Provisioning workflows

We've spent almost the entirety of this book discussing how to implement OpenStack and very little of it discussing how most organizations are actually using it. In this section, we'll explore different ways that OpenStack adopters typically provision virtual infrastructure. First, we'll look at giving users access to the Horizon user interface. Then, we'll look at provisioning through the Nova, Cinder, and Neutron APIs. Finally, we'll look at using Heat to orchestrate the OpenStack infrastructure using templates.

The Horizon user interface

The Horizon dashboard UI provides an intuitive and standardized interface for users who already understand the concepts of cloud computing and want to have complete control over their provisioned infrastructure. The dashboard works particularly well in situations where the end user is expected to provide some level of support, where they are responsible for scheduling their own backups, for example. We've seen this approach used in...