Primary Storage in CloudStack

What is CloudStack?

Apache CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.

Compute, Network, Storage

Automation

CloudStack from the top down

Storage Use Cases & Workloads

Primary Storage Secondary Storage

Objectives Storage for running VM disk volumes on a host

Data to be stored for future retrieval

Use Cases

• Production Applications• Traditional IT Systems• Database Driven Apps• Messaging / Collaboration• Dev/Test Systems

• VM Templates• ISO Images• Disk Volume Snapshots• Backup / Archive• Image Repository

Workloads• High Change Content• Smaller, Random R/W• Higher / “Bursty” IO

• Typically More Static Content• Larger, Sequential R/W• Lower IOPS

What is Primary Storage?• Primary Storage is associated with a cluster.

• A cluster can access more than one Primary Storage.

• Primary Storage can be shared among hosts or local to a host.

• Primary Storage stores the disk volumes (both root and data disks) for all the VMs in that cluster.

• Depending on hypervisor type, there are several ways to configure Primary Storage (we shall take a look at XenServer).

Primary Storage Today (CS Version <= 4.1)

• Admin sets aside space ahead of time on the storage system (ex. creating a large volume on a SAN).

• Admin interacts with hypervisor that is in the cluster the storage will be servicing to make it aware of the new storage (ex. creating a XenServer Storage Repository).

• Admin interacts with CloudStack to create Primary Storage for the cluster based on the hypervisor data structure (in this case, the XenServer Storage Repository).

• Admin associates the Primary Storage with Compute and/or Disk Offerings.

Create a Volume on the SolidFire SAN

Create a XenServer Storage Repository

Create a XenServer Storage Repository

Create a XenServer Storage Repository

Create a XenServer Storage Repository

Create a Primary Storage in CloudStack

Create a Primary Storage in CloudStack

Create a Primary Storage in CloudStack

Create a Compute Offering in CloudStack

Create a Compute Offering in CloudStack

Create a Compute Offering in CloudStack

A Glimpse into the Future of Primary Storage

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