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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:
Open source software that is based on the OpenStack Essex release.
Centralized resource tracking providing insight into activities and capacity of the cloud infrastructure for optimized automated deployment of services.
A self-service portal allowing end users to configure and deploy services as necessary, also offering the ability to track resource consumption (Nova Dashboard).
An image repository allowing to publish standardized, pre-configured virtual machines (Glance).
Automated installation processes via Crowbar utilizing predefined scripts for configuring and deploying Compute and Storage Nodes.
Multi-tenant, role-based provisioning and access control enabling provisioning for multiple departments and users within your organization.
APIs allowing to integrate third-party software, such as identity management and billing solutions.
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.
SUSE Cloud is deployed to four different types of machines:
one Administration Server for node deployment and management
one Controller Node hosting the cloud management services
several Compute Nodes on which the instances are started
several Storage Nodes for block and object storage
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.