Software as a Service (SaaS) is model of cloud computing where software is provided to users on-demand by the service providers over the Internet. In a SaaS model, users subscribe and pay only for the time they use the corresponding software licenses.
A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a network of block-level storage devices available to users. The users access the remote storage arrays the same way they would typically access a local disk drive.
Software-defined network is a technology that simplifies network management by adding the virtualization abstraction level. In SDN, the network control plane is separated from the network data plane that makes the forward traffic management addressed on the application level rather than on the hardware level.
A set of IP filter rules associated with an instance to define the networking access to that instance. The default OpenStack security group does not allow executable commands such as ssh and ping to access virtual machines, as well as any other method to access virtual machines over the network.
Each security group is associated with a project or tenant. Most projects are assigned a default security group that is applied to virtual instances. The project administrator can add rules to the default security group or create additional security groups from which the user can select when to create an instance.
A shared services strategy with private and hybrid cloud models means that an Organization’s business groups in many cases share a set of common technology, infrastructure, applications and services in the cloud. When a service is shared, in many cases, each business group that uses a service contributes to its cost and maintenance in a usage-based model.
A switch in a leaf-spine network architecture to which leaf switches connect. Each leaf switch connects to all spine switches. The leaf-spine network architecture particularly enhances Ease-West traffic, such as in storage replication operations.
Single point of failure (SPOF) describes a part of a system that does not have an equivalent redundant component. In case of an error on that part a critical functionality of a system becomes unavailable.
Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) is a specification that allows a PCI device to appear virtually in multiple virtual machines (VMs), each of which has its own virtual function. The specification defines virtual functions (VFs) for the VMs and a physical function for the hypervisor. Using SR-IOV in a cloud infrastructure helps to reach higher performance since traffic bypasses the TCP/IP stack in the kernel.
Logging, Monitoring, and Alerting (LMA) toolchain of Mirantis OpenStack that helps cloud administrators to identify, prevent, and resolve infrastructure issues, as well as adds transparency to the functioning of the underlying OpenStack components.
A node in an OpenStack environment that is specifically designated to store data. Storage nodes run the Ceph OSD and journaling software components. Although, you can combine storage with other virtual roles, providing separate storage nodes results in better scalability, maintainability, and reliability of your cloud.
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a network protocol that creates a loop-free network topology.
The OpenStack Object Storage service, or Swift, provides a multi-tenant object storage system that can accomodate large amounts of unstructured data at low cost. Object Storage can be used as a storage back end for the Glance image service.
Some key characteristics of Swift object storage include: