Learnings from Creating Plugin Module for OpenStack Manila Services

Manila is the file sharing service for OpenStack . Manila provides the management of file shares (for example, NFS and CIFS) as a core service to OpenStack. Manila services, like all other openstack services follows a pluggable architecture, and it provides a management of a shared file system instances. This paper discusses our work on integrating a multi-protocol NAS storage device to the OpenStack Manila service. We look at the architecture principle behind the scalability and modularity of Manila services, and the analysis of interface extensions required to integrate a typical NAS head. We also take a deeper look at a NAS file share management interfaces required for a software defined storage controller within the OpenStack Manila framework.

Learning Objectives

OpenStack File sharing service architecture
The API and integration framework for openstack services
NAS share management - and integration
SDS - interfaces required for a NAS device