As an OpenStack cloud end user, you can provision your own resources within the limits set by administrators. As an OpenStack cloud administrative user, you can manage tenants, known as projects, users, services, images, flavors, and quotas. The examples in this guide show you how to perform tasks by using the following methods: OpenStack dashboard. Use this web-based graphical interface, code named horizon, to view, create, and manage resources and services. OpenStack command-line clients. Each core OpenStack project has a command-line client that you can use to run simple commands to view, create, and manage resources and services in a cloud and automate tasks by using scripts. You can modify these examples for your specific use cases. In addition to these ways of interacting with a cloud, you can access the OpenStack APIs directly or indirectly through cURL commands or open SDKs. You can automate access or build tools to manage resources and services by using the native OpenStack APIs or the EC2 compatibility API. To use the OpenStack APIs, it helps to be familiar with HTTP/1.1, RESTful web services, the OpenStack services, and JSON or XML data serialization formats.

This book is written for anyone who uses virtual machines and cloud resources to develop software or perform research. You should have years of experience with Linux-based tool sets and be comfortable using both GUI and CLI based tools. While this book includes some information about using Python to create and manage cloud resources, Python knowledge is not a pre-requisite for reading this book. This book is written for administrators who maintain and secure an OpenStack cloud installation to serve end users' needs. You should have years of experience with Linux-based tools for system administration. You should also be familiar with OpenStack basics, such as managing projects and users, troubleshooting, performing backup and recovery, and monitoring. For more information, see the OpenStack Operations Guide.