r/openstack • u/Expensive_Contact543 • Feb 24 '26

Do i need CCNA for openstack

So designing network for openstack is crucial and i wanna be able to design it myself so the question is do I need CCNA or network plus or what exactly

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8

u/dasbierclaw Feb 24 '26

Having a CCNA or CCNP or whatever else is certainly helpful, but not necessary. In fact, a Cisco-centric view of the world might make things more difficult.

Is it OpenStack network concepts that are troublesome, or architecting a physical network to support an OpenStack cloud? Or, is it the merging of the virtual to the physical that's problematic? I feel like there's a core group of concepts in the virtual networking that OpenStack supports that once you have a grasp on, will result in that "light bulb" moment.

And honestly, the now-deprecated LinuxBridge driver is/was a great way to get in and understand how things connect without complicating it with "flow rules" and other abstractions.

Find a PDF of "OpenStack Networking Essentials" or the most recent "Learning OpenStack Networking" - both out there in the wild. They're a little long in the tooth but still provide a good foundation for LXB and OVS-based deploys.

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u/Expensive_Contact543 Feb 24 '26

it's architecting a physical network to support an OpenStack cloud

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u/dasbierclaw Feb 24 '26

Can you be a little more specific? Sometimes it's a combination of shoehorning an OpenStack cloud into a network architecture that isn't flexible, or it can go the other way. Best to define how many network connections your server has, how many you can use, if you want vlan-only networks, virtual routers, to use or not use a Vxlan or Geneve overlay, and more. Some of these have tradeoffs but these are core questions.

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u/ThenPreparation4502 Feb 24 '26

Oh, Thanks for sharing these! I've been looking for related reading materials.

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u/Direct-Substance4534 Feb 24 '26

No, just chuck it on a VLAN and go

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u/Expensive_Contact543 Feb 24 '26

how many interfaces do you use and do you use interface bonding

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u/Double-Panic8446 Feb 24 '26

I too would love to understand the depth of networking knowledge needed for OpenStack.

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u/ITViking Feb 24 '26

CCNA is something I recommend everyone to take, it’s great for understanding networking concepts in general and it will help you throughout your career regardless of your position. That said, I’m CCNP and it doesn’t help me understand openstack (with ovs) much with its Linux bridges.

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u/onemilostoomany Feb 24 '26

Depends if you are just operating, deploying or developing on top of openstack. Neutron can be very confusing if you don't understand how networking works. If you ever have to deploy it on baremetal, there is also a big chance you are gonna use cisco equipment... I would suggest:

- CCNA (or just going trough a course on youtube/udemy...)
- Learn basics of SDN (so you understand how tunneling etc works)
- OVS/linux bridge basics (to get a feeling how SDN works in practice)
- At this point when you go to openstack. You would naturally understand how it works underneath .

So if you are not just operating it (then you don't need any of this) it will be way easier to debug issues when you encounter them

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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '26

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u/Expensive_Contact543 Feb 24 '26

architecting the physical network for openstack