CloudStack: Overview

CloudStack is currently available in the Version 4.0 and was usually initiated by Cloud.com, which was later acquired by Citrix. The source code for CloudStack is available open source and it is maintained as an Apache Project. The target of CloudStack is similar to the other 3 described projects: provide an Infrastructure as a Service Software. CloudStack supports both commercial hypervisors as well as open source hypervisors. From the commercial side, CloudStack currently implements Citrix XenServer and VMware vSphere and as for open source hypervisors there is support for XEN and KVM running on Ubuntu or CentOS. CloudStack is built to run tens of thousands of virtual Servers in geographically distributed regions. There is one managing server for all clusters, which makes cluster-wide management servers unnecessary. CloudStack configures each node automatically regarding storage and networking. Internally managed virtual appliances take care of firewalling, routing, DHCP, VPN access, console proxy, storage access, and storage replication. CloudStack also offers a graphical user interface (GUI) to ease configuration. The CloudStack API also supports Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 and S3. CloudStack provides an extensibility API, allowing solution providers to extend the capabilities of CloudStack. CloudStack consists of two major components: the Management Server and the Cloud Infrastructure. The Management Server controls the Cloud Infrastructure and there is typically one of that kind. The Cloud Infrastructure consists of various nodes running virtual Instances and the Management Server manages each of them. The Cloud Infrastructure consists of one or more dedicated Servers, but in a minimal installation it can also be run on the same machine as the Management Server.

CloudStack Overview