u/Gilgaflynn

Hey everyone,

Total newbie to OpenStack here. I've got a decent Linux sysadmin background but never touched OpenStack before, and I really want to build a proper lab to learn.

I'm working with 3 physical servers I can dedicate to this, each with 4+ NICs. I also have switches and a firewall on hand if I need them.

My current thinking is to deploy all 3 nodes as combined controller + compute.

I don't want to burn all my hardware just running the control plane and end up with barely nothing left to actually spin up VMs and experiment. But I'm honestly not sure if that's a smart move for learning.

So I'd love some input from people who've been down this road:

• Is the converged controller+compute setup a reasonable starting point, or should I run the controlers as VM on a 4th hypervisor
• Use Kolla-Ansible?
• With 4 NICs per node, how would you split management, external, tenant, and storage traffic?
• Any diagrams, tutorials, or blog posts that explain how to deploy ?