OCCI interface to CloudStack

CloudStack has its own API. Cloud wrappers like libcloud and jclouds work well with this native API, but CloudStack does not expose any standard API like OCCI and CIMI. We (Isaac Chiang really, I just tested and pointed him in the right direction) started working on a CloudStack backend for rOCCI using our CloudStack ruby gem. The choice of rOCCI was made due to the existence of an existing Opennebula backend and the adoption of OCCI in the European Grid Initiative Federated cloud testbed.

Let's get started with installing the rOCCI server, this work has not yet been merged upstream so you will need to work from Isaac Chiang's fork.

    git clone https://github.com/isaacchiang/rOCCI-server.git
    bundle install
    cd etc/backend
    cp cloudstack/cloudstack.json default.json

Edit the defautl.json file to contain the information about your CloudStack cloud (e.g apikey, secretkey, endpoint). Start the rOCCI server:

    bundle exec passenger start

The server should be running on http://0.0.0.0:3000 and run the tests:

    bundle exec rspec

This was tested with the CloudStack simulator and a basic zone configuration, help us test it in production clouds.

You can also try an OCCI client. Install the rOCCI client from Github:

    git clone https://github.com/gwdg/rOCCI-cli.git

    cd rOCCI-cli
    gem install bundler
    bundle install
    bundle exec rake test
    rake install

You will then be able to use the OCCI client:

    occi --help

Test it against the server that you are started previously. You will need a running CloudStack cloud. Either a production one or a dev instance using DevCloud. The credentials and the endpoint to this cloud will have been entered in `default.json` file that you created in the previous section. Try a couple OCCI client command:

    $ occi --endpoint http://0.0.0.0:3000/ --action list --resource os_tpl

    Os_tpl locations:
     os_tpl#6673855d-ce9b-4997-8613-6830de037a8f

    $ occi --endpoint http://0.0.0.0:3000/ --action list --resource resource_tpl

    Resource_tpl locations:
     resource_tpl##08ba0343-bd39-4bf0-9aab-4953694ae2b4
     resource_tpl##f78769bd-95ea-4139-ad9b-9dfc1c5cb673
     resource_tpl##0fd364a9-7e33-4375-9e10-bb861f7c6ee7

You will recognize the `uuid` from the templates and service offerings that you have created in CloudStack. To start an instance:

    $ occi --endpoint http://0.0.0.0:3000/ --action create --resource compute 
           --mixin os_tpl#6673855d-ce9b-4997-8613-6830de037a8f 
           --mixin resource_tpl#08ba0343-bd39-4bf0-9aab-4953694ae2b4
           --resource-title foobar

A handle on the resource created will be returned. That's it !

We will keep on improving this driver to provide a production quality OCCI interface to users who want to use a standard. In all fairness we will also work on a CIMI implementation. Hopefully some of the clouds in the EGI federated cloud will pick CloudStack and help us improve this OCCI interface. In CloudStack we aim to provide the interfaces that the users want and keep them up to date and of production quality so that users can depend on it.