Cinder refuses to migrate a volume that has snapshots — full stop. Here is a practical Ansible-based workaround for Everpure FlashArray environments that preserves your snapshot history as independently recoverable volumes, keeps the workload attached throughout, and leaves a manifest you can use months later to restore to any point in time. The problem You […]
Read More Migrate Cinder Volumes with Snapshots Between FlashArraysYour storage infrastructure needs to evolve. Your workloads shouldn’t have to notice. OpenStack Cinder’s backend abstraction is one of its most powerful features — volumes remain just volumes, regardless of what’s sitting underneath them. But when you need to actually move data from one backend to another — say, from Ceph RBD to a Everpure […]
Read More Migrating OpenStack Cinder Volumes from Ceph to EverpureIn the previous posts I explored how the Cinder scheduler interprets capabilities, extra_specs, and how multiple backends can intentionally share the same volume_backend_name to present a unified storage tier. That abstraction is powerful — but it also introduces an operational question: How do you move an existing volume between two backends when the scheduler treats […]
Read More OpenStack Cinder Volume Migration: Moving Between BackendsScaling Horizontally with Multiple Arrays, One Backend Name In Part 1, I covered the fundamentals of intent-based volume types: how to use capabilities and filters to let the Cinder scheduler match workload requirements with backend characteristics. We described storage infrastructure, defined workload personas, and let the scheduler do the matching. But there’s a powerful scaling […]
Read More Multiple Arrays, One Backend Name: Horizontal Scaling in OpenStack CinderFrom Hardware Names to Workload Intent The Cinder scheduler doesn’t get much love. Most people see it as boring infrastructure plumbing. But when you lean into its design, something interesting happens: it becomes a decision engine that quietly translates intent into placement, without hard-coding tiers or baking policy into application logic. This is the first […]
Read More OpenStack Cinder Scheduling: How to Stop Hard-Coding Storage TiersAs OpenStack celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2025, VMware customers facing escalating licensing costs and restrictive subscription models have never had a better opportunity to explore open-source alternatives. Since Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, the virtualization landscape has fundamentally shifted—making this milestone year the perfect time to evaluate OpenStack as a strategic alternative. A Proven Platform […]
Read More Why VMware Customers Should Move to OpenStack in 2025Welcome back to our three-part series on migrating VMware VMs to OpenStack using Pure Storage! In Part 1, we covered the foundational concepts and manual workflow. In Part 2, we dove into the technical implementation details and individual automation components. Now, in this final installment, we’re bringing everything together with a complete, production-ready Ansible automation […]
Read More Migrating VMs from VMware to OpenStack with Pure Storage – Part 3: Complete AutomationThis is Part 2 of our VMware to OpenStack migration series. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, check out VMware to OpenStack: The Simple Way for the foundational concepts and general migration approach. When you have Pure Storage FlashArray as your storage foundation, migrating VMs from VMware vSphere to OpenStack becomes significantly more streamlined. […]
Read More Migrating VMs from VMware to OpenStack with Pure Storage (Part 2)With VMware’s future in question following Broadcom’s acquisition and the deprecation of vVols, many organizations are rethinking their virtualization strategy. OpenStack emerges as a powerful, open alternative—but migration can be daunting. If you’re running VMware on Pure Storage FlashArrays, there’s good news: the latest OpenStack release unlocks a simple, elegant path to migrate your virtual machine volumes—no conversions, no complexity. Discover how Pure Storage makes your transition to OpenStack easier than ever.
Read More VMware to OpenStack: The Simple Way