, OpenStack has distinguished itself as the ultimate open source cloud operating system. Today, more than 200 companies worldwide have joined the development of the OpenStack project, which makes it an attractive cloud computing solution for thousands of organizations. The main reason behind the success of OpenStack is not the overwhelming number of features that it has implemented, but rather its good modularity. Thanks to its vast community around the world, OpenStack is growing very fast. Each release exposes new modules and administrative facilities that offer on-demand computing resources by provisioning a large set of networks of virtual machines. If you are looking for a cloud computing solution that scales out well, OpenStack is an ideal option. Nowadays, it is considered to be a mature cloud computing operating system. Several big, medium, and small enterprises have adopted it as a solution in their infrastructure. The nirvana of OpenStack comes from its architecture. Designing your cloud becomes much easier with more flexibility. It is an ideal solution if you intend either to design a start up cloud environment or to integrate it into your existing infrastructure. As you build your cloud using OpenStack, you will be able to integrate with legacy systems and third-party technologies by eliminating vendor lock-in as much as possible.

This book is designed to discuss what is new in OpenStack with regards to the new features and incubated projects. You will be guided through this book from design to deployment and implementation with the help of a set of best practices in every phase. Each topic is elaborated so that you can see the big and complete picture of a true production environment that runs OpenStack at scale. It will help you decide upon the ways of deploying OpenStack by determining the best outfit for your private cloud, such as the computer, storage, and network components.

If you are ready to start a real private cloud running OpenStack, master the OpenStack design, and deploy and manage a scalable OpenStack infrastructure, this book will prove to be a clear guide that exposes the latest features of the OpenStack technology and helps you leverage its power to design and manage any medium or large OpenStack infrastructure.