Container Platforms, Open Source and Changing Infrastructure’s Impact on the OpenStack Ecosystem

In this episode of The New Stack Makers, we explore how OpenStack is being put to use in containerized environments, open source projects currently shaping the ecosystem, and how the changes surrounding infrastructure have shaped OpenStack. The New Stack founder Alex Williams and co-host SolarWinds Cloud & Container Technology Leader Lee Calcote sat down for a discussion with Cisco Director of Product Management and Strategy Duane DeCapite to get his thoughts.

How the OpenStack Ecosystem is Adapting to the Container World

DeCapite began the discussion by highlighting some of the projects helping to create a better experience for those working with containers in OpenStack. These included OpenStack container deployment platform project Magnum, Kuryr on Docker LibNetwork, OpenStack Neutron, and OpenStack Nova. “Within the Magnum architecture itself, you can actually do the networking of the container even outside of LibNetwork with Neutron plugins. With the latest release, you can have any Neutron plugin, Open Virtual Switch, you can have Calico. Kuryr actually maps Docker CNM or LibNetwork directly to Neutron API,” DeCapite said.

As OpenStack continues to evolve into a new standard for developers today, customer needs have shifted alongside them. To make infrastructure orchestration simpler, OpenStack offers heat templates to spin up multiple applications across the cloud to its users. “Lots of customers use the heat templates because it’s a nice way to kind of programmatically get lots of OpenStack services together in one place,” DeCapite explained.

Williams went on to note that traditionally, infrastructure had been addressed from a low-level perspective, evolving to the application-focused point of view it has taken today. For developers, this shift has marked changes in not only how they are writing code, it has also introduced a variety of PaaS solutions to streamline this process. “There was a huge need for OpenStack in an infrastructure as a service. Base storage, compute, and networking done in a really orchestrated, programmatic way,” said DeCapite.

Overall, today’s PaaS solutions are among the more significant changes to working with OpenStack, with not only additional flexibility but developer quality of life improvements on the whole.  “I think in terms of getting that extra functionality, I think the ecosystem behind a PaaS on top of OpenStack is really resonating well. It’s nice too from a customer perspective because they have a choice. They can do a PaaS on OpenStack or on other environments. Just having that delineation gives customers and developers a lot of flexibility.”

Feature image: “platform” by fotologic is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Cisco and Docker are sponsors of The New Stack.