CloudStack vs. OpenStack Comparison – What you need to know before choosing a cloud management system

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is recognized as facilitating speed-to-market and for its ability to drive business agility. When a company demands specific answers to a business problem, the answers lie in a jumble of calculations, including investments and platform operation and maintenance. Apache Cloudstack and OpenStack are two widely-known Cloud Management Platforms that can provide an effective abstraction layer for your cloud infrastructure. Both are similar in terms of the services they deliver but seen from an operational perspective, they are very different. So, which one is the right choice for your company? Let’s take a look at how […]

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CloudStack 4.16.1.0 Deep Dive

Apache CloudStack 4.16.1.0 Release – Deep Dive

Apache CloudStack 4.16.1.0 is the latest maintenance release as part of the LTS 4.16.x releases. It contains more than 150 fixes and improvements since the 4.16.0.0 release. In this article, Suresh Kumar Anaparti, release manager of 4.16.1.0 is reviewing some of the most notable fixes and improvements in the release. Continue reading to learn more what you can get out of the new release.   System VM Template Improvements The System VM template is updated from Debian v11 to Debian v11.2. The operator is able to update the letsencrypt certificate in the System VMs, and also can update the old […]

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Improvements to VM and Volume Migration | CloudStack Feature First Look

Migration of resources such as virtual machines and volumes is essential functionality for cloud operators, enabling them to load balance or perform maintenance operations on underlying compute, storage or network resources without major downtime. CloudStack provides impressive functionality to migrate VMs and volumes, with different APIs for different use-cases: migrateVirtualMachine migrateVirtualMachineWithVolume migrateSystemVm migrateVolume Most of these actions are also available in the CloudStack UI, which makes life easier when there are not many migrations to be carried out at once. Keeping with this notion of making life easier, the next CloudStack LTS version will come with improvements to VM and […]

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Dynamic-Scaling-VMs

Granular Control of Dynamic Scaling of VM’s CPU/RAM

Currently, CloudStack allows admins to configure the dynamic scaling of CPU and RAM for the VMs using a global or zone level setting “enable.dynamic.scale.vm” and through a “Dynamically Scalable” flag in templates. However, the global or zone setting applies to all VMs in a particular region or zone and there may be virtual hardware or software limitations on a VM meaning that dynamic scaling would not be applicable (e.g. OS virtual hardware support, OS licensing, application licensing, hypervisor fault tolerance, etc). In order to let the user or admin decide whether to disable dynamic scaling of VM at a more […]

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SystemVM Templates - Upgrade Imrpovements

SystemVM template – Upgrade Improvements

When upgrading Apache CloudStack (ACS) to a newer version one must manually register new SystemVM templates before upgrading the packages. Failing to do so means having to roll back the database to the previous version, register the new template and start the upgrade again. We’ve developed a process (available as of CloudStack 4.16.0) to automate SystemVM template registration at the point the packages are upgraded (if not already registered). Manual SystemVM template registration will still be supported, but not mandatory. Instead, if you update the link to the packages (eg. /etc/yum.repos.d/cloudstack.repo on a RHEL based system), and run the command […]

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CloudStack 4.16 Release Announcement

What’s new in CloudStack 4.16

Apache CloudStack 4.16 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. 4.16 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 of the release.  New CloudStack Integrations  Two new major storage integrations are shipped with 4.16.  CloudStack and Dell PowerFlex Integration A plugin for Dell PowerFlex (previously ScaleIO ) allows […]

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Adding Comments to CloudStack Objects

Adding Comments to CloudStack Objects | CloudStack Feature First Look

CloudStack administrators are currently able to add annotations/comments on hosts, domains or virtual machines. This is useful as administrators may comment on the actions taken on those entities, allowing other administrators to know why actions were taken. This new functionality (available from CloudStack version 4.16.0 onwards) extends the scope of the comments feature to users, domain administrators and administrators, allowing them to add comments on most CloudStack objects (that have a UUID): User VMs (existing) Domains (existing) Hosts (existing) Instance groups SSH keypairs Kubernetes Clusters Volumes Snapshots VM Snapshots Networks VPCs Public IP addresses VPN customer gateways Templates ISOs Service […]

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GSoC Apurv Interview

GSoC 2021 and Apache CloudStack: The Results

With 16,000+ participants from 111 countries and 715 open-source organizations participating, Google Summer of Code is one of the most popular programs which helps students enter the technology world and gain new skills. GSoC pairs students with mentors from participating open-source organizations, allowing students to face the real world of software development and coding. For a year in a row, ShapeBlue and Apache CloudStack have been participating in the program and we are glad to share the success story of one of the students who successfully passed it.  He is doing a Master Degree in Computer Science & Engineering from […]

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The C-level Perspective on Running Open-Source Cloud with Ceph and CloudStack

The cloud and hosting market has experienced a complete transformation during the last decade. While previously there was a range of mid-sized local cloud providers dominating the market in each country, many providers were acquired by VC’s, larger providers, telcos and third-party enterprises in the last ten years. It is getting harder and harder for individual cloud providers to survive in the battle with competition and the hyperscalers. However, these companies can offer unique and tailor-made solutions, which can better match their customers’ needs. The technology stack behind these services is one of their most significant advantages. Having better, faster […]

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Pricing Your IaaS Offering the Right Way

There is currently enormous market demand for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), with organisations looking for the right solution to host their applications and workloads, build a high-performing test/dev environment or deploy a hybrid cloud solution. Others, like telcos and MSPs, need to offer a full range of services to their customers, and the cloud is key for them. This means the IaaS market is attractive for service providers around the globe to enter and launch public cloud services. Whether you launch a new service on existing infrastructure or deploy completely new infrastructure, correct pricing is vital to ensure your […]

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