Shared File Systems service provides a set of services for management
of shared file systems in a multi-project cloud environment. The service
resembles OpenStack block-based storage management from the OpenStack
Block Storage service project. With the Shared File Systems service, you
can create a remote file system, mount the file system on your
instances, and then read and write data from your instances to and from
your file system.

The Shared File Systems service serves same purpose as the Amazon
Elastic File System (EFS) does.

The Shared File Systems service can run in a single-node or multiple
node configuration. The Shared File Systems service can be configured to
provision shares from one or more back ends, so it is required to
declare at least one back end. Shared File System service contains
several configurable components.

It is important to understand these components:

• Share networks
• Shares
• Multi-tenancy
• Back ends

The Shared File Systems service consists of four types of services,
most of which are similar to those of the Block Storage service:

• manila-api
• manila-data
• manila-scheduler
• manila-share

Installation of first three – manila-api,
manila-data, and manila-scheduler is common
for almost all deployments. But configuration of
manila-share is backend-specific and can differ from
deployment to deployment.

Supported share back ends

The manila share service must be configured to use drivers for one or
more storage back ends, as described in general terms below. See the
drivers section in the Configuration
Reference for detailed configuration options for each back end.