CloudStack Autoscaling I CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction Apache CloudStack 4.18 introduces the Autoscaling feature, enabling users to allocate and release Instances’ resources automatically. This feature streamlines resource management by dynamically adjusting resources to meet demand, thus ensuring optimal performance and cost efficiency . CloudStack Autoscaling removes any dependency on 3rd party hardware or software solutions. It leverages existing resources, such as the underlying hypervisor and Virtual Router, to gather consumption metrics and, based on user-defined conditions and thresholds, proactively adjust resources to deliver ideal performance and resource consumption. Feature Overview The Autoscaling process in CloudStack involves the creation of an Autoscale VM group, which contains a […]

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Volume Encryption l CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction Everyone would agree that data is the most important thing in the cloud today, and after so many breaches, encrypting data is increasingly popular among cloud service providers. Adding this additional security layer can make it even more difficult for unauthorized users to access your precious data. In this article, I’d like to introduce a new feature that enables Apache CloudStack to work with encrypted Root and Data Volumes when using KVM hypervisor. This encryption is transparent to the guest OS, greatly simplifying the operator experience, and removing the need to handle encryption keys, maintain key server infrastructure, and […]

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New CloudStack Database Encryption Engine l CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction As part of its security capabilities, Apache CloudStack encrypts sensitive information such as user credentials and passwords. For over a decade, Apache CloudStack has used the StandardPBEStringEncryptor from the jasypt library to encrypt data. However, the encryption algorithm used by this library, “PBEWithMD5AndDes” is now considered insecure because it relies on outdated cryptographics, namely the MD5 hash function and the DES encryption cipher, which has only a 56-bit key length. To improve the security of Apache CloudStack, it is recommended to use a more modern and secure encryption algorithm, such as AES-GCM . AES-GCM is a mode of operation […]

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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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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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What’s New in Apache CloudStack 4.17

*  The content in this blog is a reproduction from the Apache CloudStack 4.17 release blog, which can be viewed via this link. Apache CloudStack 4.17 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 4.17 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. VR […]

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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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Customising the CloudStack UI

A lot of work has gone into the CloudStack UI recently, and it is now a modern, role-based UI that not only gives a fresh look to CloudStack but also makes development and customisation much easier. In this blog, I provide guidance on how to customise the UI, and have classified customisation into two categories – basic and advanced. Basic Customisations Users can customise the UI by means of this configuration file: /etc/cloudstack/management/config.json to modify theme, logos, etc. as required. These changes can be made while the CloudStack management server is running, and the changes can be seen immediately with […]

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vSphere Advanced Capabilities in CloudStack | CloudStack Feature Deep Dive

Introduction CloudStack vSphere integration has not kept up with the evolution of vSphere itself, and several functions can be performed natively by vSphere much more efficiently than by CloudStack. vSphere also has additional features which would be beneficial to the operators of vSphere based CloudStack clouds. This feature introduces support in CloudStack for VMFS6, vSAN, vVols and datastore clusters. Also, vSphere storage policies are tied with compute and disk offerings to improve linking offerings with storages, and CloudStack will allow inter-cluster VM and volume migrations, meaning that running VMs can now migrate along with all volumes across clusters. Furthermore, storage […]

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