Multisite VIM Usage

A single Tacker controller node can be used to manage multiple Openstack sites without having the need to deploy Tacker server on each of these sites. Tacker allows users to deploy VNFs in multiple OpenStack sites using the multisite VIM feature. OpenStack versions starting from Kilo are supported with this feature.

Preparing the OpenStack site

1. Create a new ‘nfv’ project and admin privileged ‘nfv’ user on the remote OpenStack site.
2. Create the required neutron networks for management, packet in and packet out networks that will be used by VNFs.

Register a new OpenStack VIM

To register a new OpenStack VIM inside Tacker.

$ tacker vim-register --description 'OpenStack Liberty' --config-file vim_config.yaml Site1
Created a new vim:
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Field          | Value                                                                                                                                                    |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| auth_cred      | {"username": "nfv_user", "password": "***", "project_name": "nfv", "user_id": "", "user_domain_name": "default", "auth_url":                               |
|                | "http://10.18.161.165:5000/v3", "project_id": "", "project_domain_name": "default"}                                                                        |
| auth_url       | http://10.18.161.165:5000/v3                                                                                                                             |
| description    | OpenStack Liberty                                                                                                                                        |
| id             | 3f3c51c5-8bda-4bd3-adb3-5ae62eae65c3                                                                                                                     |
| name           | Site1                                                                                                                                                    |
| placement_attr | {"regions": ["RegionOne", "RegionTwo"]}                                                                                                                  |
| tenant_id      | 8907bae480c0414d98c3519acbad1b06                                                                                                                         |
| type           | openstack                                                                                                                                                |
| vim_project    | {"id": "", "name": "nfv"}                                                                                                                                |
+----------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

In the above command, config.yaml contains VIM specific parameters as below:

::

auth_url: ‘http://localhost:5000‘ username: ‘nfv_user’ password: ‘devstack’ project_name: ‘nfv’

The parameter auth_url points to the keystone service authorization URL of the remote OpenStack site.

Default VIM configuration

The default vim needs to be registered. This is required when the optional argument -vim-id is not provided during vnf-create. Refer to steps described in manual installation to register default vim.

Deploying a new VNF on registered VIM

$ tacker vnf-create --description 'Openwrt VNF on Site1' --vnfd-id c3cbf0c0-a492-49e3-9541-945e49e7ed7e --vim-name Site1 openwrt_VNF
Created a new vnf:
+----------------+--------------------------------------+
| Field          | Value                                |
+----------------+--------------------------------------+
| description    | Openwrt tosca template               |
| id             | 159ed8a5-a5a7-4f7a-be50-0f5f86603e3a |
| instance_id    | 7b4ab046-d977-4781-9f0c-1ee9dcce01c6 |
| mgmt_url       |                                      |
| name           | openwrt_VNF                          |
| placement_attr | {"vim_name": "Site1"}                |
| status         | PENDING_CREATE                       |
| tenant_id      | 8907bae480c0414d98c3519acbad1b06     |
| vim_id         | 3f3c51c5-8bda-4bd3-adb3-5ae62eae65c3 |
| vnfd_id        | c3cbf0c0-a492-49e3-9541-945e49e7ed7e |
+----------------+--------------------------------------+

The –vim-id/–vim-name argument is optional during vnf-create. If –vim-id/–vim-name is not specified, the default vim will be used to deploy VNF on the default site. We can create default vim by specifying –is-default option with vim-register command.

User can optionally provide –vim-region-name during vnf-create to deploy the VNF in a specify region within that VIM.

Updating a VIM

Tacker allows for updating VIM authorization parameters such as ‘username’, ‘password’ and ‘project_name’ and ‘ids’ after it has been registered. To update ‘username’ and password’ for a given VIM user within Tacker:

$tacker vim-update VIM0 --config-file update.yaml

update.yaml in above command will contain:

::

username: ‘new_user’ password: ‘new_pw’

Note that ‘auth_url’ parameter of a VIM is not allowed to be updated as ‘auth_url’ uniquely identifies a given ‘vim’ resource.

Deleting a VIM

To delete a VIM :

$ tacker vim-delete VIM1
Deleted vim: VIM1

Features

• VIMs are shared across tenants – As an admin operator, the user can register a VIM once and allow tenants to deploy VNFs on the registered VIM.
• Pluggable driver module framework allowing Tacker to interact with multiple VIM types.
• Compatible for OpenStack versions starting from Kilo.
• Supports keystone versions v2.0 and v3.

Limitations

• VNFs of all users currently land in the ‘nfv’ project that is specified during VIM registration.
• Default VIM needs to be supplied in tacker.conf which requires a tacker server restart if and when default VIM option changes.
• Fernet keys for password encryption and decryption is stored on file systems. This is a limitation when multiple servers are serving behind a load balancer server and the keys need to be synced across tacker server systems.