Overview of OpenStack

IBM® Cloud Orchestrator works with the Kilo, Mitaka, Ocata, and Queens releases of OpenStack.

OpenStack is a collection of open source technologies that provide scalable computing software for both public and private clouds. For detailed information about OpenStack, see the OpenStack documentation and refer to the documentation of your OpenStack distribution.

You can choose between using IBM Cloud Manager with OpenStack or an OpenStack distribution of another vendor as underlying OpenStack infrastructure for IBM Cloud Orchestrator.

Supports integration with the following OpenStack services that are configured on HTTP and HTTPS:

OpenStack Kilo services
OpenStack Mitaka services
OpenStack Ocata services
OpenStack Queens services

You can reconfigure an existing IBM Cloud Orchestrator to a new instance of OpenStack Mitaka / Ocata / Queens or install a new instance of both IBM Cloud Orchestrator and OpenStack Mitaka / Ocata / Queens. For more information about installing and configuring OpenStack Mitaka, Ocata, or Queens, see Checking OpenStack prerequisites and Configuring OpenStack Mitaka / Ocata / Queens distribution.

IBM Cloud Orchestrator uses the following components and services of OpenStack:

Dashboard (code named Horizon): Provides a web-based user interface.
Identity (code named Keystone): Provides authentication and authorizations for all OpenStack services.
Block Storage (code named Cinder): Provides persistent block storage to guest virtual machines.
Image (code named Glance): Provides a catalog and repository for virtual disk images. The virtual disk images are mostly used in the OpenStack Compute service component.
Orchestration (code named Heat): Provides an engine to start multiple composite cloud applications based on templates.
Compute (code named Nova): Provides virtual servers on demand.
Network (code named Neutron): Provides network management.
Ceilometer: Collects metering data that is related to CPU and networking.