3 Ways to Improve Cloud Services with Pure Storage and OpenStack

IT departments are increasingly moving to a cloud-like model for service delivery, as the end users and customers they serve expect seamless services that perform flawlessly, are always on, and that are available in minutes. Let’s talk OpenStack. To accomplish this, automation and orchestration are a must.

Here at Pure, we see a significant uptick in interest around OpenStack as the automation and orchestration solution for public and private clouds across our customer base. In particular, our customers are telling us that an open source model for automation is critical—that they want a toolset that isn’t tied to any one vendor’s products, and is easily extensible and customizable for their particular business needs.

All-flash storage in general, and Pure Storage FlashArrays specifically, provide an excellent foundation for high-performance cloud services. Only all-flash storage can deliver the near-instantaneous services that customers and business end users have come to expect. And only Pure Storage’s unique recipe for all-flash storage offers a powerful, highly available foundation for cloud environments that operates without disruption, ensuring reliable, consistent performance for services—even through upgrades, expansions and (however unlikely) failure scenarios.

To better support our customers, we’ve built a set of integrated tools that make leveraging easier, quicker, and more efficient:

1)   OpenStack Cinder Driver for Purity Operating Environment

• Our new Block Storage (Cinder) driver for OpenStack was included in the core OpenStack Juno release (October 2014), and makes using all-flash storage with OpenStack easier.
• The driver supports all the features you’d expect with iSCSI Cinder volumes and comes with a comprehensive user guide that eases integration, and is great for standard OpenStack deployments.
• You can learn more about the driver specs on the site: https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/cinder-specs/specs/juno/pure-iscsi-volume-driver.html, and read the manual for the driver.

2)   Pure Storage Python Automation Toolkit

• To support our customers who are customizing their OpenStack and want to take advantage of Pure features like replication and capacity reporting, or want to automate common workflows like snapshots Pure has developed a library of Python scripts that simplifies integration. The Pure Python Automation Toolkit contains pre-written Python scripts, which unlock the advanced storage features on the Pure Storage FlashArray.
• If you’re a Pure customer or partner, you can download the Python Automation Toolkit from the Pure Storage community pages at https://community.purestorage.com/ where you can discuss the library and swap tips on Pure integration with OpenStack
• You can also find the Toolkit at https://pythonhosted.org/purestorage/

3)    Comprehensive REST API

• Want direct access to FlashArray features and performance? Every aspect of FlashArray is addressable via our comprehensive, foundational RESTful API. Full API documentation is available via the GUI on every FlashArray.

If you’re interested in OpenStack and open source automation and orchestration, be aware that Pure Storage isn’t just building a driver. We’ve been doing integrations with OpenStack since Folsom (2012) and have joined the OpenStack foundation as a Corporate Sponsor. Our team of OpenStack engineers is actively participating in and committing code (and fixes) to OpenStack core and Pure is committed to support OpenStack for the long term.