CloudStack: Networking and Multi-Tenancy

This post is part of the Open Source Cloud Computing series. For an Overview, please click on the Tag.

Networking with CloudStack

Networking with CloudStack can be achieved with two topologies: the first topology is handled like with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This enables guest isolation via IP-Filtering. More networking possibilities are delivered with the “advanced” networking options. The advanced option allows multiple networks in a zone. Each individual network in an advanced setup needs to have a specific network type. They can be guest mode, management mode, public mode and storage mode.

Multi-tenancy

CloudStack provides multi-tenancy with the concept of Accounts, Domains and Users. An account is typically a tenant. Each Account may contain more users. A Domain allows the datacenter provider to group similar account types and to ease management of them. CloudStack may be extended by LDAP services such as Active Directory. Another concept is the “Project”. A project is a group of users working on similar tasks. Within a marketing department might be different project such as “product launch web site”. Several users might need to work on this project. Billing can be based either on the user’s consumption or on the project consumption, which allows even more detailed billing on a project basis. Project can also be limited in resource usage.
Header Image Copyright by Horia Varlan