Red Hat Virtualization
Objectives
After completing this section, you should be able to describe how to configure volume and image storage from an external OpenStack provider.
Describing External Providers
Red Hat Virtualization can be configured to use storage resources from certain providers external to RHV. Like RHV, Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) also provisions virtual machines and containers, but in cloud environments for self-service users. RHOSP uses ISOs and images from its OpenStack image service (Glance) to build and deploy virtual machine instances, and stores instance hard disk and snapshot volumes in its OpenStack block storage (Cinder) service.
Adding the OpenStack Glance and Cinder services to RHV as external storage providers has multiple advantages. ISOs, images, and hard disk volumes already used in OpenStack can be imported for use in RHV, saving the effort of duplicating images for both environments. Other than the import process, RHV administrators have no increased management tasks, since the original OpenStack images are created and managed by OpenStack users. Similar, RHV image files can be exported for use in OpenStack to create and deploy virtual machine instances.
Note
Concerning terminology: An OpenStack image is equivalent to a RHV template. Both are used to deploy virtual machines. The Red Hat Ceph Storage in OpenStack and the Red Hat Gluster Storage in RHV both create VM hard disks as volumes in storage. OpenStack refers to these disks as volumes. Also, OpenStack refers to VMs as instances, since many stateless cloud VMs are also ephemeral, meaning that they do not attach persistent virtual disks.
OpenStack Glance for Image Management
The OpenStack image service provides a catalog of virtual machine images. In RHV, these images can be imported and used as floating disks, or attached to virtual machines and converted into templates. The Glance service is used as a storage domain that is not attached to any data center. Virtual disks in RHV can also be exported to Glance as virtual disks. Imported OpenStack images must be converted to templates to be used for deploying new virtual machines in RHV.
OpenStack Cinder for Storage Management
The OpenStack block storage service provides persistent block storage management for virtual hard disks. Cinder volumes are provisioned by Ceph Storage. In RHV, you can create disks on Cinder storage that can be used as floating disks or attached to virtual machines. After you add Cinder to the Manager, you can create a disk on the storage provided by Cinder.
Configuring External Providers
To add an external provider, navigate to → from the Administration Portal menu. From the Providers page, click the button to open the Add Provider window. Specify appropriate values for the required fields.
Adding an OpenStack Glance External Provider
In the Add Provider window, select OpenStack Image from the drop-down list for the Type field to create the Glance external provider.
Enter a meaningful name and description for the new OpenStack image external provider.
Use the Provider URL field to specify the URL to your OpenStack image service, such as http://.
The default OpenStack image service port is 9292.
server:port
The OpenStack image service uses a service account, registered in the OpenStack identity service, for authentication and authorization to the rest of the OpenStack infrastructure. Using credentials for that account, the OpenStack image service obtains the required OpenStack identity service tokens to communicate with other OpenStack services. Select the Requires Authentication checkbox to specify the authentication credentials for RHV-M to successfully request the required tokens on behalf of the OpenStack image service.
Adding an OpenStack Cinder External Provider
In the Add Provider window, select OpenStack Block Storage from the drop-down list for the Type field to create the Cinder external provider.
Enter a meaningful name and description for the new OpenStack image external provider. and then select the data center.
Use the Provider URL field to specify the URL to your OpenStack block storage service, such as http://.
The default OpenStack block storage service port is 8776.
server:port
The OpenStack block storage service also uses a service account, registered in the OpenStack identity service, for authentication and authorization to the rest of the OpenStack infrastructure. Select the Requires Authentication checkbox, and then specify the authentication credentials for RHV-M to successfully request the required tokens on behalf of the OpenStack block storage service.
The authentication credentials include the following fields.
- Username
The user name of the OpenStack service user account.
- Password
The password of the OpenStack service user account.
- Protocol
The service connection protocol, either insecure (
HTTP) or secure(HTTPS).- Host Name
The fully qualified domain name of the OpenStack identity (Keystone) server.
- API Port
The Keystone service port that listens for incoming authentication requests. The default value is port 35357.
- Tenant Name
Every user account in the OpenStack environment is associated with a tenant. The tenant is a top-level container for organizing resources in OpenStack. OpenStack service accounts are associated with the
servicestenant. Use an appropriate value obtained from your OpenStack environment.
References
For more information, refer to the External Providers chapter in the Red Hat Virtualization Administration Guide at https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_virtualization/4.3/html-single/administration_guide/index#chap-External_Providers
