OpenStack Swift and Rackspace Cloud Files

OpenStack Swift and Rackspace Cloud Files made the real Cloud Computing developers and core users more power. Cloud Files Virtually equivalent to Cloud Server. “Cloud Files Virtually equivalent to Cloud Server” might appear a bit odd to you, but really right now Cloud Files is more powerful on API based requests. Let us check the possibilities and check up points for a developer.

OpenStack Swift and Rackspace Cloud Files

This topic is indeed for the highest level of Cloud Computing, Networking related developers. Still we have tried to make the WordPress copy paste level plugin developers a bit easy with what and how OpenStack Swift and Keystone-based OpenStack Swift can be used and most importantly, the risks to the end users because of copy paste without understanding.

Keystone-based OpenStack Swift and WordPress Plugins

It will appear very hard criticism, but it is a matter of fact only a few real developers exists for WordPress plugin scenario. That is evident in Cache Plugins (all are clones of one Cache Plugin with beautification with more copy paste) and lack of proper CDN plugins. That condition was 2 years back, in this Keystone-based OpenStack Swift scenario, they will probably not understand what is actually we are writing. The reason is nothing but lack of usage of the good resources – if a developer uses Hostgator like third class server, it is not possible to develop a modern plugin which actually fully supports OpenStack Swift or the advantages of a load balanced Cloud. This problem could be solved if Rackspace / OpenStack themselves developed plugins, unfortunately, I do not think they even have a thought for it.

Scope of Implementation of OpenStack Swift and Rackspace Cloud Files

It is unfortunate that to use all the features of Keystone-based OpenStack Swift, we need to use Cyberduck. For example, if we want to upload a zip file on Cloud files and unzip it, it can easily be done. The practical usage is – to zip the uploads folder on server by a plugin using PHP function, upload it to Cloud Files, unzip there. It will save the bandwidth and compute cycles. It is just a simple example.

Needed Knowledge for OpenStack Swift and Rackspace Cloud Files WordPress Plugin Development

 Read about OpenStack if you are a newbie. API key is easily available through Rackspace Cloud Control Panel, but for proper implementation, you need the tenantId, which is a bit different from original OpenStack prototype request, than in Cloud Files. As conventionally we need to wrap with PHP, in case of WordPress Plugins, pass the generated tenantId to another handler / a new dependency. tenantId can be evoked in two ways, either by using username/password or username/API. It is obvious that username/API is more acceptable, otherwise there is risk to get hacked. A typical curl request for tenantId is :

curl -d ‘{“auth”:{“passwordCredentials”:{“username”: “realusername“, “password”: “realpassword“}}}’ -H “Content-type: application/json” https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0/tokens

The username and password can be evoked from usual form method from the user, tenantId is however not needed to be known to the user. In case of UK Cloud, there will be difference in the request. The difference in typical OpenStack Swift and Rackspace Cloud Files request is probably due to implementation of a stack layer or file system by Rackspace. The situation will change if different containers are actually used or different media or request type is used (HTTP, HTTPS, Streaming Media). WordPress will frankly die after 1 years if the developers or WordPress themselves are not aware of modern technologies, highend users / busy serious websites will simply shift to the next available CMS based on Django.