An overview of the Apache LibCloud project and how it can help you stay ahead of the cloud market in 2016

1. Keeping up with the Cloud
market in 2016
Anthony Shaw, Apache LibCloud PMC

2. Overview of the LibCloud project
 Python library, supports 2.5+, 3.0+
 Formed in 2009
 Graduated to Apache TLP in May 2011
 200k+ downloads a month on PyPi
 154 contributors
LibCloud is an open-source library providing a single interface to
communicate with multiple clouds, public or private. Supports IaaS,
LBaaS, DNS and Storage.

3. Why should you use LibCloud?
My workloads run in private and
public clouds, I’ve got scripts for
both
LibCloud supports all major
public clouds and private
hypervisor APIs. Consolidate
your scripts into 1 tool

4. Supported Clouds (IaaS)

5. Consolidation in Public Cloud
People are using multiple
clouds for a reason.
Choosing a cloud provider can
be both a commercial and
technical decision.
Don’t let your choice of cloud
provider dictate your
automation strategy.
Give yourself the freedom of
vendor agnostic deployment.
The number of public cloud providers in 2015 has decreased, and usage has
consolidated to a handful of “hyper-scale” providers.

6. Protection against market shifts
[1] http://smallbiztrends.com/2015/10/hp-helion-public-cloud-closing.html
6 months later..
This HP Helion REST API is amazing! I’m
going to automate all the things…
“HP Will Shut Down Its Helion
Public Cloud on Jan. 31”[1]

7. Dispersion in Private Cloud
• Adoption of private cloud has
only increased slightly
between 2014 and 2015
• LibCloud supports VMware
APIs, OpenStack,
CloudStack but not Azure
Pack or System Center.
• Libvirt and KVM support
also available.

8. Using LibCloud
If you want to use LibCloud directly from Python..
$ pip install apache-libcloud
Credentials
Choice of Cloud
get_driver()
Node
Driver

9. Compute Drivers
Node Driver
Node
Size Image
Location
Network
Extended
functions
 List images, sizes, nodes
(VMs) and locations.
 Deploy, destroy, start and stop
nodes
 Create networks
 Extended functions for most
native functionality e.g.
snapshots, cloning where
supported.

10. Example
Create
Node
Deploy
Node(s)
ComputeDriver
Deploy your primary
workload in private
cloud and a failover in
public cloud
Create
Node
Deploy
Node(s)
Parallel multi-cloud deployment
Update DNS
records

11. DNS Drivers
 Zone Management
 Add, find, update and delete
records
 Configure TTL for rapid failover
 Some drivers support
automated purchasing and
pricing of domains (e.g.
GoDaddy).
DNS Driver
Zone
Records
Extended
functions

12. Example
Locate Zone Add A record
Create
Node
Deploy
Node
DNSDriver
Compute Driver
Integrate your public
IP addresses with
your A/AAAA records
Public IP(s)

13. Storage Drivers
 Create containers.
 List and manage existing
containers.
 Import, fetch and upload
objects into containers.
 Fetch CDN URLs where
supported.
Storage Driver
Container
Object
Extended
functions

14. Example
Create
Container
Add
Objects
Create
Node
Deploy
Node
Storage Driver
Compute Driver
New
build
event
Don’t lose out when using
private clouds and not
having access to object
storage.
Cross-over your cloud
providers to get the best
of both.
Deployment bits

15. Load Balancer Drivers
Define virtual listeners.
Control load-balancing
method.
Set protocol, IP and
port(s).
Add and remove nodes
from a virtual listener.LB Driver
Listener
Nodes VIPs
Extended
functions

16. Example
Create
Listener
Add
Node
Update
DNS
Create
Node
Deploy
Node
DNS Driver
LBDriver
Compute Driver
Auto-
Scale
event
Implement auto-
scaling for a cloud
that doesn’t currently
offer it by crossing-
over load balancer
and compute drivers.

17. Mix and match
Compute Storage DNS
Application workload
To take full advantage of the LibCloud ecosystem, deploy your application across multiple providers,
choose the best platform(s) for the job.
Compute DNS Storage
Load
Balancer

18. Other ways of consuming LibCloud
Orchestration Tools Management UIs
Development Tooling

19. Salt Stack Cloud
Leverage the flexibility and
breadth of the LibCloud
driver support from Salt
Stack

20. Contributing to LibCloud
Fork +
code
Raise Pull
Request
Merge!Test +
flake
github.com/apache/libcloud

21. About me
@anthonypjshaw
@tonybaloney
anthonyshaw@apache.org
Based in Sydney, Australia
Head of Innovation for
Dimension Data