OpenStack is based on the Python programming language and DevStack is the most common development and test environment for OpenStack. If you are doing serious, professional programming around OpenStack, it is very useful to have a proper development environment. In this blog, I will show you how to use the PyCharm IDE from Jetbrains for your OpenStack programming. I will use the Neutron ML2 driver code from my book OpenStack Networking Cookbook to guide you in setting up the PyCharm IDE.

One of the most popular networking command in Linux is the ifconfig command. It lets you see (and configure) IP address for network interface. It also shows the MAC address for each interface. The MAC address and the IP address viewing is probably the most common reason for using the ifconfig command. In addition the ifconfig command works with physical network interface (like eth0..) and virtual network interface (like Tap interface etc).

My first publication OpenStack Networking Cookbook is now available for purchase. It is available as a printed book as well as e-book. OpenStack is a rapidly evolving cloud platform and Networking (Neutron) is one of its critical components. The current trends of SDN and NFV make OpenStack Networking even more exciting and complex. I have co-authored the book with a colleague and the overall experience of writing a book was very satisfying.

As I have been doing for last few years, it is time to assess how well I have done on my blogging and learning goals. I will also share my goals for the second half of 2015.

OpenStack supports rich abstractions to handle virtual networking needs in a cloud. As a user the most visible entities are the Network, Subnets, Routers, Firewall etc. But if we consider ingress and egress points for data traffic, the most critical entity is the Port. OpenStack Neutron Ports are usually created automatically as part of other user operations. However the CLI allows users to create Ports independently as well.

The best way to learn OpenStack is by installing, running and playing with it directly. In this blog, I will share the details of the VirtualBox based multi-node OpenStack installation. I will be focusing only on the networking aspects when using VirtualBox. I will also share some tips that are important in this deployment. This blog will not cover the steps to install and create a virtual machine using VirtualBox.

I briefly talked about OpenStack Neutron plugins and agents in my blog about OpenStack Neutron components. In this blog, let us go a step further and understand the roles of plugins and the agents.

This is a guest post by Suryanarayana M N V. Having led teams working on Networking protocols, Surya has in-depth knowledge of networking. He has keen interest in the areas of Network Virtualization and NFV. A hyper-scale data center has tens of thousands of servers. How would the network be in such data centers? It need to be simple, scalable and fully automated. In this blog, I will share some insights into the network for Altoona DC of Facebook.

In an earlier blog, I have talked about Linux bridge based virtual networking. Recently as part of a comment on my blog, I learnt how to view and interpret the MAC table of Linux bridge. In this installment of WILT (What I Learnt Today) series, I will share how MAC Table can be used for troubleshooting Linux bridges.

Here I am once again, with fresh blogging and learning goals for the first half of 2015. This time I am able to share my goals earlier than usual. In the past, I was delayed by almost 2 months. This is clearly a good start for me and I hope that the rest of the year, I am able to stick to a better cadence for my blogging.