A standard Networking deployment includes one or more of the following physical networks:
| Network | Description |
|---|---|
| Management network | Provides internal communication between OpenStack components. IP addresses on this network should be reachable only within the data center. |
| Data network | Provides VM data communication within the cloud deployment. The IP addressing requirements of this network depend on the Networking plug-in that is used. |
| External network | Provides VMs with Internet access in some deployment scenarios. Anyone on the Internet can reach IP addresses on this network. |
| API network | Exposes all OpenStack APIs, including the Networking API, to tenants. IP addresses on this network should be reachable by anyone on the Internet. The API network might be the same as the external network, because it is possible to create an external-network subnet that has allocated IP ranges that use less than the full range of IP addresses in an IP block. |
