The team behind open source application and network orchestration framework Cloudify has focused on closed-loop orchestration and getting cloud native networking right in the just available v4.5.
Like so many nowadays, Cloudify is using its latest release to work towards an easily extendable microservice architecture. Once updated, users should be able to plug in their usual logging and monitoring tools. If their appliances don’t support agent-based monitoring, the framework is now able to use Nagios to track events and traps as defined in the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). The pluggable architecture also allows operational types to add hooks on workflows, which could help with creating email alerts for example.
Since there’s almost no getting past cloud native at this point, the Cloudify team put some effort into supporting networking projects from the Kubernetes ecosystem, namely Flannel, Calico, and Weave. On top of that, version 4.5 of the framework offers federation for edge and low-latency geographical distribution. Additional networking integrations include plugins for Oracle SBC, Multi-cloud Swift 3, and Juniper Contrail.
If you’ve always wanted to queue workflows in Cloudify, there’s now a –queue flag for you. Once it’s set, the new version will line up the execution of a task in case there are others running or snapshots are being made.
While this might be more of interest to those already elbow-deep in Cloudify with a taste for the command line, UI aficionados might appreciate the new deployment wizard. It can be found within the Cloudify Console and will guide those in need of help through the steps of a blueprint deployment. Blueprint is Cloudify’s name for a configuration file or cloud orchestration plan as they like to call it. It consists of two sections – one for the application topology and one for the automation process or workflows.
Starting with this release, encryption of all external and internal communication from the manager and the secret store is enforced. This along with a new Kerberos authentication should up the ante on security by keeping credentials safe and executions isolated.
Cloudify is an open source project that aims to automate the entire life cycle of cloud applications and services and is licensed under the Apache 2 license. The framework follows the topology and orchestration specification for cloud applications (TOSCA) as standardised by the nonprofit Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).