(1) The document discusses how to build an OpenStack cluster using SoftLayer infrastructure before lunch and scale it globally by supper.
(2) It provides step-by-step instructions on setting up a three-node OpenStack cluster on SoftLayer and pricing out the necessary components.
(3) The document also describes one person's experience building an OpenStack cluster across two regions with shared Keystone and Horizon services, noting it took around 9 hours once neutron issues were resolved.
SoftLayer has uniquely designed and deployed a global, interconnected platform thatâs designed to meet the key operational and economic requirements of cloud infrastructure across a broad portfolio: dedicated and shared devices, physical and virtual servers, hourly compute instances and four-way, octo-core bare metal, along with a wealth of storage, networking and security components.
You can take these building blocks and deploy public cloud instances, build private clouds on your choice of virtualization stack, leverage the raw power of bare metal on demand, or combine these solutions into distributed, hybrid architectures. Build what you want, or leverage our turn-key big data and private cloud solutions to design and deploy complex, scalable infrastructure online in near-real time. Itâs all delivered as a unified service, managed from a single pane of glass via our web portal or mobile apps, and accessible via a powerful, full-featured API.
Our bare metal option mirrors on-premises resources across a continuum of single processor servers, quad proc, hex-core, and even graphics processing unit (GPU)-powered. It deploys in near-real-time via the self-service portal or API.
Within our dedicated virtualized environment, you have a variety of hypervisor choices, including:
VMWare
Citrix (Xen)
Parallels
Hyper-V
OpenStack
The network is the cloud and the cloud is the network. The network is perhaps the fundamental component in terms of performance, yet itâs rarely discussed in detail by hosting providers. Weâve made a significant investment at SoftLayer in building a network of networks from best-in-class networking infrastructure, hardware, and software designed to deliver exceptional bandwidth and connectivity for the highest speed and reliability. We think our network architecture and performance stand apart in the industry.
We have 17 points-of-presence (PoPs) today and plan to expand that significantly in 2014. Data centers and PoPs are interconnected with over 2,000 GBps of connectivity around the globe for optimum performance.
Having this interconnectivity and the ability for customers to transport data from site to site at no additional charge and be able to get on our backbone through the closest PoP is critical. And we are one of the only cloud providers with our own global backbone. Others may be rumored to be building that, but we are there today! We pass 500 to 600 gigs sustained across our backbone. We house a large percent of the content on the Internet!
The entire network and services stack provides native support for IP version 6, helping to ensure that as this critical transition takes place over the next few years, youâll be well ahead of the game.
Every server comes multi-homed to our fully redundant best-in-class public and private network as well as a third network for management
Public network is IPv4 and IPv6 stacked; every ancillary service comes ready for IPv6
Private network allows for unmetered bandwidth usage between servers and data centers; use at no extra cost with no special connection feeds or devices needed
Management network provides unlimited VPN; security-rich KVM access goes beyond basic controls and unsecured connection methods offered by some competitors KVM tool gives you console access as if you are standing right in front of your server; you can even use it to mount your own ISO and install your own custom operating system (OS)