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Sahara

Sahara is the OpenStack data processing service that provisions and manages clusters for frameworks such as Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark on OpenStack infrastructure (data processing / big data orchestration).

  • Data processing service for deploying and managing big data clusters on OpenStack (data processing orchestration).
  • Automated provisioning and scaling of Hadoop and Spark clusters using OpenStack compute, storage, and networking resources (infrastructure automation).
  • Template-driven cluster definitions with reusable node group and cluster templates (configuration management).
  • Integration with other OpenStack services such as Nova, Neutron, Cinder, and Swift for resource allocation and data access (cloud infrastructure integration).
  • Representational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (API) and dashboard integration for programmatic and UI-based cluster lifecycle management (API / control plane).

More About Sahara

Sahara is an OpenStack service that focuses on provisioning and managing data processing clusters for frameworks such as Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark on top of OpenStack cloud infrastructure (data processing orchestration). It targets environments where operators and application teams need a repeatable method to create, use, and decommission clusters for analytics and batch processing workloads without manual Virtual Machine (VM) and configuration management.

The service operates by defining cluster topologies through templates, which describe node roles, counts, and configuration for the data processing framework (configuration management). Node group templates describe attributes such as flavors, storage configuration, and processes that run on each node. Cluster templates assemble these node groups into deployable cluster layouts. When a cluster is created, Sahara uses OpenStack compute, networking, and storage services to instantiate and configure the required virtual machines according to these templates.

Sahara integrates with Nova for compute (virtual machine provisioning), Neutron for networking (network connectivity and isolation), Cinder for block storage (persistent volumes), and Swift for object storage (data input and output) (cloud infrastructure integration). Through this integration, it aligns data processing clusters with existing OpenStack resource quotas, security groups, networks, and storage backends, allowing administrators to coordinate data processing workloads with other cloud-hosted applications and services.

The project exposes a REST API (API / control plane) that supports operations such as listing data sources, managing job binaries, defining job templates, and launching jobs on clusters. In addition, Sahara integrates with the OpenStack Dashboard (Horizon), providing a graphical interface for configuring cluster templates, provisioning clusters, and monitoring their status. Job management capabilities enable users to define and submit data processing jobs, associate them with input and output locations, and track execution on the managed clusters.

In enterprise deployments, Sahara is used to provide on-demand Hadoop or Spark clusters inside private or public OpenStack clouds for use cases such as Extract, Transform, Load (ETL), batch analytics, and Machine Learning (ML) preprocessing (data analytics infrastructure). Its template approach allows cloud administrators to standardize cluster configurations that match organizational policies for security, sizing, and network layout, while giving project teams self-service access to big data environments.

Within a technical taxonomy, Sahara fits in the categories of data processing orchestration, big data cluster lifecycle management, and OpenStack ecosystem services. It functions as an orchestration and control plane that connects big data frameworks to OpenStack infrastructure resources, offering a consistent method to create, manage, and retire clusters using both API and dashboard-based workflows.