How to approach an Apache CloudStack Design

1. Designing CloudStack Clouds
Geoff Higginbottom
CTO ShapeBlue
geoff.higginbottom@shapeblue.com
Twitter: @CloudStackGuru

2.  Cloud Architect & ShapeBlue CTO
@shapeblue #ccceu14
 Specialise in….
 Designing & Building Clouds based on Apache CloudStack / Citrix
CloudPlatform
 Developing CloudStack training
 Blogging and sharing CloudStack knowledge
 Involved with CloudStack before donation to Apache
 Designed Clouds for Cloudera, SunGard, Ascenty, BskyB, Trader Media,
M5 Hosting, Team Cymru, Interoute, University of Pennsylvania and
many many more…
 CloudStack Committer
About Me

3. About ShapeBlue
“ShapeBlue are expert builders of public &
private clouds. They are the leading global
Apache CloudStack integrator & consultancy”
@shapeblue #ccceu14

5. WHY?
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6. Type of Cloud
Public
Enterprise
Test & Dev
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7. Requirements
Integration
Security
Type
Scale
Workloads
Monitoring
SLAs
Preferred Technologies
User Experience
Templates
Portal
Logging
Managed Services
Bursting
Existing Skills
Storage Time Scales
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8. Design Team
Billing
CloudStack ‘Expert’
Storage
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Marketing
QA / Testing
Networking
Compute
Product Development
Support
Decision Makers

9. Training
Design Team need to
understand CloudStack,
so train them first
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10. Design Cycle
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Design is a reiterative
process, with some
design decisions
impacting on others

11. Scale
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12. Workloads
 Enterprise Workloads
should be a known quantity
 Public Cloud Workloads are
unknown
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13. Capacity Calculations
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 VM Profiles
 Memory
 CPU
 Storage Capacity
 Storage IOPS
 Hypervisor Overhead
 Storage Performance
 Network Performance

14. Hypervisor Choice
 Hypervisor Selection and Decisions in CloudStack by Tim Mackey
 http://open.citrix.com/cloud-computing-vids/video/latest/hypervisor-selection-
and-decisions-in-cloudstack-by-tim-mackey.html
@shapeblue #ccceu14
 Existing Skills
 Feature Comparison
 Zone Type, Snapshots, VXLAN, IPv6, SDN, VPC, PVLAN, Storage
 Licensing Costs
 Supportability
 Traditional Server vs Blades
 More than one – Hypervisor Agnostic

15.  Heavily influenced by Requirements,
@shapeblue #ccceu14
Scale, and Zone modes
 Is often the driver for other
technology choices
 Avoid single points of failure
 Keep it simple
Networking

16. Zone Networking Modes
 ‘One size sits fits all’ may not be the best approach
 Each Zone can be a different Network Type
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 Basic
 Basic + Security Groups
 Basic + Security Groups + EIP / ELB
 Advanced
 Advanced + Security Groups

17. Hypervisor Networking
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 How many NICs
 10GB / 1GB
 Bonding / Multipath
 Converged
 Traffic Allocations
 Management
 Guest
 Public
 Storage
 High Bandwidth Services

18. Storage
 Primary Storage
 Local
 Lack of HA
 Shared
 NFS
 iSCSI
 Fibre Channel
 Performance is critical,
IOPS are king
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19. Storage
 Secondary Storage
 NFS
 S3
 Swift
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20. @shapeblue #ccceu14
 Resource Allocation
 All Public
 Some Public, Some Dedicated
 All Dedicated
 Reseller Model
 Account/Domain Relationship
 1-to-1
 1-to-many
Domains and Accounts

21. @shapeblue #ccceu14
 Allocate resources to VMs
 CPU
 RAM
 Storage Performance
 Tagging
 Cost associated with them
 Public or Private (linked to Domains)
 Keep them realistic
Service Offerings

22. Templates & ISOs
@shapeblue #ccceu14
 Pre-Defined VM images
 Base OS, or fully installed Apps
 Licensing (RHEL, Windows)
 Self Build via ISOs
 Allow user generated Public?
 Allow user upload / download?
 Lifecycle Management

23. Testing
 Define test and acceptance criteria
 Develop test plans (manual UI and scripted API)
 Run tests to confirm initial build is good
 Use tests for testing future upgrades and expansions
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24. Add on Services
Managed Services
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Billing
Object Storage
VM Monitoring
Backup
Anti Virus

25. Management Farm
CloudStack Management
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SQL DB
LDAP
DNS
Load Balancers
Portal
Billing
Monitoring
3rd Party Services
Automation
Admin
vCenter

26. DC2 Software Management Farm
Primary Storage Network (iSCSI or NFS) Secondary Storage Network (NFS)
Example Logical Network Diagram Dual Zone
Ver Date Description Issuer/ Reviewer
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DC1 Software Management Farm
CS Management Servers
CS MySql Servers
NetScaler VPXs
CM Automation Server
Deployment Server
Amysta App Server
Amysta MySQL Server
Management Network
Management Hosts
Compute Hosts
Guest Networks
(Multiple VLANs)
Public Networks
(Multiple VLANs)
Secondary Storage Network (NFS) Primary Storage Network (iSCSI or NFS)
Secondary Primary
DC1 Compute
Management VMs
Storage Network
CS Management Servers
CS MySql Servers
NetScaler VPXs
CM Automation Server
Deployment Server
Amysta App Server
Amysta MySQL Server
Core
Network
Management Hosts
Management VMs
Storage Network
Guest Networks Compute Hosts
(Multiple VLANs)
Public Networks
(Multiple VLANs)
Primary Secondary
Users Portal Access
WWW WWW
WWW
Tennant 1 Tennant 2 Tennant 3
Tennant 1 Tennant 2 Tennant 3
Private Cloud Tennant VMs on Compute in either DC1 or DC2
Each Network is isolated via VLANs or SDN technologies.
Public Cloud Tennant
VMs on Compute in
either DC1 or DC2
Each Tennant has an Isolated Network
protected by Virtual Router/Firewall.
Each Network is isolated via VLANs or
SDN technologies.
Virtual Routers Public Networks are
connected directly to the Internet
enabling users to have full control of
Firewall & Load Balancing features.
DC2 Compute
Public Network(s)
Virtual Routers
Guest Networks
Guest VMs
Management Network
Client access to Portal is
Global Load Balanced by
Citrix NetScaler VPXs
running on Management
Farm using One-Arm
Configurations
Firewall functionality
should be provided by
existing Firewalls running
in HA Pair
Direct Access to Virtual Routers
1.0 15/08/13 1st releas e G Higginbottom / G Sirett
Network
Diagram

27. Just the one Cloud?
@shapeblue #ccceu14
 Production
 Very Strict Configuration Management
 Pre-Production
 Same design as Production
 Smaller, but with all key components
 Strict Configuration Management
 Testing
 Probably gets rebuilt every few months

28. “Build it and they will come”
is the motto of a fool.
“Build it, take it to them, ask them to buy
and serve them well”
is the motto of a successful person.
© Larry Winget
@shapeblue #ccceu14

29. “Design for tomorrow,
build for today”
© Geoff Higginbottom 2013
@shapeblue #ccceu14

30. Designing CloudStack Clouds
Geoff Higginbottom
CTO ShapeBlue
geoff.higginbottom@shapeblue.com
Twitter: @CloudStackGuru