One of the key features of the OpenStack platform is the ability to run applications, and quickly scale them, using containers.
Containers are ready-to-run applications because they come packed with the entire stack of services required to run them.
OpenStack is an ideal platform for containers because it provides all of the resources and services for containers to run in a distributed, massively scalable cloud infrastructure. You can easily run containers on top of Nova because it includes everything that is needed to run instances in a cloud. A further development is offered by project Zun.
In more complex environments, container orchestration is often required. Using container orchestration makes managing many containers in data center environments easier. Kubernetes has become the preferred solution for container orchestration. Container orchestration in OpenStack is implemented using project Magnum.
In the current OpenStack, there are no less than three solutions for running containers:
- Directly on top of Nova
- Using container orchestration in project Magnum
- Using project Zun
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to run containers in OpenStack using the Nova driver with Docker.
What is Docker?
Multiple solutions are available for running containers on cloud infrastructure. Currently, Docker is the most used solution for containers. It offers all that is needed to run containers in a corporate environment, and is backed by Docker Inc. for support.