Manual Chapter : Integrating OpenStack

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Cloud

  • 4.4.0
Manual Chapter

About OpenStack integration

BIG-IQ Cloud provides you with the tools to manage OpenStack versions 2013.1 (Grizzly) and 2013.2 (Havana) resources required to run applications. Management tasks include discovering BIG-IP VE virtual machines and discovering, creating, starting, and stopping OpenStack application servers running in the private cloud. You can use this feature to accommodate seasonal traffic fluctuations by periodically adding and retracting devices and application servers as needed. Additionally, you can provide tenants access to self-deployable iApps through OpenStack integration.

To provide access to these services for OpenStack tenants, you configure communication between OpenStack products, and BIG-IQ Cloud. Then, you associate an OpenStack cloud connector with a device, and create a catalog entry for a corresponding OpenStack service profile. The tenants to whom you give access to the catalog entry see it in their applications panel. From there, they can use it to self-deploy their own iApps.

Creating an OpenStack application server

Before you can create a new application server, your cloud administrator must associate you as a user to an OpenStack connector. You must know what the OpenStack virtual machine and flavor are assigned to you by OpenStack.

BIG-IQ Cloud must be able to collect statistics to provide server diagnostics to tenants. By default, most OpenStack deployments are configured to disallow data collection. For successful deployment, you must change this option by editing the Nova policy.json file (typically located in the /etc/nova/ directory) and changing the following line: compute_extension:server_diagnostics": "rule:admin_api to compute_extension:server_diagnostics": "rule:admin_or _owner.

You can leverage OpenStack servers to host the resources that your applications require. This eliminates the need for you to purchase and manage hardware and allows you to expand and retract virtual resources as needed.

  1. Log in to BIG-IQ Cloud with your tenant user name and password.
  2. Hover on the Servers header, and click the + icon when it appears. The panel expands to display fields for the new server details.
  3. From the Cloud Connector list, select OpenStack.
  4. From the Network Interface list, select the interface from which you are accessing the server. The Address field populates with the IP address of the virtual machine in the OpenStack network.
  5. In the Name field, type a name for this application server.
  6. From Image ID list, select the OpenStack virtual machine image.
  7. In the OpenStack Flavor field, type the name of the OpenStack flavor that you received from OpenStack. A flavor is an available hardware configuration for this server. Each flavor has a unique combination of disk space and memory capacity.
  8. Click the Save button.
You can now deploy applications to the server you created.