Fuel configuration

This section provides guidelines on how to install and configure the Brahmaputra release of OPNFV when using Fuel as a deployment tool including required software and hardware configurations.

For detailed instructions on how to install the Brahmaputra release using Fuel, see Reference 13 in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Pre-configuration activities

Planning the deployment

Before starting the installation of the Brahmaputra release of OPNFV when using Fuel as a deployment tool, some planning must be done.

Familiarize yourself with the Fuel by reading the following documents:

  • Fuel planning guide, please see Reference: 8 in section “Fuel associated references” below.
  • Fuel user guide, please see Reference: 9 in section “Fuel associated references” below.
  • Fuel operations guide, please see Reference: 10 in section “Fuel associated references” below.
  • Fuel Plugin Developers Guide, please see Reference: 11 in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Before the installation can start, a number of deployment specific parameters must be collected, those are:

  1. Provider sub-net and gateway information
  2. Provider VLAN information
  3. Provider DNS addresses
  4. Provider NTP addresses
  5. Network overlay you plan to deploy (VLAN, VXLAN, FLAT)
  6. Monitoring Options you want to deploy (Ceilometer, Syslog, etc.)
  7. How many nodes and what roles you want to deploy (Controllers, Storage, Computes)
  8. Other options not covered in the document are available in the links above

Retrieving the ISO image

First of all, the Fuel deployment ISO image needs to be retrieved, the Fuel .iso image of the Brahmaputra release can be found at Reference: 2

Alternatively, you may build the .iso from source by cloning the opnfv/fuel git repository. Detailed instructions on how to build a Fuel OPNFV .iso can be found in Reference: 14 at section “Fuel associated references” below.

Hardware requirements

Following high level hardware requirements must be met:

HW Aspect Requirement
# of nodes

Minimum 5 (3 for non redundant deployment):

  • 1 Fuel deployment master (may be virtualized)
  • 3(1) Controllers (1 colocated mongo/ceilometer role, 2 Ceph-OSD roles)
  • 1 Compute (1 co-located Ceph-OSD role)
CPU Minimum 1 socket x86_AMD64 with Virtualization support
RAM Minimum 16GB/server (Depending on VNF work load)
Disk Minimum 256GB 10kRPM spinning disks
Networks

4 Tagged VLANs (PUBLIC, MGMT, STORAGE, PRIVATE)

1 Un-Tagged VLAN for PXE Boot - ADMIN Network

note: These can be run on single NIC - or spread out over other nics as your hardware supports

For information on compatible hardware types available for use, please see Reference: 11 in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Top of the rack (TOR) Configuration requirements

The switching infrastructure provides connectivity for the OPNFV infrastructure operations, tenant networks (East/West) and provider connectivity (North/South); it also provides needed connectivity for the Storage Area Network (SAN). To avoid traffic congestion, it is strongly suggested that three physically separated networks are used, that is: 1 physical network for administration and control, one physical network for tenant private and public networks, and one physical network for SAN. The switching connectivity can (but does not need to) be fully redundant, in such case it and comprises a redundant 10GE switch pair for each of the three physically separated networks.

The physical TOR switches are not automatically configured from the OPNFV reference platform. All the networks involved in the OPNFV infrastructure as well as the provider networks and the private tenant VLANs needs to be manually configured.

Jumphost configuration

The Jumphost server, also known as the “Fuel master” provides needed services/functions to deploy an OPNFV/OpenStack cluster as well functions for cluster life-cycle management (extensions, repair actions and upgrades).

The Jumphost server requires 2 (4 if redundancy is required) Ethernet interfaces - one for external management of the OPNFV installation, and another for jump-host communication with the OPNFV cluster.

Install the Fuel jump-host

Mount the Fuel Brahmaputra ISO file as a boot device to the jump host server, reboot it, and install the Fuel Jumphost in accordance with installation instructions, see Reference 13 in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Platform components configuration

Fuel-Plugins

Fuel plugins enable you to install and configure additional capabilities for your Fuel OPNFV based cloud, such as additional storage types, networking functionality, or NFV features developed by OPNFV.

Fuel offers an open source framework for creating these plugins, so there’s a wide range of capabilities that you can enable Fuel to add to your OpenStack clouds.

The OPNFV Brahmaputra version of Fuel provides a set of pre-packaged plugins developed by OPNFV:

Plugin name Short description
OpenDaylight OpenDaylight provides an open-source SDN Controller providing networking features such as L2 and L3 network control, “Service Function Chaining”, routing, networking policies, etc. More information on OpenDaylight in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a separate section in this document.
ONOS ONOS is another open-source SDN controller which in essense fill the same role as OpenDaylight. More information on ONOS in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a separate section in this document.
BGP-VPN BGP-VPN provides an BGP/MPLS VPN service More information on BGP-VPN in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a separate section in this document.
OVS-NSH OVS-NSH provides a variant of Open-vSwitch which supports “Network Service Headers” needed for the “Service function chaining” feature More information on “Service Function Chaining” in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a in a separate section in this document.
OVS-NFV OVS-NFV provides a variant of Open-vSwitch with carrier grade characteristics essential for NFV workloads. More information on OVS-NFV in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a in a separate section in this document.
KVM-NFV KVM-NFV provides a variant of KVM with improved virtualization characteristics essential for NFV workloads. More information on KVM-NFV in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a in a separate section in this document.
VSPERF VSPERF provides a networking characteristics test bench that facilitates characteristics/performance evaluation of vSwithches More information on VSPERF in the OPNFV Brahmaputra release can be found in a in a separate section in this document.

Additional third-party plugins can be found here: https://www.mirantis.com/products/openstack-drivers-and-plugins/fuel-plugins/ Note: Plugins are not necessarilly compatible with each other, see section “Configuration options, OPNFV scenarios” for compatibility information

The plugins come prepackaged, ready to install. To do so follow the installation instructions provided in Reference 13 provided in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Fuel environment

A Fuel environment is an OpenStack instance managed by Fuel, one Fuel instance can manage several OpenStack instances/environments with different configurations, etc.

To create a Fuel instance, follow the instructions provided in the installation instructions, see Reference 13 in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Provisioning of aditional features and services

Although the plugins have already previously been installed, they are not per default enabled for the environment we just created. The plugins of your choice need to be enabled and configured.

To enable a plugin, follow the installation instructions found in Reference 13, provided in section “Fuel associated references” below.

For configuration of the plugins, please see section “Feature Configuration”.

Networking

All the networking aspects need to be configured in terms of: - Interfaces/NICs - VLANs - Sub-nets - Gateways - User network segmentation (VLAN/VXLAN) - DNS - NTP - etc.

For guidelines on how to configure networking, please refer to the installation instructions found in Reference 13 provided in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Node allocation

Now, it is time to allocate the nodes in your OPNFV cluster to OpenStack-, SDN-, and other feature/service roles. Some roles may require redundancy, while others don’t; Some roles may be co-located with other roles, while others may not. The Fuel GUI will guide you in the allocation of roles and will not permit you to perform invalid allocations.

For detailed guide-lines on node allocation, please refer to the installation instructions found in Reference 13, provided in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Off-line deployment

The OPNFV Brahmaputra version of Fuel can be deployed using on-line upstream repositories (default) or off-line using built-in local repositories on the Fuel jump-start server.

For instructions on how to configure Fuel for off-line deployment, please refer to the installation instructions found in, Reference 13, provided in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Deployment

You should now be ready to deploy your OPNFV Brahmaputra environment - but before doing so you may want to verify your network settings.

For further details on network verification and deployment, please refer to the installation instructions found in, Reference 13, provided in section “Fuel associated references” below.

Fuel associated references

  1. OPNFV Home Page
  2. OPNFV documentation- and software downloads
  1. OpenStack Liberty Release artifacts
  2. OpenStack documentation
  1. OpenDaylight artifacts
  1. The Fuel OpenStack project
  2. Fuel documentation overview
  3. Fuel planning guide
  4. Fuel user guide
  5. Fuel operations guide
  6. Fuel Plugin Developers Guide
  7. Fuel OpenStack Hardware Compatibility List
  1. OPNFV Installation instruction for the Brahmaputra release of OPNFV when using Fuel as a deployment tool
  2. OPNFV Build instruction for the Brahmaputra release of OPNFV when using Fuel as a deployment tool
  3. OPNFV Release Note for the Brahmaputra release of OPNFV when using Fuel as a deployment tool