Dissecting Open Source Cloud Evolution: An OpenStack Case Study

Open source cloud platforms are playing an increasingly significant role in cloud computing. These systems have been undergoing rapid development cycles. As an example, OpenStack has grown approximately 10 times in code size since its inception two and a half years ago. Confronting such fast-pace changes, cloud providers are challenged to understand OpenStack’s up-to-date behaviors and adapt and optimize their provisioned services and configurations to the platform changes quickly. In this work, we use a black-box technique for conducting a deep analysis of four versions of OpenStack. This is the first study in the literature that tracks the evolution of a popular open source cloud platform. Our analysis results reveal important trends of SQL queries in OpenStack, help identify precise points for targeted error injection, and point out potential ways to improve performance (e.g. by changing authentication to PKI). The OpenStack case study in this work effectively demonstrates that our automated black-box methodology aids quick understanding of platform evolution and is critical for effective and rapid consumption of an open-source cloud platform.