File Shares Service

OpenStack has support for block-based storage and object storage, but there is no explicit support for file-based storage. For certain applications, file-based storage has significant advantages over block storage and object storage, and a large amount of existing software is designed around file-based storage. We've heard demand from the operator community for a common management interface for file-based storage, and ideally, a common management interface for storage in general. We're proposing adding management of file system sharing to OpenStack, and we believe that extending Cinder is the most logical way to achieve this, both because Cinder is already in the business of managing storage devices, and because users don’t desire yet another management interface. NetApp has developed a prototype to this end. It includes extended APIs as well as an implementation of both a reference and NetApp specific driver backend. This blueprint is intended to function as a master to subordinate more specific implementation blueprints.