openstack-manuals/doc/common/section_storage-concepts.xml
Chandan kumar 201f5c6639 Added complete Doc Conventions in common guide.
backport: havana
Change-Id: I6851ef705247d619e78fb63cbcdf1ce804a548f1
Partial-Bug: #1121866
2013-12-02 10:18:32 +05:30

84 lines
3.0 KiB
XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="5.0"
xml:id="storage-concepts">
<title>Storage concepts</title>
<para>The OpenStack stack uses the following storage types:</para>
<table rules="all">
<caption>Storage types</caption>
<col width="33%"/>
<col width="33%"/>
<col width="33%"/>
<thead>
<tr>
<td>On-instance / ephemeral</td>
<td>Block storage (Cinder)</td>
<td>Object Storage (Swift)</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Runs operating systems and provides scratch space</td>
<td>Used for adding additional persistent storage to a virtual
machine (VM)</td>
<td>Used for storing virtual machine images and data</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Persists until VM is terminated</td>
<td>Persists until deleted</td>
<td>Persists until deleted</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Access associated with a VM</td>
<td>Access associated with a VM</td>
<td>Available from anywhere</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Implemented as a filesystem underlying OpenStack
Compute</td>
<td>Mounted via OpenStack Block-Storage controlled protocol
(for example, iSCSI)</td>
<td>REST API</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Administrator configures size setting, based on
flavors</td>
<td>Sizings based on need</td>
<td>Easily scalable for future growth</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Example: 10GB first disk, 30GB/core second disk</td>
<td>Example: 1TB "extra hard drive"</td>
<td>Example: 10s of TBs of data set storage</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<?hard-pagebreak?>
<para>Other points of note include: <itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>OpenStack Object Storage is not used like a
traditional hard drive.</emphasis> Object storage is all
about relaxing some of the constraints of a POSIX-style file
system. The access to it is API-based (and the API uses
http). This is a good idea as if you don't have to provide
atomic operations (that is, you can rely on eventual
consistency), you can much more easily scale a storage
system and avoid a central point of failure.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>The OpenStack Image Service is used to manage
the virtual machine images in an OpenStack cluster, not
store them. </emphasis> Instead, it provides an
abstraction to different methods for storage - a bridge to
the storage, not the storage itself.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>OpenStack Object Storage can function on its
own.</emphasis> The Object Storage (swift) product can be
used independently of the Compute (nova) product.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>