Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

INTRODUCTION

CloudStack is open-source cloud computing software for creating, managing, and

deploying infrastructure cloud services. It uses existing hypervisors such as KVM, VMware
vSphere, VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter, and XenServer/XCP for virtualization. In
addition to its own API, CloudStack also supports the Amazon Web Services (AWS)
API[2] and the Open Cloud Computing Interface from the Open Grid Forum.

CloudStack are growing at fast pace and gaining more attention. An analysis on these
software stacks is necessary in order to choose the most suitable solution that matches an
enterprise’s requirements. This paper main contribution is an in depth study and comparison
of the cloud properties of these two open source frameworks, providing useful information on
open source cloud solutions that are not available elsewhere.

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Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

CloudStack Deployment Models

Private cloud refers to a model of cloud computing where IT services are provisioned
over private IT infrastructure for the dedicated use of a single organization. A private cloud is
usually managed via internal resources.

The terms private cloud and virtual private cloud (VPC) are often used
interchangeably. Technically speaking, a VPC is a private cloud using a third-party cloud
provider's infrastructure, while a private cloud is implemented over internal infrastructure.

All cloud computing services should offer certain efficiencies to different degrees but
public cloud services are likely to be more cost efficient and scalable that private clouds.
With hybrid cloud, an organisation can maximise their efficiencies by employing public
cloud services for all non-sensitive operations, only relying on a private cloud where they
require it, with it ensuring that all platforms are seamlessly integrated.

A public cloud is one based on the standard cloud computing model, in which a
service provider makes resources, such as virtual machines (VMs), applications or storage,
available to the general public over the internet. Public cloud services may be free or offered
on a pay-per-usage model.

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Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

Feature Highlights

 Broad Hypervisor support

—XenServer, KVM, VMware, OracleVM
 Scalable architecture
—Support thousands of hosts and virtual machine guests
 High availability
—Configurations that provide automatic failover for virtual machines
 Virtual Networking to segment network traffic into VLANs
 Choice of interfaces
— Web UI, command line, REST-based API

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Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

CloudStack Infrastructure Overview

Regions: A collection of one or more geographically proximate zones managed by one or

more management servers.

Zones: Typically, a zone is equivalent to a single datacenter. A zone consists of one or more
pods and secondary storage.

Pods: A pod is usually a rack, or row of racks that includes a layer-2 switch and one or more
clusters.

Clusters: A cluster consists of one or more homogenous hosts and primary storage.

Host: A single compute node within a cluster; often a hypervisor.

Primary Storage: A storage resource typically provided to a single cluster for the actual
running of instance disk images. (Zone-wide primary storage is an option, though not
typically used.)

Secondary Storage: A zone-wide resource which stores disk templates, ISO images, and
snapshots.

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Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

CloudStack Architecture

Multiple Hypervisor Support¶

CloudStack works with a variety of hypervisors and hypervisor-like technologies. A

single cloud can contain multiple hypervisor implementations. As of the current release
CloudStack supports:

• BareMetal (via IPMI)

• Hyper-V
• KVM
• LXC
• vSphere (via vCenter)
• Xenserver
• Xen Project

Massively Scalable Infrastructure Management

CloudStack can manage tens of thousands of physical servers installed in

geographically distributed datacenters. The management server scales near-linearly
eliminating the need for cluster-level management servers. Maintenance or other outages of
the management server can occur without affecting the virtual machines running in the cloud.

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Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

Automatic Cloud Configuration Management

CloudStack automatically configures the network and storage settings for each virtual
machine deployment. Internally, a pool of virtual appliances support the operation of
configuration of the cloud itself. These appliances offer services such as firewalling, routing,
DHCP, VPN, console proxy, storage access, and storage replication. The extensive use of
horizontally scalable virtual machines simplifies the installation and ongoing operation of a
cloud.

Graphical User Interface

CloudStack offers an administrators web interface used for provisioning and

managing the cloud, as well as an end-user’s Web interface, used for running VMs and
managing VM templates. The UI can be customized to reflect the desired service provider or
enterprise look and feel.

API

CloudStack provides a REST-like API for the operation, management and use of the
cloud.

AWS EC2 API Support

CloudStack provides an EC2 API translation layer to permit the common EC2 tools to
be used in the use of a CloudStack cloud.

High Availability

CloudStack has a number of features to increase the availability of the system. The
Management Server itself may be deployed in a multi-node installation where the servers are
load balanced. MySQL may be configured to use replication to provide for failover in the
event of database loss. For the hosts, CloudStack supports NIC bonding and the use of
separate networks for storage as well as iSCSI Multipath.

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Open Source Cloud Computing Platform Apache CloudStack 2018

CONCLUSION
CloudStack is open-source cloud computing software for creating, managing, and
deploying infrastructure cloud services. It uses existing hypervisors such as KVM, VMware
vSphere, VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter, and XenServer/XCP for virtualization.
CloudStack supports the use of multiple hypervisors and facilitates the collection of various
hardware pieces into a single virtual portal. With a user friendly Web interface that displays
elements of this cloud-enabling design, CloudStack is sometimes called "do-it-yourself"
cloud software because it helps users customize cloud solutions.

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