Mirantis OpenStack 9.2 Boosts NFV Performance and Streamlines Operations
Michelle Yakura - February 06, 2017
Many of Mirantis’ largest customers are telcos using OpenStack for NFV, and in the new Mirantis OpenStack 9.2 release, we build upon the NFV features introduced in version 9.0 to better support high-performance and large-scale VNF deployments. MOS 9.2 also adds important new features to streamline operations, including improved lifecycle management and an enhanced update mechanism that more gracefully handles customizations, patches and plugins.
Besides OVS DPDK related improvements, MOS 9.2 also updates the Linux kernel to version 4.4 as part of the included Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release so that cloud owners can deploy MOS with the latest servers to meet their capacity needs. Updating to Linux kernel 4.4 can also potentially improve OVS and KVM performance.
Based on principles of Infrastructure as Code, which favors continuous small changes over occasional batch updates, this new approach greatly streamlines Day 2 (post-deployment) operations. Fuel orchestrator capabilities continually push freshly committed configuration and/or package files from the Git repository through a deployment pipeline to nodes that satisfy predefined update criteria. As a result, small, frequent updates are quickly deployed into a cloud. This can be done automatically through scheduled maintenance jobs. Rollbacks to previous configurations are supported too. In particular, updating configurations on a global or role-based level is much easier with Git-based lifecycle management.
To improve scalability in Day1 and Day 2 operations, MOS 9.2 also supports the decomposition of the Fuel controller role by moving some critical services – namely Neutron, Keystone, MySQL and RabbitMQ – onto separate nodes. Spreading them onto separate nodes helps to prevent bottlenecks in huge deployments for better performance and reliability.
Besides new features related to Git-based lifecycle management, MOS 9.2 has also made updates faster and easier. Infrastructure operators with clouds running MOS 9.0 or 9.1 can update to 9.2 and retain previously installed customizations and patches, as well as plugins for Contrail, StackLight or Murano. Eliminating the need to re-install these items helps to minimize downtime during updates. Additionally, the 9.2 update will uniformly update any previously deployed Ceph nodes.
Previous installation of MOS 9.0 or 9.1 is required, and you can get them here.
Emphasis on DPDK
Most of the NFV improvements in Mirantis OpenStack 9.2 focus on optimizing performance and security of Open vSwitch with the Data Plane Development Kit (OVS DPDK). Cloud users running DPDK applications, such as for packet forwarding or processing, load balancing, and so on, on a VM that also utilizes OVS DPDK at the host OS can now achieve near wire speed performance thanks to efforts to harden OVS DPDK for the DPDK VNF use case. This includes NIC multiqueue support for improved network performance when scaling VNF workloads with additional vCPUs. VXLAN based segmentation and OVS based security groups enable high-performance tenant networking that is scalable and secure. IPv6 support has also been added for tenant networks that use the latest Internet Protocol version with DPDK.Besides OVS DPDK related improvements, MOS 9.2 also updates the Linux kernel to version 4.4 as part of the included Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release so that cloud owners can deploy MOS with the latest servers to meet their capacity needs. Updating to Linux kernel 4.4 can also potentially improve OVS and KVM performance.
A Pipeline to Improved Operations
Another big change in the Mirantis OpenStack 9.2 release is a new system of lifecycle management, based on a Git repository. Using Git enables infrastructure operators to manage all the configuration files for cloud infrastructure from a single, centralized system with precise version control, thus providing auditability of cloud configuration changes.Based on principles of Infrastructure as Code, which favors continuous small changes over occasional batch updates, this new approach greatly streamlines Day 2 (post-deployment) operations. Fuel orchestrator capabilities continually push freshly committed configuration and/or package files from the Git repository through a deployment pipeline to nodes that satisfy predefined update criteria. As a result, small, frequent updates are quickly deployed into a cloud. This can be done automatically through scheduled maintenance jobs. Rollbacks to previous configurations are supported too. In particular, updating configurations on a global or role-based level is much easier with Git-based lifecycle management.
To improve scalability in Day1 and Day 2 operations, MOS 9.2 also supports the decomposition of the Fuel controller role by moving some critical services – namely Neutron, Keystone, MySQL and RabbitMQ – onto separate nodes. Spreading them onto separate nodes helps to prevent bottlenecks in huge deployments for better performance and reliability.
Besides new features related to Git-based lifecycle management, MOS 9.2 has also made updates faster and easier. Infrastructure operators with clouds running MOS 9.0 or 9.1 can update to 9.2 and retain previously installed customizations and patches, as well as plugins for Contrail, StackLight or Murano. Eliminating the need to re-install these items helps to minimize downtime during updates. Additionally, the 9.2 update will uniformly update any previously deployed Ceph nodes.
Software Updates
Last but not least, Mirantis OpenStack 9.2 includes several software updates worth mentioning:- RabbitMQ 3.6.6
- Linux kernel 4.4
- OVS 2.6.1
- QEMU-KVM 2.5
- DPDK 16.07
Previous installation of MOS 9.0 or 9.1 is required, and you can get them here.
