openstack-manuals/doc/common-rst/get_started_file_storage.rst

OpenStack Shared File Systems service

The OpenStack Shared File Systems service (manila) provides file storage to a virtual machine. The Shared File Systems service provides an infrastructure for managing shares and provides access to shares to instances. The service also enables management of share types as well as share snapshots if a driver supports snapshots.

The Shared File Systems service consists of the following components:

manila-api

Accepts API requests and routes them to the manila-share for action.

manila-share

Interacts directly with the Shared File Systems service and processes such as the manila-scheduler. It also interacts with these processes through a message queue. The manila-share service responds to read and write requests sent to the Shared File Systems service to maintain state. It can interact with a variety of storage providers through a driver architecture.

manila-scheduler daemon

Selects the optimal storage provider node on which to create the share. A similar component to the cinder-scheduler.

Messaging queue

Routes information between the Shared File Systems processes.