Helping IaaS providers build reliable, fast clouds

Apache CloudStack is the leading open-source virtualization management platform used by some of the world’s largest public and private clouds. It is a multi-hypervisor, multi-tenant, high-availability Infrastructure-as-a-service cloud management platform. With Apache CloudStack and StorPool Storage, MSPs, cloud providers, enterprises, and SaaS vendors 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 solution brief presents a high-level architecture and the pros and cons of the most popular deployment models for modern cloud deployments. While every cloud is unique, the common design principles shared should help readers plan how to build their own clouds with Apache CloudStack and StorPool Storage.

This solution brief is designed to answer topics of concern for cloud builders:

• How to provide uninterrupted services

• How to protect user data from loss in case of hardware failures and catastrophic events

• How to ensure high and consistent performance adequate for demanding applications        

• How to simplify the daily operations tasks and eliminate maintenance downtime

• How to scale easily with increasing demand

"CloudStack has proven itself to be a popular and valuable platform for organizations looking to leverage the benefits of its simplicity and ease of use when deploying private or public clouds," said Boyan Ivanov, CEO at StorPool Storage. "Cloud providers, MSPs, and enterprises around the world use StorPool with CloudStack because of its efficiency, scalability, and reliability. The solutions brief we have developed with the Apache CloudStack Community highlights how users can achieve a superb experience, including blazing speeds, when combining StorPool Storage with Apache CloudStack."

StorPool Storage volume management is integrated with Apache CloudStack to allow seamless use of the capabilities of the StorPool Storage system through the CloudStack GUI, CLI, and API interfaces. With the integration, the features available in StorPool get inherited by each cloud deployed with StorPool Storage - enabling cloned provisioning, instant snapshots, thin provisioning, and backup, disaster recovery, and Quality of Service (QoS) policies per virtual disk or virtual machine (VM). Thanks to the way StorPool works, VM provisioning is nearly instantaneous, and data placement policies and other settings can be changed in-flight to address changes in user requirements.  The result of the deep integration between the two systems is that there is no need to manage the storage system directly because all the interactions between CloudStack and StorPool are automated.