OpenStack Cloud for Kubernetes on Open Source Private and Public Clouds

Dec 10th, 2018 9:00am by Chris Hoge

The OpenStack Foundation sponsored this post.

Chris is a strategic program manager for the OpenStack Foundation. He works on collaborations between OpenStack and container development communities, including Airship, Kata Containers and Kubernetes. He also administers the trademark program for the OpenStack Foundation, and holds a seat on the Open Container Initiative (OCI) Trademark Board. Previously he worked as an OpenStack community manager and developer at Puppet Labs and operated a research cloud for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon. When not working in open source cloud computing communities, he enjoys long-distance running, dancing and throwing a ball for his border collie.

This week marks the fourth release, Version 1.13, of the OpenStack cloud provider for Kubernetes. The provider is the integration layer that sits between a Kubernetes cluster and an OpenStack cloud. The OpenStack cloud provider helps you deliver resilient cloud native applications by giving the application orchestration layer deeper knowledge and control of the underlying compute, storage and networking resources available in an OpenStack cloud. This release coincides with the recent 1.13 Kubernetes release, with matched numbering for consistency. Sticking with the themes of the shortened Kubernetes development cycle, this release of the OpenStack cloud provider focused on stability and optimization.

Work on the OpenStack cloud provider is managed by SIG-OpenStack, a special interest group within the Kubernetes community devoted to making OpenStack the most widely deployed open source cloud for hosting Kubernetes. Using the integration tools built by SIG members, it’s possible to build an entirely open source application stack from bare metal provisioning with OpenStack Ironic, to a data center cloud running core OpenStack components, to delivering applications with Kubernetes using the cloud provider acting as in intermediary.

SIG-OpenStack has a long history of building integrations within the Kubernetes ecosystem. OpenStack delivered one of the first cloud providers to ship in upstream Kubernetes, then followed up that work with providing OSI compatible drivers for the OpenStack Cinder block storage service, offering support for more than 80 different storage back-ends. SIG-OpenStack also lead the efforts for establishing continuous integration testing of cloud-provider enabled clusters using standard Kubernetes end-to-end and conformance tests.

This work has helped feed into larger community efforts through SIG-Cloud-Provider, a special interest group devoted to establishing fair and neutral testing, development, and documentation standards for all cloud providers, including AWS, Azure and GCP. SIG-Cloud-Provider was co-created and is co-lead by Chris Hoge, one of the current SIG-OpenStack leads. This SIG has fostered a spirit of open collaboration across open source and commercial cloud platforms.

In the coming months you can expect SIG-OpenStack to continue delivering a great experience in running Kubernetes on OpenStack with the ongoing cloud-provider work, and with new development happening in conjunction with SIG-Cluster-Lifecycle. This Kubernetes SIG was formed to make it easier to manage and operate Kubernetes with a focus on cluster deployments and upgrades. The new Cluster-API project is bringing declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to cluster creation, configuration, and management. With a single API backed by customized cloud providers, this work extends Kubernetes to become a self-managing application platform. In the coming months, SIG-OpenStack will remain active in building provider code for this important new project.

Are you interested in getting started with Kubernetes on OpenStack? The OpenStack cloud provider for Kubernetes can be used as a plugin for any Kubernetes installation on OpenStack. You can give it a try on your OpenStack cloud. If you want a managed Kubernetes experience on OpenStack, you can try it out right now OpenStack Magnum on supported open source public clouds (for example, Vexxhost and Catalyst Cloud). Magnum gives you fully managed Kubernetes on OpenStack clouds through a simple API, allowing you to manage your cluster lifecycle from beginning to end.

SIG-OpenStack is proud to be part of the Kubernetes community, and is excited about the upcoming provider and cluster API work happening in the coming year. We’re an open community, and look forward to meeting you in the Kubernetes #SIG-OpenStack Slack channel and at events like KubeCon in Seattle and the Open Infrastructure Summit in Denver. You can find much more information and several case studies in the SIG-OpenStack produced whitepaper, “Leveraging Containers and OpenStack.”

Feature image via Pixabay.

Chris is a strategic program manager for the OpenStack Foundation. He works on collaborations between OpenStack and container development communities, including Airship, Kata Containers and Kubernetes. He also administers the trademark program for the OpenStack Foundation, and holds a seat...