As OpenStack evolves and solidifies its position as a leading choice for top enterprises and service providers, its storage capabilities are increasingly becoming critically important for managing large amounts of data. Modern organizations require a fully integrated private cloud solution, and their business-critical apps and services mandate that infrastructure deliver dependable uptime, consistent performance, and stability—while delivering a cloud-like experience to their customers.
This is where NetApp and ONTAP enter the picture. NetApp ONTAP is the most secure storage on the planet, with proven six-nines availability across the install base, best-of-breed multi-tenancy demanded by cloud service providers, powered by the NetApp Intelligent Data Infrastructure, and portfolio choices ranging from blazing fast all-flash, capacity flash, or hybrid-HDD storage systems delivering cost-effective capacity for large data sets. All running the same ONTAP operating system for consistent management across your datacenter.
In my last OpenStack blog post (OpenStack Flamingo: NetApp Cinder & Manila Drivers Take a Giant Leap Forward - NetApp Community), I wrote about the new storage and data management features of Cinder and Manila in the then-new OpenStack Flamingo (2025.2) release. With the release of OpenStack Gazpacho (2026.1), I wanted to revisit the OpenStack topic and talk a bit about how NetApp is driving industry-leading advancements in both block and file storage through both the NetApp Cinder and Manila drivers. These improvements were driven directly by customer requirements from large-scale deployments in telecom, financial services, and global enterprise environments.
For those who are new to the OpenStack world, I’d like to revisit a couple of definitions:
- Cinder provides a framework for the integration and automation of dynamically provisioned block devices for VMs. These can use SAN protocols, creating iSCSI or FC-connected LUNs or NVMe/TCP-connected namespaces on demand for each VM disk, or NFS file shares to store VMDK or QCOW2 format disks.
- Manila, on the other hand, provides secure file services for tenants who need enterprise-grade file storage.
This release focuses on three core pillars:
Let's get into it…
NetApp Manila: Enterprise Class File Services for OpenStack
In this first installment of my two-part blog series on the OpenStack Gazpacho release, we will be focusing on Manila. File services are critically important for most OpenStack customers because they help enable things like analytics, shared app data, and multi-tenant environments where many users share the same space. Now, with Gazpacho, the NetApp Manila driver has gotten some major upgrades, which means file services can now meet the same high standards that people expect from block storage. This is a big deal because it helps make file services more reliable and powerful, just like block storage.
Zero RPO File Replication with Sync and StrictSync
One of the most significant advancements in Gazpacho is the introduction of policy-based replication for the NetApp Manila driver. Manila will now allow the use of your preferred SnapMirror policy, including the addition of support for Sync and StrictSync SnapMirror policies. Previously, we only supported the MirrorAllSnapshots policy, and there was no way to use any other policies. Now, customers can use BPM (Policy-based protection management) by passing the desired policy during replica creation.
This enables:
- Flexible replication management
- Zero RPO replication options for file shares
- Deterministic and predictable failover behavior
- Sync enables strong consistency guarantees for latency-sensitive workloads, while StrictSync enforces absolute data synchronization at the cost of additional write latency.
Historically, file services have lagged block storage in terms of replication fidelity. With Gazpacho, NetApp closes this gap—making Manila a viable option for mission-critical, highly available file-based workloads in OpenStack environments.
You can learn more about synchronous replication with SnapMirror here:
Learn about workloads supported by ONTAP StrictSync and Sync policies
Predictable, Policy-Driven Performance with QoS Types
Performance isolation and predictability are essential in multi-tenant OpenStack environments. Gazpacho introduces QoS Type support in the NetApp Manila driver, allowing operators to define:
- Minimum throughput guarantees
- Fixed QoS policies
- Adaptive QoS policies
By decoupling performance policies from share types, administrators gain cleaner architectural separation and greater flexibility in how performance is managed across tenants via the QOS type metadata. The result is more predictable performance, even under mixed or highly variable workloads.
You can find the QoS type metadata blueprint here: Create qos_type for QoS policy : Blueprints : OpenStack Shared File Systems Service (Manila)
You can learn more about QoS policies in ONTAP at Guarantee throughput with QoS overview in ONTAP
Enhanced Security and Compliance for File Services
Security is critically important, especially when you're managing a lot of sensitive information. As the OpenStack operator, you must maintain absolute access control across multiple users, or even multiple businesses. You or your tenants may even have regulatory standards that must be adhered to. That's why Gazpacho is stepping up to improve Manila's security. It's doing this by making a few important changes that will help keep everything safe and compliant.
Aggregate Level Encryption (NAE)
The NetApp Manila driver now supports NetApp Aggregate Encryption (NAE), enabling encryption at rest at the aggregate level. This simplifies encryption management while maintaining strong security guarantees, helping customers meet compliance requirements without adding operational overhead. Furthermore, NAE doesn’t impact storage efficiency savings.
Stronger SMB and NFS Controls
Additional improvements for file shares:
- SMB signing support for enterprise tenants
- Access controls for multi-tenant NFS environments
These features help OpenStack file services meet the security standards that modern companies need and that regulators expect.
You can learn more about how these features work in ONTAP itself with these resources:
Learn about using ONTAP SMB signing to enhance network security
Operational Improvements for Day 2 Confidence
As with Cinder, the Gazpacho release includes numerous Manila fixes targeting operational robustness, including improvements to snapshot handling, metadata cleanup, deletion workflows, and service stability.
These updates work together to make file services more reliable and easier to manage when used at scale. This is especially important for big deployments, as it helps reduce support tickets and makes things run more smoothly.
You can read more about the Manila fixes here: 2026.1 Series Release Notes — manila documentation
Strengthening the OpenStack Ecosystem
Gazpacho is not just about delivering new features; it also shows the broader efforts being made to improve the overall quality, supportability, and suitability of OpenStack to address modern use cases.
One very visible example is our new Interoperability Matrix Tool (IMT) view that provides clearer guidance on supported OpenStack and ONTAP combinations.
Conclusion
The latest OpenStack Gazpacho update, version 2026.1, is exciting news for companies using or considering OpenStack with NetApp ONTAP. It comes with some great new features, like better replication, more control over performance, stronger security, and improved stability. The NetApp Cinder and Manila drivers are mature, with more than a decade in service, ready for production, making them a key part of the OpenStack ecosystem. This means companies can rely on them to deliver on the NetApp promise. With these updates, NetApp is showing its commitment to making OpenStack work seamlessly with our rapidly evolving ONTAP systems. The result is a more robust and efficient system, ideal for enterprise deployments that require a complete and integrated private cloud stack.
For companies already using OpenStack with ONTAP, Gazpacho opens up new ways to design their systems and lowers the risk of service interruptions. And for those thinking about using OpenStack as a key part of their virtual infrastructure and private cloud plans, it shows how cutting-edge data management platforms like ONTAP can easily be added to workflows that are meant for the cloud.
More information can be found here:
NetApp ONTAP — manila 22.1.0.dev61 documentation
OpenStack Shared Filesystems (manila) documentation — manila 22.0.1.dev1 documentation
OpenStack Block Storage (Cinder) documentation — cinder 28.0.0.0rc2.dev3 documentation
And general OpenStack guides can be found here: