Manila minimum requirements and features since Mitaka

In order for a driver to be accepted into manila code base, there are certain minimum requirements and features that must be met, in order to ensure interoperability and standardized manila functionality among cloud providers.

At least one driver mode (DHSS true/false)

Driver modes determine if the driver is managing network resources (DHSS = true) in an automated way, in order to segregate tenants and private networks by making use of manila Share Networks, or if it is up to the administrator to manually configure all networks (DHSS = false) and be responsible for segregation, if that is desired. At least one driver mode must be supported. In DHSS = true mode, Share Server entities are used, so the driver must implement functions that setup and teardown such servers.

At least one file system sharing protocol

In order to serve shares as a shared file system service, the driver must support at least one file system sharing protocol, which can be a new protocol or one of the currently supported protocols. The current list of supported protocols is as follows:

• NFS
• CIFS
• GlusterFS
• HDFS

Access rules

Access rules control how shares are accessible, by whom, and what the level of access is. Access rule operations include allowing access and denying access to a given share. The authentication type should be based on IP, User and/or Certificate. Drivers must support read-write and read-only access levels for each supported protocol, either through individual access rules or separate export locations.

Shares

Share servicing is the core functionality of a shared file system service, so a driver must be able to create and delete shares.

Share extending

In order to best satisfy cloud service requirements, shares must be elastic, so drivers must implement a share extend function that allows shares’ size to be increased.

Capabilities

In order for manila to function accordingly to the driver being used, the driver must provide a set of information to manila, known as capabilities, as follows:

• share_backend_name: a name for the backend;
• driver_handles_share_servers: driver mode, whether this driver instance handles share servers, possible values are true or false;
• vendor_name: driver vendor name;
• driver_version: current driver instance version;
• storage_protocol: list of shared file system protocols supported by this driver instance;
• total_capacity_gb: total amount of storage space provided, in GB;
• free_capacity_gb: amount of storage space available for use, in GB;
• reserved_percentage: percentage of total storage space to be kept from being used.

Certain features, if supported by drivers, need to be reported in order to function correctly in manila, such as:

• dedupe: whether the backend supports deduplication;
• compression: whether the backend supports compressed shares;
• thin_provisioning: whether the backend is overprovisioning shares;
• pools: list of storage pools managed by this driver instance;
• qos: whether the backend supports quality of service for shares.

Note

for more information please see http://docs.openstack.org/developer/manila/devref/capabilities_and_extra_specs.html

Continuous Integration systems

Every driver vendor must supply a CI system that tests its drivers continuously for each patch submitted to OpenStack gerrit. This allows for better QA and quicker response and notification for driver vendors when a patch submitted affects an existing driver. The CI system must run all applicable tempest tests, test all patches Jenkins has posted +1 and post its test results.

Note

for more information please see http://docs.openstack.org/infra/system-config/third_party.html

Unit tests

All drivers submitted must be contemplated with unit tests covering at least 90% of the code, preferably 100% if possible. Unit tests must use mock framework and be located in-tree using a structure that mirrors the functional code, such as directory names and filenames. See template below:

manila/[tests/]path/to/brand/new/[test_]driver.py

Documentation

Drivers submitted must provide and maintain related documentation on openstack-manuals, containing instructions on how to properly install and configure. The intended audience for this manual is cloud operators and administrators. Also, driver maintainers must update the manila share features support mapping documentation found at http://docs.openstack.org/developer/manila/devref/share_back_ends_feature_support_mapping.html

Manila optional requirements and features since Mitaka

Additional to the minimum required features supported by manila, other optional features can be supported by drivers as they are already supported in manila and can be accessed through the API.

Snapshots

Share Snapshots allow for data respective to a particular point in time to be saved in order to be used later. In manila API, share snapshots taken can only be restored by creating new shares from them, thus the original share remains unaffected. If Snapshots are supported by drivers, they must be crash-consistent.

Managing/Unmanaging shares

If DHSS = false mode is used, then drivers may implement a function that supports reading existing shares in the backend that were not created by manila. After the previously existing share is registered in manila, it is completely controlled by manila and should not be handled externally anymore. Additionally, a function that de-registers such shares from manila but do not delete from backend may also be supported.

Share shrinking

Manila API supports share shrinking, thus a share can be shrunk in a similar way it can be extended, but the driver is responsible for making sure no data is compromised.

Share ensuring

In some situations, such as when the driver is restarted, manila attempts to perform maintenance on created shares, on the purpose of ensuring previously created shares are available and being serviced correctly. The driver can implement this function by checking shares’ status and performing maintenance operations if needed, such as re-exporting.

Manila experimental features since Mitaka

Some features are initially released as experimental and can be accessed by including specific additional HTTP Request headers. Those features are not recommended for production cloud environments while in experimental stage.

Share Migration

Shares can be migrated between different backends and pools. Manila implements migration using an approach that works for any manufacturer, but driver vendors can implement a better optimized migration function for when migration involves backends or pools related to the same vendor.

Consistency Groups

Shares can be created within Consistency Groups in order to guarantee snapshot consistency of multiple shares. In order to make use of this feature, driver vendors must report this capability and implement its functions to work according to the backend, so the feature can be properly invoked through manila API.