This document discusses automating OpenStack cloud administration tasks. It begins by reviewing common cloud decisions and day-to-day operator tasks. It then discusses how OpenStack and automation work well together and considerations for automating tasks. Several examples of automating tasks like creating users/projects and health monitoring are provided. It emphasizes adopting an "Administration DevOps" approach to automate operations and make the cloud more scalable and efficient.

1. So Your OpenStack Cloud
is Built...Now What’s
Next?
Walter Bentley
Cloud Solutions Architect – Private Cloud

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@ d j s t a y f l y p r o
Walter Bentley
Senior Technical Marketing Engineer, RPC
Twitter: @djstayflypro
LinkedIn: http://goo.gl/r2p21i
GitHub: wbentley15
Blog: hitchnyc.com
• Over 17 years of IT experience
• New Yexan (a New Yorker living in Texas)
• Cloud Advocate (hybrid is my favorite)
• Author & Knowledge sharer
• OpenStack believer
• Motorcyclist & DJ (literally…no lie)
• Always about living life now!

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Talking Points
• Review some common cloud decisions and day-to-day operator tasks
• Learn why OpenStack and automation work great together
• Review some automation considerations before getting started
• Step thru how to automate various tasks with OpenStack
• Benefits of adopting an ‘Administration DevOps’ state of mind and next steps

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So you have a cloud, now what?
Why not create some roles and
playbooks to automate all those
pre-configurations

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Decisions, decisions…

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OpenStack Automation
APIs and/or
CLI
Dashboard
Hypervisor

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Before you get started…
A few possible automation considerations:
• Create a plan with goals, objectives and planned outcomes
• Make framework decisions ahead of time; then stick to them
• Code consistency
Defining environment
variables API vs. CLI Where to run the code
Should the automation
code run locally on the
control plane or remotely?
Yes, you have to decide
Within your automation
code you have to decide
whether to consume the
OpenStack API or CLI
Automation code should
leverage variables as much
as possible; variables can be
defined globally or per
role/recipes/manifests/module
s

8. Image FPO
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D e m o : Tu r n A p p l i c a t i o n
S t a c k s i n t o C o d e
w i t h H e a t
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OpenStack Scenario #1
As a cloud operator,
you want to empower the QA team with the ability to stand up their own
test environments…
• What would be your approach for doing this with OpenStack? Provide QA with a
project and say good luck?
• Is there more you could do for them? How could you make this a single ‘push
button’ solution?

10. Image FPO
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D e m o : A u t o m a t e c l o u d
a d m i n i s t r a t i o n t a s k s
w i t h A n s i b l e
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cloud operator
cloud consumer
api cli

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OpenStack Scenario #2
As a cloud operator,
what if you were tasked with creating 50 users and projects…
• How long would it take you using Horizon? Using the CLI?
• Keep in mind you have password standards to meet, given a tight timeline and will
need to avoid mistakes/typos.
• What if you need to now adjust the quotas for all 50 projects next?

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D e m o : D e t e r m i n e y o u r
c l o u d s h e a l t h i n o n e
c o m m a n d
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OpenStack Scenario #3
As a cloud operator,
what if you were tasked with providing real-time health status reports of
your cloud
• Could you easily do this? What would be your approach?
• Would connecting to each controller node be the best use of time?
• What if your environment has over 1,000 compute nodes?

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‘ A D M I N I S T R AT I O N D E VO P S ’ S TAT E O F M I N D
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Cloud Lifecycle
DISCOVER/
ASSESS
Compute
Memory
Storage
Segregation
Goals
Objectives
Outcomes
ARCHITECT
Network
Redundancy
Sizing/Scaling
Strategy
IMPLEMENT SUPPORT
Monitor
Troubleshoot
Escalation/
Tickets
SECURITY
CAPACITY PLANNING

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‘Administration DevOps’ Concepts and Principles
Automate everything – do it once and run it hundreds of times
Influence application design; cloudy applications should:
 easily scale horizontally
 be designed to consume disposable computing
resources
 be designed in a share nothing approach (stateless)
 be built in an DevOps model
 be built to expect failures

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Q&A Session
Twitter: @djstayflypro
Email: walter.bentley@rackspace.com

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Thank you
Twitter: @djstayflypro
Email: walter.bentley@rackspace.com