Learn how OpenStack manages different types of storage

1. Overview

Before you get started!

Welcome to OpenStack!

In this series of tutorials, we will walk you through all the necessary steps to install, configure and get started with OpenStack. Using just your workstation, you will learn how to use OpenStack for cloud infrastructure implementation purposes, from a single-node installation to large-scale clusters.

This tutorial is the tenth in the “Phase I - Single-node OpenStack on your workstation” series.

Explore other tutorials >

What is OpenStack?

OpenStack is the most popular open source cloud platform that aggregates distributed compute, network and storage resources in the data centre and enables on-demand provisioning of virtual machines through a self-service portal. OpenStack powers thousands of public and private clouds all over the world, providing rapid access for greater innovation and better economics.

Learn more about OpenStack >

What is MicroStack?

MicroStack is a micro cloud platform based on OpenStack, designed for the edge and small-scale data centre deployments, that can be installed and maintained with minimal effort. MicroStack eliminates the complexity behind OpenStack, providing an opinionated approach to OpenStack architecture design and a straightforward installation method.

Learn more about MicroStack >

What is Charmed OpenStack?

Charmed OpenStack is an enterprise cloud platform based on OpenStack, designed for large-scale data centre deployments, that provides full automation around the initial installation and day-2 operations. Charmed OpenStack abstracts the complexity behind OpenStack, using a composable approach to OpenStack architecture design with model-driven operators (charms).

Learn more about Charmed OpenStack >

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

Distinguish between the various types of storage in OpenStack

2. Storage types

There are three types of storage available in OpenStack:

Ephemeral storage - Volatile storage that can be attached to instances during their provisioning process. It is removed permanently once instances are deleted. Ephemeral storage is managed by Nova, and can be used to store temporary data, including common OS files, caches, buffers, etc.
Block storage - Persistent storage that is attached to instances during their provisioning process by default. It is not removed by default when instances are deleted. Block storage is managed by Cinder, and can be used to store persistent data, such as databases, logs, binaries, etc.
Object storage - Persistent cloud-native storage that is not attached to instances, but is accessible through the API instead. Object storage used to be managed by the OpenStack Swift service, but in production environments it is usually implemented with (Ceph Object Gateway)[https://docs.ceph.com/en/latest/radosgw/] instead.

Storage services support

Storage support in MicroStack is currently limited. There is no object storage service provided by default and block storage support is considered experimental, thus it’s disabled by default. Please return later for more information about storage.

3. Next steps

Congratulations! You have reached the end of this tutorial.

You can now move to the next tutorial - “11. Quotas” - or explore other tutorials.

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