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 |