Talligent Openbook now supports Contrail metrics for enhanced network billing in OpenStack cloud.
OpenContrail Analytics provides a deep set of network statistics related to the operations of virtual instances, virtual networks, and floating IPs and pushes them to Ceilometer via a new service plug-in. Because Openbook currently integrates with Ceilometer, Openbook will be able to directly consume this set of detailed and accurate bandwidth measurements for billing, chargeback, capacity planning, and other management reporting. Service providers can now bill on bandwidth leaving the datacenter, as well as detailed metrics at the instance, floating IP, and virtual network level.
Openbook by Talligent enables cloud providers to create and track on demand cloud services based on the OpenStack platform. Service providers and enterprises are deploying ever more complex cloud solutions to meet customer demand. It is important that the Openbook platform expand to include SDN metrics and products as they become available from solutions like OpenContrail, whether through the Ceilometer service or directly via Openbook’s API. These metrics can be packaged by tiers, metered and sold by the GB, delivered on-site or as part of a shared infrastructure, and reported on by tenant, customer, cost center, or business unit.
[pullquote align=”left”]”It is imperative for Wingu to be able to measure and bill customers on their proper bandwidth usage. Talligent and OpenContrail are providing the key bandwidth metrics and have a platform that allows us to create new, high value network offerings…”– Thomas Lee, General Manager Cloud Services, Wingu [/pullquote]
The Ceilometer driver from OpenContrail provides traffic statistics for instances, floating IPs, and virtual networks. From the description:
“For the floating IPs meters, the driver will query neutron to obtain the list of floating IPs and extract the virtual machines/instances associated with the floating IPs. It will then query the OpenContrail analytics REST API server to extract the floating IP statistics associated with those virtual machines and floating IPs and populate the meters. Similarly for the virtual network meters, the driver will query neutron/nova to obtain the list of networks and then query the OpenContrail analytics REST API server to extract the inter and intra virtual network statistics and populate the meters.”
More detail about the plug-in is available from the github wiki:
https://github.com/Juniper/contrail-controller/wiki/Ceilometer-and-OpenContrail-Driver-Enhancements
Talligent supports the decision of the Contrail team to integrate with Ceilometer for a couple of key reasons:
1) This plug-in extends the value of Ceilometer as a funnel for key metrics about the OpenStack environment; and
2) the community benefits from being able to use the common Ceilometer API to pick up this new information. This initiative is additional validation that Ceilometer will be the primary telemetry module for OpenStack.
Openbook v2.5 is tested to work with the Juniper Networks Contrail Cloud and the OpenContrail Ceilometer Driver.
If you are interested in learning more about the use of OpenContrail and the OpenContrail Ceilometer Driver to bill and report on bandwidth metrics in Openstack, please contact Talligent at openbook@talligent.com for more information.
About Talligent
Talligent empowers enterprises and service providers to deploy production ready OpenStack clouds by dramatically improving the visibility and control of cloud infrastructure consumption. We are OpenStack experts – we know its capabilities and are developing solutions that take advantage of OpenStack’s key benefits without vendor lock-in. Talligent OpenBook provides the functionality to turn your private or public cloud into an efficient and automated multi-tenant environment.
