Apache CloudStack
Architecture
Alex Huang
Software Architect, Citrix Systems
Compute
Self-Service Access via CloudStack UI
Network Storage
Admin
Users
Org A
Admin
Users
Org B
Users
End User
Admin
Deployment Architecture
• Hosts
• Servers onto which services will be provisioned
• Primary Storage
• VM disk storage
• Cluster
• A grouping of hosts and their associated storage
• Pod
• Collection of clusters in the same failure boundary
• Network
• Logical network associated with service offerings
• Secondary Storage
• Template, snapshot and ISO storage
• Zone
• Collection of pods, network offerings and
secondary storage
• Management Server Farm
• Management and provisioning tasks
Components
Zone
CloudStack Pod
Cluster
Host
Host
Network
Primary
Storage
VM
VM
CloudStack Pod
Cluster
Secondary
Storage
Pod 1
Host 2
Cluster 1
Host 1
Primary
Storage
L3 switch
Secondary
Storage
L2 switch
Two Types of Storage
• Stores disk volumes for VMs in a cluster
• Configured at Cluster-level.
• Close to hosts for better performance
• Cluster have at least one primary storage
• Requires high IOPs (can be expensive)
Primary Storage
• Stores all Templates, ISOs and Snapshots
• Configured at Zone-level
• Zone can have one or more secondary
storages
• High capacity, low cost commodity
storage
Secondary Storage
