The array of possible hardware and software combinations that can be used to create an OpenStack cloud is pretty amazing at this point. A phrase we typically hear these days is that having an integration for OpenStack is table stakes for a hardware or software product coming in the market. As of the Queens release of OpenStack (March 2018), there were 75 Cinder storage drivers and over 40 Neutron network plugins. These integrations cover a wide range of products from traditional EMC storage arrays and Cisco switches to various software-defined storage and networking products. OpenStack supports a number of hypervisors and compute platforms, ranging from commodity x86 hardware to IBM Z-series mainframes.
A few of the decisions we make as architects affect the bottom line as much as hardware and software selection. Although we approach the deployment of our...
