What is Quantum?
Quantum is an incubated OpenStack project to provide "network connectivity as a service" between interface devices (e.g., vNICs) managed by other Openstack services (e.g., nova).
Quantum is a result of discussions at the Diablo design summit around improving OpenStack networking. If you're a networking geek and like to hack on OpenStack, please join!
More Info:
Slides describing Quantum from the Diablo Summit (4/28/11)
Quantum Design Principles
Why Quantum?
Support advanced network topologies beyond what is possible with nova's FlatManager or VlanManager
- Example: create multi-tier web application topology
- Let anyone build advanced network services (open and closed source) that plug into Openstack tenant networks.
- Examples: VPN-aaS, firewall-aaS, IDS-aaS, data-center-interconnect-aaS.
- Enable innovation plugins (open and closed source) that introduce advanced network capabilities
Example: use L2-in-L3 tunneling to avoid VLAN limits, provide end-to-end QoS guarantees, used monitoring protocols like NetFlow.
Using Quantum
Following the instructions in the Quantum Administrator Guide to use Quantum with OpenStack Nova.
Forget documentation, I just want to get the code!: Quantum Downloads
Detailed information for programming against v1.0 of the Quantum web services API is available in the Quantum API Guide
If you are looking for Quantum packaged for your Linux distribution, please see: QuantumPackages .
If you are looking for information on using Quantum with devstack, please see: QuantumDevstack .
Current Project Status
Quantum was proposed at the Diablo summit (end of April 2011) and in just six months we've made a ton of progress.
The 2011.3 "diablo" release included:
- v1.0 of the Quantum API
- API Extensibility Framework
- API Client LIbrary and CLI
Integration with OpenStack Nova via the QuantumManager
Prototype integration with OpenStack Dashboard
- Two publicly available plugins:
Open vSwitch Plugin
- Cisco UCS/Nexus Plugin
During the Essex release cycle, Quantum is focused on:
- Achieving Nova Parity (all use cases of using Nova networking should be achievable in Quantum, and more!)
- Production-readiness (improve unit/integration testing, code quality, trouble-shooting, documentation).
- Tackling other challenges of the Nova networking model (e.g., overcoming single-points-of-failure and bottlenecks for L3, integrating with external services).
Participate
To get code, ask questions, view blueprints, etc, see: Quantum Launchpad Page
See QuantumDevelopment for some (rough) guides on how to contribute code to Quantum, including how to add your own plugin.
If you would like to participate, please send mail to the netstack list: https://launchpad.net/~netstack
You can also attend our regular IRC meetings, which start one hour after the main openstack meeting, on the same #openstack-meeting channel: wiki.openstack.org/Network/Meetings