PowerVM Neutron ML2 Agent

The IBM PowerVM hypervisor provides virtualization on POWER hardware. PowerVM operators can see benefits in their environments by making use of OpenStack. This project implements a ML2 compatible agent that provides capability for PowerVM admins to natively use OpenStack Neutron. This agent is tied to the Shared Ethernet Adapter technology which is currently the typical scenario for PowerVM network virtualization.

Problem description

This project provides a ML2 compatible agent for the PowerVM hypervisor. It is paired to the nova-powervm driver.

This PowerVM agent provides support for VLAN networks across Shared Ethernet Adapters. It provisions the VLANs on the Virtual I/O Servers (VIOS) to support the client workload, via the PowerVM REST API. The Nova component will set up the peer adapter as part of VIF plugging.

Only networks of physical type VLAN are supported.

Use Cases

• Deploy a VLAN to the specified Virtual I/O Server (or pair of servers) as deploys occur.
• Periodic heal of the systems (similar to Open vSwitch agent design).
• Periodic optimization (removal of unused VLANs from the Shared Ethernet Adapters) of the system.
• Heartbeat of the agent.

Project Priority

None

Data model impact

None

REST API impact

None

Security impact

None

Notifications impact

None

Other end user impact

None to end user.

Performance Impact

No performance impact. Deploy operations should not be impacted by using this agent.

Other deployer impact

The operator needs to obtain the agent from the code repository. The cloud administrator needs to install the agent on both the Neutron controller as well as on the compute node.

The operator will then need to configure the bridge_mappings, to define in the CONF file how to map the physical networks to the adapters. No further configuration is required for the operator. If only one physical network exists (the default), and a single Shared Ethernet Adapter, no bridge_mapping configuration is required. The agent will assume the default network maps to that single Shared Ethernet Adapter (or single pair SEAs set up for redundancy).

Redundant Shared Ethernet Adapters (as defined by the PowerVM Redbook) are fully supported by this agent.

Developer impact

None

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

thorst

Other contributors:

wpward svenkat efried

Dependencies

• The Neutron ML2 Plugin.
• Utilizes the PowerVM REST API specification for management. Will utilize future versions of this specification as it becomes available: http://ibm.co/1lThV9R
• Builds on top of the pypowervm library. An open-source, python based library that interacts with the PowerVM REST API.

Testing

Tempest Tests

Since the tempest tests should be implementation agnostic, the existing tempest tests should be able to run against the PowerVM agent without issue.

Thorough unit tests exist within the agent that validate specific functions for this implementation.

Functional Tests

A third party functional test environment has been created. It monitors incoming Neutron change sets. Once it detects a new change set, it should execute the existing lifecycle API tests. A non-gating vote (+1 or -1) will be provided with information provided (logs) based on the result.

Work continues in this area.

API Tests

No changes (no new APIs)

References

• Neutron ML2 Plugin: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Neutron/ML2
• PowerVM REST API Initial Specification (may require newer versions as they become available): http://ibm.co/1lThV9R
• PowerVM Virtualization Introduction and Configuration: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247940.html
• PowerVM Best Practices: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg248062.html