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 […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2-1.png17601762Pearl d'Silvahttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngPearl d'Silva2022-08-08 04:10:522022-08-08 04:42:18System VM and Virtual Router Zero Downtime Upgrade l CloudStack Feature First Look
The IPv6 protocol is a much-needed next step in the world of the Internet and networking in general. With the depletion of publicly routable IPv4 addresses, most providers will need to switch to IPv6, which not only provides a much bigger address space but also offers many other advantages over IPv4, such as improved security, efficient routing, better QoS, etc. For a long time, Apache CloudStack has offered IPv6 support solely for Shared Networks. This will change with Apache CloudStack 4.17.0 LTS, which will add IPv6 support for isolated networks and VPCs making it possible for users to deploy dual […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-11.01.41.png15241526Abhishek Kumarhttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngAbhishek Kumar2022-07-19 09:53:062022-09-20 10:19:50IPv6 Support for Isolated and VPC Networks l CloudStack Feature First Look
Introduction Apache CloudStack Service Offerings are sets of capabilities that a CloudStack admin makes available to users, defining Instance, Volume and Network specifications to be consumed by users when creating their resources. Previously, when users deployed a new Instance, the Root Volume definition was included in the Compute Offering, including disk size, IOPS and storage tags. This behaviour is a limitation when users try to change the Instance Root Volume characteristics, as it is a part of the Compute Offering, used alongside the Instance. To address this behaviour, Root Volume specifications have been decoupled from the Compute Offerings. This new […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-19-at-09.59.49.png17361726Harikrishna Patnalahttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngHarikrishna Patnala2022-07-19 08:37:152022-07-19 09:32:53Flexible Service Offerings l CloudStack Feature First Look
The events notification framework is a key component of Apache CloudStack, facilitating traceability of operations, and enabling cloud operators to automate tasks which may otherwise require admin intervention at regular intervals. Though quite useful, events in CloudStack had a major inconsistency regarding information of the resource (ie. Instances, Templates, Volumes, Networks, Accounts, etc.). To identify the resource in question, one had to refer to the Event description which may contain resource UUID or internal database ID. This made tracking resource operations difficult and also made automation difficult as the administrator would have to parse event description strings (which are not […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Square.png701703Abhishek Kumarhttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngAbhishek Kumar2022-07-18 08:23:162022-07-18 15:32:57Structured System Events l CloudStack Feature First Look
Overview In CloudStack 4.17 a brief overview of the status of various services can be retrieved. This includes information on the Management Server(s), the Database and the Usage server. This is a quick overview for operators. It does not replace a full-fletched monitoring system. Use Case It is now possible, within the Apache CloudStack, to know the status of its management infrastructure. The status should indicate which management servers are up, their memory, CPU use, internal telemetry such as workers in use, JVM memory use, the ‘health of MySQL host(s)’ etc. Of course, further enhancements and configurability is possible, but […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Screenshot-2022-05-18-at-11.27.04.png860860Daan Hooglandhttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngDaan Hoogland2022-05-16 12:37:022022-06-08 12:12:29New Server Status and Metric Views l CloudStack Feature First Look
As SSH is the most widely used way to access remote machines, CloudStack provides users with the ability to specify an SSH Key to be added to the list of authorized keys of a virtual machine either during or post-deployment. Users can either generate these SSH Keys via the CloudStack UI or register existing public keys. While passing SSH Keys to virtual machines is an essential feature, currently, users are limited to providing only a single SSH Key to access a virtual machine. Due to this limitation, anyone who requires SSH access to the VM must have access to the […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Square.jpg12001200David Jumanihttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngDavid Jumani2022-04-26 08:37:582022-04-28 16:35:21Support for VMs Having Multiple SSH Key l 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 […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/ShapeBlue_Blog-Post_UX-Improvments-for-VM_1200x1200px.jpg12001200Abhishek Kumarhttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngAbhishek Kumar2022-02-07 10:09:552022-02-07 10:10:59Improvements to VM and Volume Migration | CloudStack Feature First Look
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 […]
https://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Dynamic-Scaling-VMs.png6281200Harikrishna Patnalahttps://www.shapeblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/logo-340x156.pngHarikrishna Patnala2022-01-05 09:26:382022-01-05 09:43:17Granular Control of Dynamic Scaling of VM’s CPU/RAM
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 […]
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 […]
