OpenStack Reference Architecture

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This topic describes a reference architecture for Pivotal Platform on OpenStack. This architecture is valid for most production-grade Pivotal Platform deployments in a single project using three availability zones (AZs).

For general requirements for running Pivotal Platform and specific requirements for running Pivotal Platform on OpenStack, see OpenStack on Pivotal Platform Requirements.

Pivotal Platform Reference Architectures

A Pivotal Platform reference architecture describes a proven approach for deploying Pivotal Platform on a specific IaaS, such as OpenStack, that meets these requirements:

  • Secure
  • Publicly-accessible
  • Includes common Pivotal Platform-managed services such as MySQL, RabbitMQ, and Spring Cloud Services
  • Can host at least 100 app instances

Pivotal provides reference architectures to help you determine the best configuration for your Pivotal Platform deployment.

Base OpenStack Reference Architecture

The diagram below illustrates a reference architecture of a deployment of Pivotal Platform on OpenStack using three AZs.

Openstack overview arch

View a larger version of this diagram.

Base Reference Architecture Components

The table below lists the components that are part of a base reference architecture deployment on OpenStack with three AZs.

Component Reference Architecture Notes
Domains and DNS Domain zones and routes in use by the reference architecture include:

  • Zones for *.apps and *.sys (required)
  • A route for Pivotal Operations Manager (required)
  • A route for Doppler (required)
  • A route for Loggregator (required)
  • A route for SSH access to app containers (optional)
  • A route for TCP access to TCP routers (optional)
Ops Manager Deployed on the infrastructure network and accessible by fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) or through an optional jumpbox.
BOSH Director Deployed on the infrastructure network.
Application Load Balancer Required. Load balancer that handles incoming HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, and SSL traffic and forwards them to the Gorouters. Load balancers are outside the scope of this topic.
SSH Load Balancer Optional. Load balancer that provides SSH access to app containers for developers. Load balancers are outside the scope of this topic.
Gorouters Accessed through the Application Load Balancer. Deployed on the Pivotal Application Service (PAS) network, one per AZ.
Diego Brains This component is required. However, the SSH container access functionality is optional and enabled through the SSH load balancers. Deployed on the PAS network, one per AZ.
TCP Routers Optional feature for TCP routing. Deployed on the PAS network, one per AZ.
Database Reference architecture uses internal MySQL.
Storage Buckets Reference architecture uses customer provided blobstore. Buckets are needed for BOSH and PAS.
Service Tiles Deployed on the services network.
Service Accounts VMware recommends two service accounts: one for OpenStack “paving,” and the other for Ops Manager and BOSH.

  • Admin Account: Concourse uses this account to provision required OpenStack resources as well as a Keystone service account.
  • Keystone Service Account: This service account is automatically provisioned with restricted access only to resources needed by Pivotal Platform.
OpenStack Quota The default compute quota on a new OpenStack subscription is typically not enough to host a multi-AZ deployment. VMware recommends a quota of 100 for instances. Your OpenStack network quotas may also need to be increased.

OpenStack Objects

The table below lists the network objects in this reference architecture.

Network Object Notes Estimated Number
Floating IP addresses Two per deployment: one assigned to Ops Manager, the other to your jumpbox. 2
Project One per deployment. A Pivotal Platform deployment exists within a single project and a single OpenStack region, but should distribute Pivotal Platform jobs and instances across three OpenStack AZs to ensure high availability. 1
Networks The reference architecture requires these Tenant Networks:
  • 1 x (/24) Infrastructure (Ops Manager, BOSH Director, Jumpbox).
  • 1 x (/20) PAS (Gorouters, Diego Cells, Cloud Controllers, etc.).
  • 1 x (/20) Services (RabbitMQ, MySQL, Spring Cloud Services, etc.)
  • 1 x (/24) On-demand services (various)
An Internet-facing network is also required:
  • One Public network.

Note: In many cases, the public network is an “under the cloud” network that is shared across projects.

 5
Routers This reference architecture requires one router attached to all networks:
  • VirtualRouter: This router table enables the ingress and egress routes to and from the Internet to the project networks and provides sNAT services.
 1
Security Groups The reference architecture requires one Security Groups. The table below describes the Security Group ingress rules:
Security Group Port From CIDR Protocol Description
OpsMgrSG 22 0.0.0.0/0 TCP Ops Manager SSH access
OpsMgrSG 443 0.0.0.0/0 TCP Ops Manager HTTP access
VmsSG ALL VPC_CIDR ALL Open up connections among BOSH-deployed VMs
Additional security groups may be needed which are specific to your chosen load balancing solution. 		5
Load Balancers Pivotal Platform on OpenStack requires a load balancer, which can be configured with multiple listeners to forward HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP traffic. VMware recommends two load balancers: one to forward the traffic to the Gorouters, AppsLB; and the other to forward the traffic to the Diego Brain SSH proxy, SSHLB.

The table below describes the required listeners for each load balancer:
Name Instance/Port Load Balancer Port Protocol Description
AppsLB gorouter/80 80 HTTP Forward traffic to Gorouters
AppsLB gorouter/80 443 HTTPS SSL termination and forward traffic to Gorouters
SSHLB diego-brain/2222 2222 TCP Forward traffic to Diego Brain for container SSH connections
Each load balancer needs a check to validate the health of the back end instances:
  • AppsLB checks the health on Gorouter port 80 with TCP.
  • SSHLB checks the health on Diego Brain port 2222 with TCP.

Note: In many cases, the load balancers are provided as an “under the cloud” service that is shared across projects.

 2
Jumpbox Optional. Provides a way of accessing different network components. For example, you can configure it with your own permissions and then set it up to access to Pivotal Network to download tiles. Using a jumpbox is particularly useful in IaaSes where Ops Manager does not have a public IP address. In these cases, you can SSH into Ops Manager or any other component through the jumpbox. 1