OpenStack, the topic of this book, is an extremely relevant and important technology for cloud computing. With huge support from the community and industry, this open-source solution is becoming more commonly used in cloud deployment. However, the installation, operation, and maintenance of OpenStack are not easy tasks. Running a single virtual machine prepackaged with OpenStack is straightforward under virtualization infrastructures like VirtualBox. Running a full-fledged cluster for OpenStack is an order of magnitude more complex. With problems such as configuring the appropriate virtual local area networks (VLANs), troubleshooting and monitoring OpenStack deployments can easily become time intensive and costly.

The second edition of this book provides a collection of more than 100 recipes for specific tasks required for running an OpenStack cluster. The book is divided into 13 individual chapters, with each addressing a specific set of related topics. Each topic is addressed in a cookbook-like format. The authors introduce the problem that needs to be solved and follow with concrete step-by-step instructions on how to solve it. Each recipe is fully documented with working code.

The book starts with recipes on starting Keystone, the essential building block for any OpenStack deployment. The second chapter considers the OpenStack Image Service and shows how virtual machine images are installed. Starting with the third chapter, the reader can download the recipes (using Vagrant) for a complete OpenStack installation (under Vagrant). This installation is incrementally extended in the follow-up chapter toward more functionality, including the notoriously difficult networking stack (Neutron), automated installations with Razor and Chef, and different open-source monitoring solutions. The authors address in one chapter the security of OpenStack and illustrate the usage of security groups and authorization.

This book is a must-read for developers and systems administrators working with OpenStack. Many frustrating and difficult-to-solve problems are addressed, making the operation and maintenance of an OpenStack cloud more accessible and transparent. For these readers, as well as those interested in a hands-on guide to cloud computing, I strongly recommend this book. There are very few books on this topic and most available information is spread over many web sites, development application programming interfaces (APIs), and technical guides. Readers will welcome this single point of entry to this fascinating and timely topic.

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