OpenStack Summit November 2014 Paris

Various Openstack services often need to catalog different objects they use to

operate. Such objects may contain various data as well as metadata needed for

identification and description.

Images used by Nova to run the VMs are just the best known examples of such

objects. Other examples include Heat templates, Solum Plan Files, Mistral

Workbooks, Murano Application Packages etc.

"To catalog" means to have the following functionality:

  * To store the object reliably

  * To guarantee its immutabity once it is stored

  * To provide search capabilities to find the objects in catalog

  * To return the detailed info about the requested object

  * To allow fetching the object for usage by a Service

  * To control the access to the object: enforce usage and modification

    policies, sharing and publication scenarios etc

  * To manage the object lifecyle

Obviously, this set of functionality is common for different kinds of objects,

and is usually unrelated to the primary mission of respective projects using

these objects.

That is why it is suggested to have a dedicated service which will provide the

catalog functionality for other OpenStack services. As Glance already serves

as a catalog of Images for Nova, it is suggested to extend its mission so it

may serve as a catalog for other services as well.

The objects stored in the catalog are called *Artifacts*, and the catalog

itself *Artifact Repository*.

Various Openstack services often need to catalog different objects they use to operate. Such objects may contain various data as well as type-specific metadata needed for identification, description, and processing by the target service.

Images used by Nova to run the VMs are just the best known examples of such objects. Other examples include Heat templates, Solum Plan Files, Mistral Workbooks, and Murano Application Packages.

During the Juno development cycle, work has started to extend Glance to support these other "Artifacts" via a plug-in system. Heat templates are the first artifacts to be supported in Juno with several other plug-ins planned for the K development cycle.

This talk will cover the motivations and general architecture for artifact plug-ins as well as a general roadmap for further enhancement and development.