for “better” in [training, research, operations]: do OpenStack orchestration

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Presented at BSidesAugusta 2019 by

Sarah Rees

OpenStack. Do the words “brokenStack” or “complicated” come to mind for you? Even if you haven’t used it yourself, you’ve probably heard someone use these words, perhaps with some obscenities peppered in. These are pervasive sentiments about the platform…just check the top Google recommended predictions for “why is OpenStack…”Deploying and maintaining OpenStack is complex, it takes a lot of skill and a somewhat masochistic personality (in my personal opinion). However, as a user of OpenStack your experience should be a positive one. Once the framework is properly deployed, the user should enjoy a dynamic, powerful vehicle for use in research, training, or real-life scenarios. You can make the (seemingly) endless clicking inside a GUI to setup an environment a distant, unpleasant memory. Orchestration for environments containing numerous instances (VMs) can be built into templates, customized upon launch, and deployed with ease. This can be done with a single command using and OpenStack client, or by providing a url or file through the Horizon GUI interface. However, just like with any powerful tool, you must know how to use it. While documentation is key, without a little help and direction, users may suffer from information overload.In this session, using OpenStack to orchestrate environments will be de-mystified. You will get an overview on OpenStack lingo, Heat orchestration, referencing the right documentation, and several simple templates will be explained and demonstrated. You’ll also receive a week of access to an OpenStack cloud so you can try out the templates and scripts from the public Github repository used for the session, or customize and deploy your own. While some experience in scripting/coding/YAML is helpful, an absolute beginner should be able to come away from this session prepared t