For nearly a decade, many still consider OpenStack a complex and difficult-to-install platform. However, this is not actually true. With the emergence of projects like Kolla-Ansible, TripleO, and OpenStack-Ansible, installing and configuring OpenStack has become remarkably straightforward. This article introduces MicroStack—a solution that simplifies OpenStack deployment.

Table of Contents

What is MicroStack?

An OpenStack Environment in 2 commands

MicroStack is a project that enables you to create a basic OpenStack environment with just two commands. It offers a simple and efficient entry point for anyone looking to explore OpenStack.
Key features include:

Fast installation

Extensive testing has confirmed that on a 4-core, 16GB RAM, 100GB SSD machine, it takes only about 30 minutes to install MicroStack, and the installation process is extremely fast.

Upstream

All OpenStack components in MicroStack are unmodified, upstream OpenStack binaries, eliminating the risk of system instability caused by third-party added features.

Complete

The environment created by MicroStack includes most core OpenStack components, including:

Keystone
Nova
Glance
Neutron
Cinder
Horizon

Most standard OpenStack functionalities are fully supported.

Why use MicroStack?

Those who have used OpenStack before will realize it is actually a highly complex system.
The reasons are as follows:

Made up of dozens of different services
Each service has its own configuration file
Each configuration file also has multiple parameters

This complexity has made OpenStack's configuration and deployment notoriously complicated. MicroStack, however, successfully solves this problem. MicroStack's installation is exceptionally simple, lightweight, and fast, including only the essential OpenStack services and relying mostly on default configuration values, greatly reducing overall complexity.
Of course, MicroStack has its strengths and limitations. The author believes it remains highly suitable in the following scenarios:

Prototyping
Home lab
Edge Cloud
Developing and Testing

In these situations, you typically don't need to manage complex configurations, and default settings align well with OpenStack's core services. Given that workloads are not excessively complex, a lightweight OpenStack cluster is perfectly appropriate.

How to install MicroStack

The installation method is exceptionally simple—just run the following commands on a system with snap installed:

sudo snap install microstack --edge --devmode
sudo microstack.init --auto --control

Approximately 15-30 minutes and you'll have a simple OpenStack environment ready to use

The actual demo video shared by members of the Cloud Native Taiwan User Group can serve as a reference

Summary

MicroStack greatly simplifies the entry barrier to using OpenStack. If you're interested in cloud-based IaaS, give it a try and explore. Any feedback or suggestions for improvement are warmly welcomed.

MicroStack — Set up an OpenStack environment in 30 minutes