About OpenStack Ironic
Ironic is an OpenStack project for automating bare metal. The project has a long history as part of OpenStack where it was designed as an alternative to their VM scheduler. This history means that Ironic is designed for a very narrow use-case and constrained operating model.
Operators will find that Ironic (integrated or stand alone) requires use of server’s out of band management system. It also have a focused state engine that limits the provisioning sequences available for operators. This is a very limiting design requirement.
The OpenStack community is a declining ecosystem including the areas around Ironic; consequently, support options are limited and up-streaming fixes can be a challenge.
Language: Python
Feature Comparison
A feature-by-feature comparison is great to compare products, but, be warned, it also hides critical insights around simplicity, integration, workflow and composability that a platform like RackN provides. Please contact us with questions, concerns or corrections.
| Class | Feature | RackN | Cobbler | Foreman | MaaS | Ironic |
| API | Ad Hoc (Pooled) Assignment | YES ✔ | no | no | YES ✔ | YES ✔ |
| Evented (WSS) | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Integrated DHCP | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Intent API | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Secure API | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Active Community | YES ✔ | no | no | no | YES ✔ | |
| Enterprise | Commercial Support | YES ✔ | no | YES ✔ | YES ✔ | YES ✔ |
| Highly Available | YES ✔ | no | no | YES ✔ | no | |
| Multi Tenant | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| RBAC with Views | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| SSO Integration | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Flexible | Field Extensible | YES ✔ | no | YES ✔ | no | no |
| Metal and Cloud | YES ✔ | no | YES ✔ | no | no | |
| In-Field Configuration | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Multi-OS | YES ✔ | Linux | Linux | Linux | YES ✔ | |
| Hardware | Automatic Classification | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no |
| Burnin and Decommission | YES ✔ | no | no | no | YES ✔ | |
| Integrate OOB / IPMI | YES ✔ | no | no | no | YES ✔ | |
| Integrated Inventory | YES ✔ | no | no | YES ✔ | YES ✔ | |
| Multi-Arch / Multi-Protocol | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Switch Integration | YES ✔ | no | no | YES ✔ | YES ✔ | |
| Scale | Scale to 1,000s | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no |
| Advanced Evented UX | YES ✔ | no | no | YES ✔ | no | |
| Multi-Site Management | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Multi-Site Federated Views | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Self-Upgrading | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Small footprint | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Workflow | Change O/S without Reboot | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no |
| Firmware configuration | YES ✔ | no | no | no | YES ✔ | |
| Image deployment | YES ✔ | no | no | YES ✔ | YES ✔ | |
| Integrated Workflow | YES ✔ | no | no | no | YES ✔ | |
| Dynamic Contexts | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no | |
| Modular IaC | YES ✔ | no | no | no | no |