Edge Zones l CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction Edge computing is the talk of the town these days. With the impetus on lowering infrastructure costs, concerns about data protection policies and efforts to provide lower latency and better services to the end-users, edge computing have been gaining traction with cloud providers. With the release of version 4.18, CloudStack is also taking a step in this direction by facilitating edge computing with the introduction of CloudStack Edge Zones with the KVM hypervisor. Edge Zones are lightweight, low-cost zones designed for edge sites. Typically, such zones contain a single hypervisor host located closer to both the data source and […]

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Service Elasticity with CloudStack Autoscaling

Autoscaling enables the automatic adjustment of allocated cloud resources based on traffic spikes and usage patterns. When unused, resources are rigidly defined with a fixed amount of resources unable to grow as demand increases or shrink as demand decreases. This is a crucial feature in cloud computing, where the goal is to pay only for what you need, achieved through elastic resources that can scale up or down as needed. This is in line with the idea of scalable instances and services, which provide a base level of resources and can be expanded to meet demand when needed. When defining […]

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What’s New in Apache CloudStack 4.18

Apache CloudStack 4.18 is the latest release of the cloud management platform from the Apache Software Foundation and is a result of months of work from the development community. Apache CloudStack 4.18 is an LTS (Long Term Support) release so will be maintained for a period of 18 months after release. As always, the release contains a myriad of small improvements and bug fixes but here we focus on the major new functionality in the release. Several new features have been introduced to significantly enhance the platform’s capabilities. These include Edge Zones (which provide lightweight zones); Tungsten Fabric integration (offering […]

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Leveraging Apache CloudStack for Edge Computing

What is Edge Computing? Edge computing is a distributed computing architecture that brings computing capabilities to the network’s periphery, closer to the data’s source, where it can be processed locally without the need to ship it back to a centralized computing resource. This drastically reduces latency, thus enabling real-time processing while lowering bandwidth costs. The edge architecture model has seen a massive growth in recent years, and the rise of IoT devices only exacerbates the need for on-site computing capabilities, while the widespread adoption of more modern data transmission technologies (such as 5G networks) reduces costs and facilitates the deployment […]

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Kubernetes CAPI Provider for Apache CloudStack by Amazon Web Services and ShapeBlue

The Kubernetes Cluster API (CAPI) provider for Apache CloudStack allows Kubernetes users to build and manage resources on Apache CloudStack. The provider is available under the Apache 2 open-source license and has been donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and was developed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and ShapeBlue. CAPI is a Kubernetes sub-project focused on providing declarative APIs and tooling to simplify provisioning, upgrading, and operating multiple Kubernetes clusters. Started by the Kubernetes Special Interest Group (SIG) Cluster Lifecycle, the CAPI project uses Kubernetes-style APIs and patterns to automate cluster lifecycle management for platform operators. CAPI relies […]

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CloudStack Integrations: StorPool Storage – High-performance Primary Storage Platform

  Cloud builders worldwide – Managed Services Providers, Hosting Services Providers, Cloud Services Providers, Enterprises, and SaaS Vendors – are always seeking ways to optimize the architecture and cost of their public and private cloud deployments. With Apache CloudStack and StorPool Storage, they can deploy a highly automated cloud that delivers the application performance and reliability their users need while easily addressing changes in user requirements over the long term. The new Solution Brief developed by the Apache CloudStack Community and StorPool aids cloud and storage architects, consultants, administrators, and field practitioners in the design and deployment of reliable, easy-to-manage, […]

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VMware abstraction with Apache CloudStack

VMware Abstraction Using Apache CloudStack

The hypervisor market is in a state of flux. For over a decade, VMware has entrenched itself as the gold-standard virtualisation platform for enterprises. However, their relentless march for revenue, expected to deepen by announcements earlier this year, has led many users to reconsider their long-term strategy. In the service provider space, the weight of this decision is amplified by the need to maintain margins for public cloud services. Over the past decade, alternative virtualisation platforms (such as KVM and XCP-ng) have started to demonstrate that they are serious contenders for enterprise use. At ShapeBlue, we have seen a slow […]

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Manage Network Permission l CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction In Apache CloudStack, users are organized into a logical structure of Accounts and Domains. In previous versions of Apache CloudStack each Account had its own resources which could not be shared with other accounts (eg. when a software application from one Account needs to access an application in another account under the same Domain). For this to work, users had to configure their networks with firewall rules, port forwarding, load balancing or private gateways. This method causes considerable network overhead as all packets have to go through 2 different Virtual Routers (VRs) to reach their destination. With Apache CloudStack […]

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Self-service Shared Networks l CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction In Apache CloudStack it is possible to deploy three types of Guest Networks: Isolated, VPC and Shared Networks. Previously in Apache CloudStack, Domain Admins and Regular Users could deploy only Isolated and VPC Networks. Shared Networks could only be deployed by Root Admins (as they require the selection of a VLAN) which adds considerable overhead and reduces the agility of the cloud offering. From the platform operator’s perspective, Shared Networks might not be made available to the Users at all due to the extra burden. From CloudStack 4.17 onwards, Domain Admin and Regular Users are now able to deploy […]

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System VM and Virtual Router Zero Downtime Upgrade l CloudStack Feature First Look

Introduction Apache CloudStack has always been easier to upgrade than many of its competitors, but a common pain point is that when a new release of Apache CloudStack is deployed, the operations team must organize maintenance windows to allow the redeployment of every customer’s VR. Depending on the number of existing networks, planning and execution can be time-consuming, especially in cases of mission-critical customer services, often requiring scheduling of the VR upgrade on a case-by-case basis. Also, to a much lesser extent, when upgrading system VMs, secondary storage-related and proxy console services have some downtime. With this new feature, the […]

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