SUSE OpenStack Cloud 8 Introduces New Cloud Lifecycle Manager

We recently released SUSE OpenStack Cloud 8 and one of our key new features is our new Cloud Lifecycle Manager.   I want to share with you this new approach for deploying and maintaining a SUSE OpenStack Cloud using the Cloud Lifecycle Manager.

The Cloud Lifecycle Manager is delivered as a component of Cloud 8 and uses a template-based approach to deploy an OpenStack cloud.  This template requires making a few choices when configuring your cloud which includes deciding on the size of the cloud, the type of hypervisor, the type of storage and your network configuration.  A template based approach leads to repeatable deployment but still provides flexibility. Our best practices are embedded in the templates for deploying a cloud of a particular size, scale and type of deployment which gives you more reliability for your cloud.

Below is a diagram of the key components in Cloud Lifecyle Manager(CLM).

The input model is the template that is customized to provide all the details of deployment for the cloud. This includes configuration of the control plane, compute plane, networking and storage. This template is a set of configuration or yaml files.

The configuration processor then validates  the settings in the input model and produces a set of configuration variables.  These configuration variables are used by the SUSE supplied Ansible playbooks which deploy the cloud.

The configuration and deployment process can be driven using parameter files and a command-line interface or can be configured and deployed using the deployment user-interface. CLM leverages a built-in git repository which allows for easy control over changes and rollbacks as well as a central audit point for configuration changes.

The deployment UI for CLM is new in Cloud 8. This UI can use either SUSE Manager or HPE OneView to discover nodes for deployment of OpenStack components. This simplifies the discovery and deployment of resources in a SUSE OpenStack cloud.

Now that you see how this new deployment method works, I bet you are thinking, “hey what about changing my cloud once its deployed?”. Well it even gets better. The same input model is used to change and configure ongoing changes in the cloud. The changes are kept in the git repository for easy tracking. One of the nice things about CLM is the ability to make networking changes without having to redeploy the cloud. Depending on the changes there may be a need for restarting of services or nodes though.

You should check out the links below to see a demo of the deployment user interface and to get a more detailed description of the Cloud Lifecycle Manager.  The Cloud Lifecycle Manager is a great addition to SUSE OpenStack Cloud that will help you manage a SUSE OpenStack Cloud.

Link to New CLM Install UI Demo

Link to Overview Video of Cloud Lifecycle Manager

For more information stay tuned for future blogs on the new life cycle manager, networking, upgrade considerations and more information on Cloud 8.