Chapter 1. The SUSE Cloud Architecture

Contents

1.1. The Administration Server
1.2. The Controller Node
1.3. The Compute Nodes
1.4. The Storage Nodes

SUSE Cloud is a cloud infrastructure solution that can easily be deployed and managed. It offers a cloud management solution that helps organizations to centralize virtual machine deployment. SUSE Cloud 1.0 provides the following features:

SUSE Cloud is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, OpenStack, Crowbar, and Chef. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is used as the underlying operating system for all cloud infrastructure machines (also called nodes), whereas OpenStack, the cloud management layer, works as the Cloud Operating System. Crowbar and Chef are used to automatically deploy and manage the OpenStack nodes from a central Administration Server.

Figure 1.1. SUSE Cloud Infrastructure

SUSE Cloud Infrastructure

SUSE Cloud is deployed to four different types of machines:

1.1. The Administration Server

The Administration Server provides all services needed to manage and deploy all other nodes in the cloud. Most of these services are provided by the Crowbar tool that automates in conjunction with Chef all the required installation and configuration tasks. Among the services provided by the server are DHCP, DNS, NTP, PXE, TFTP.

The Administration Server also hosts the software repositories for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Cloud, since they are needed for node deployment. Optionally (if no other sources for the software repositories are available) it can also host the Subscription Management Tool (SMT), providing up-to-date repositories with updates and patches for all nodes.

1.2. The Controller Node

The Controller Node hosts all OpenStack services needed to orchestrate virtual machines deployed on the Compute Nodes in the SUSE Cloud. OpenStack on SUSE Cloud uses a PostgreSQL database. It is managed and deployed through the Administration Server. The following OpenStack components and dependencies run on the Controller Node:

  • PostgreSQL database

  • Image (Glance) for managing virtual images

  • Identity (Keystone), providing authentication and authorization for all OpenStack services

  • Dashboard (Horizon), providing the Dashboard, which is a user Web interface for the OpenStack services

  • Nova API and scheduler

  • Message broker (RabbitMQ)

In addition to that, the management parts of the compute and storage services also run on the Controller Node.

1.3. The Compute Nodes

The Compute Nodes are the pool of machines on which the instances are running. These machines need to be equipped with a sufficient number of CPUs and enough RAM to start several instances. The Controller Node effectively distributes instances within the pool of Compute Nodes and provides the necessary network resources. The OpenStack service Compute (Nova) runs on the Compute Nodes and provides means for setting up, starting, and stopping virtual machines.

1.4. The Storage Nodes

The Storage Nodes are the pool of machines providing storage. SUSE Cloud offers two different types of storage: object and block storage. Object storage is provided by the OpenStack Swift component, while block storage is provided by Nova Volume.

Nova Volume can use different backends. By default it will use the LVM backend with iSCSI on the Controller Node. Alternatively, it can use Ceph's RADOS Block Device (RBD). As of SUSE Cloud 1.0, Ceph is not officially supported but rather included as a technical preview, so using Nova Volume without Ceph is recommended.

Deploying Swift is optional.


SUSE Cloud Deployment Guide 1.0