Openstack Overview

OpenStack Overview

Overview

What is OpenStack?

OpenStack is a set of software tools for building and managing cloud computing platforms for public and private

clouds. Backed by some of the biggest companies in software development and hosting, as well as thousands of

individual community members, many think that OpenStack is the future of cloud computing. OpenStack is an

orchestration platform that allows cloud administrators to build large-scale multi-tenant clouds using multiple

vendors for equipment such as hypervisors, switches, and other services.

What firewalls models are supported?

Currently, physical firewalls and VM-Series (VM-100, VM-200, VM-300) for ESXi and KVM are supported. Each

firewall represents a single router created in OpenStack. VSYS on physical firewalls will be supported in a future

release of the OpenStack driver.

What support does OpenStack have for Palo Alto Networks?

Palo Alto Networks has developed a driver for OpenStack making it possible to use a Palo Alto Networks firewall in

place of the default OpenStack router. OpenStack configures the vlans, IP addresses, and routes on the firewall to

put it in the path of traffic between the OpenStack virtual machines and the outside network. OpenStack also shares

context information about these virtual machines to the firewall for easy security policy creation using Dynamic

Address Groups.

For ESXi and physical firewalls, OpenStack does not currently deploy a firewall. The firewalls must be pre-

deployed and licensed and attached to Panorama before it can be used by OpenStack. Customers will deploy several

firewalls which are considered by OpenStack to be a "pool" of firewall resources. When a new router is created in

OpenStack,