Neutron
What is Quantum?
Quantum is a project to provide "network connectivity as a service" between 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.
Quantum now an officially incubated Openstack project. 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.
- Example: create multiple networks per tenant, multi-tier applications, etc. that go beyond what is possible with nova's FlatManager or VlanManager
- Let anyone build services (open and closed source) that plug into Openstack networks.
- Examples: VPN-aaS, firewall-aaS, IDS-aaS.
- Enable innovation plugins (open and closed source) that overcomes common cloud networking problems and introduce advanced network capabilities
- Example: avoid VLAN limits, provide strong end-to-end QoS guarantees.
Using Quantum
Quantum is still a young project and our documentation is still a work in progress. Please see:
- Quantum Administrator Guide : Directions to install, configure and run Quantum with OpenStack Nova.
- Quantum API Guide : Detailed information for programming against v1.0 of the Quantum web services API.
Current Development Status
Quantum was proposed at the Diablo summit (end of April 2011) and in just a few months we've made a ton of progress.
The 2011.3 "diablo" release on Quantum on 9/23/2011 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
Participate
To get code, ask questions, view blueprints, etc, see: Quantum Launchpad Page
There is not yet any developer documentation to guide those looking to modify Quantum itself or add a new Quantum plugin. The best resource for is looking at the code itself and sending questions to the netstack email list.
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: http://wiki.openstack.org/Network/Meetings
Blueprints for Major Areas of Dev Activity
The next major set of tasks will be decided on at the Essex summit. If you'll be in Boston, you are welcome to participate in discussions, look for the NetStack track.
