Using share storage service: Manila

The OpenStack Manila project provides file sharing as a service and has been fully integrated into the OpenStack ecosystem since Liberty release. This is yet another option for providing persistent storage to the OpenStack tenant. The most unique feature of this approach is the ability of a share to be accessed by multiple users at the same time. Taking an analogy from the physical world, the Cinder project can be compared to a SAN solution which provides a block device to the client systems, whereas the Manila project is more similar to the NAS solution which presents file share to the client system. A variety of file sharing protocol such as NFS and CIFS are supported by the Manila project. This is implemented by using multiple backend drivers for the Manila project. To understand how Manila works, we need to look at various concepts, such as the backend drivers which implement orchestration of file shares and the share network used to provide access...