[Amar Kapadia ,Sreedhar Varma , Kris Rajana] Implementing Cloud Storage with OpenStack Swift (pdf){Zzzzz}

Book Description
Publication Date: May 17, 2014
In Detail

Swift, OpenStack's cloud software project, allows users to build cloud storage, a method used widely to slash costs and improve usability. With Swift, not only can users build storage using inexpensive commodity hardware, but they can also use public cloud storage that is built using the same technology. This book will provide you with the skills to build and operate your own cloud storage or use a third-party cloud.

You will start with the fundamentals of cloud storage, how OpenStack Swift is useful for cloud storage, and a review of Swift's architecture. Next, learn about installation, use, and managing Swift with step-by-step instructions and ample screenshots. Perform basic data transfers and access-control-list management using REST APIs. Hardware choice, Swift tuning, and use cases will round off your skills. This book is an invaluable tool if you want to get a head-start in the world of cloud storage using OpenStack Swift.

Approach

This tutorial-based book has a step-by-step approach for each topic, ensuring it is thoroughly covered and easy to follow.

Who this book is for

If you are an IT architect or administrator who wants to enter the world of cloud storage using OpenStack Swift, then this book is ideal for you. Whether your job is to build, manage, or use OpenStack Swift, this book is an excellent way to move your career ahead.

Publisher: Packt Publishing (May 17, 2014)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00KFEK3WG

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

objective analysis of cloud storage June 6, 2014
By W Boudville

Cloud storage is one of these new ideas that has gained incredible traction. Take the startups Box, DropBox and GitHub as the best known examples. Maybe you have an idea for another startup that will use cloud storage. Now the book explains how using Swift,

It gives an objective explanation of the pros and cons of going with cloud storage. Simply put, there are 3 main factors, reliability, cost and performance. Cloud storage can do the first 2 well, but can deeply lag on performance. If you think about it, the latter should not be a surprise. Physically putting the data in the cloud means migrating it from your data center or your company's desktops and laptops. Ultimately, the speed of light acts as the restriction. Compounded by necessary delays imposed by electronics. So the book cautions you to be aware of this limitation ab initio. It advises cogently that you should not use the cloud for high performance computing, especially for high throughput transactions. For these, you need your disks as close to the main CPUs as possible.

The text describes how Swift can give an origin server that feeds into a Content Delivery Network [CDN]. The latter is now an entire subindustry in its own right. If you have ambitions tending there, Swift and the text can aid you.

Useful too is how the text shows compatibility with Amazon S3. Amazon Web Services have a huge presence in the web services and cloud space. Chances are that you might already have commitments to using S3. Integration can then be a huge issue.

Very useful technical content June 29, 2014
By Emanuele Mazza
I have read many books and papers about Openstack architecture as a whole, but for the first time I decided to go try and go deep on a single component.

I believe it has been time well spent and this book proven to be a good companion.

I would recommend it to both IT administrator who wants to install and maintain a Swift-based storage system and IT architects willing to understand how Swift can enable a software-defined-storage for the enterprise.
I would suggest, however, improvements in the following topics:

- TCO calculation: there are just qualitative considerations ( like "dramatic reduction of TCO" ) but no quantitative examples
- Scalability analysis: I would like to see a chapter dedicated to this

Highly recommended in-depth review of OpenStack Swift July 27, 2014
By Saqib Jang

Disclosure: The publisher provided a gratis copy of the book, and requested that I write a review if I liked it
For reference, I’m an independent strategic/product/technical marketing consultant focused on storage
networking, including enterprise and cloud-focused storage products and technologies.

Implementing Cloud Storage with OpenStack Swift (Authors: Amar Kapadia, Sreedhar Verma,
& Kris Rajana) has a two-fold focus: a detailed review of the benefits of OpenStack
Swift along with an in-depth “cookbook” on deploying, managing, and troubleshooting
Swift-based storage systems. The first 2 chapters provide a clear and detailed
explanation of how, unlike traditional NAS and SAN approaches, OpenStack Swift
object storage offers a unique distributed storage system,including a very helpful
discussion of the advantages of Swift-based cloud storage services. This section
allows enterprise and service provider IT management personnel to efficiently come
up to speed on the benefits of Swift in this regard.

Chapters 3-8 provide a detailed “How to” guide for installing, using, managing,
troubleshooting, and scaling OpenStack Swift storage systems. This section
requires knowledge of Linux and storage fundamentals and the cookbook style
of instruction will allow IT operations staff to quickly come up to speed on the essentials
of deploying and managing an OpenStack Swift environment.

I found this book helped me gain a quick and efficient understanding of the
key benefits of OpenStack Swift versus traditional storage systems while also
giving me a clear picture of how to set-up and manage a Swift environment.
Finally, I believe that it is the only in-depth book in the market at present
focusing on Swift.
Bottomline: Highly recommended for intermediate to technically advanced readers