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OpenStack: Toward an Open-Source Solution for Cloud Computing

Article in International Journal of Computer Applications · October 2012

DOI: 10.5120/8738-2991

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 - 8887)
Volume 55 - No. 03, October 2012

OpenStack: Toward an Open-Source Solution for

Cloud Computing

Omar SEFRAOUI Mohammed AISSAOUI Mohsine ELEULDJ

ENSAO UMP ENSAO UMP ENSAO UMP
BP 669 Al Qods, BP 669 Al Qods, BP 669 Al Qods,
OUJDA, MOROCCO. OUJDA, MOROCCO. OUJDA, MOROCCO.

ABSTRACT (2) Platform as a Service (PaaS), you can develop your

own applications using the services provided. The client
Cloud computing is a quite new concept for which the resources maintains only those applications while the supplier
are virtualized, dynamically extended and provided as a service maintains the runtimes Cloud, SOA integration, databases,
on the Internet. In this paper, we present a comparative study server software, virtualization, server hardware and the
between some of the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) commonly storage networks. We have among the key players: Google
used to select the best suited one for deployment and research Apps Engine, Windows Azure.
development in the field of cloud computing. The aim is to
(3) Software as a Service (SaaS), the entire applications
provide the computer industry with the opportunity to build
are available remotely. Among the providers we have
a hosting architecture, massively scalable which is completely
GoogleApps, salesforce, facebook.
open source, while overcoming the constraints and the use
of proprietary technologies. Then, we present the solution The three levels of cloud offering are shown in figure 1, the lower
OpenStack retained by the comparative study. We discuss in level is the computer hardware resources (computing, storage,
detail its functional and architectural system. We finish by a network), and mechanisms called virtualization hypervisor,
discussion of the motivation of our choice of the IaaS solution. which virtualize access to the material resources of a physical
machine (processor, memory and other devices). The interest of
General Terms: a hypervisor is to dynamically add or remove instances of virtual
servers on one physical server. This is done using the tools of
OpenStack, IaaS services and interfaces management. The upper level represents
the interactions between the users of the services and the cloud.
Keywords: Currently, several proprietary and some open source solutions
exist, but are not easily amenable to experimentation or
Opencloud, IAAS, OpenStack, Eucalyptus, OpenNebula,
instrumentation. Researchers interested in pursuing studies on
Virtualization, Scalableifx
Cloud Computing IaaS have few tools to work with.
In this paper, from a comparative study of existing IaaS
1. INTRODUCTION solutions, we propose an open source cloud platform, modular
Cloud computing is relatively a new concept that brings together and totally open, for any use including research. The paper
all the disciplines, technologies (Web services, virtualization, is organized as follows. First, we compare the different IaaS
SOA: service oriented architecture, grid computing,. . . ) and solutions. Then, we present the OpenStack platform adopted by
business models used to deliver IT capabilities (software, this comparative study. After that, we present the different works
platforms, hardware) as a service request, scalable and done on IaaS solutions. Finally, we conclude with a general
elastic [21]. This is the new trend of computing where IT summary and possible future works.
resources are dynamically scalable, virtualized and exposed as
a service on the Internet [7]. 2. EXISTING STUDIES
Cloud computing is often associated with the supply of new
The main studies about IaaS solutions focused on two sides, the
mechanisms that allow providers to give users access to a
study of middleware platforms and on the comparative studies of
virtually unlimited number of resources (Resource Outsourcing).
the different solutions. Eucalyptus [4, 13], OpenNebula [1, 14]
It also uses billing mechanisms to use these resources on the
and Nimbus[11] have been largely studied in the literature. In
basis of their consumption, allowing on-demand model: pay-
these works, the architecture and various components of these
per-use [7]. Warranties are offered by the infrastructure provider
solutions were presented. There are also comparative studies of
through tailored service contract: Service Level Agreements
different solutions [18, 22]. In [1, 11, 13], it is essentially an
(SLA) [7].
overview of the solutions Eucalyptus, Nimbusm OpenNebula
Today, all major industry players offer cloud solutions,
and a presentation of their different characteristics. In [18, 22],
especially Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, Google Apps and
comparative studies of Eucalyptus, Nimbus and OpenNebula,
IBM blue cloud [20].
including characteristics, architectures and applications are done
Cloud computing consists of three levels of offerings: [7]
in order to provide more freedom of choice for the users of
(1) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), where the equipment the cloud. Concerning OpenStack, little work has addressed
is provided in the form of virtual machines. The client this solution [10]. We find in [10] a comparative study of
maintains the applications, runtimes, integration SOA Eucalyptus, Nimbus and OpenNebula. This study, from 2011
(Service Oriented Architecture), databases, server software is outdated. OpenStack has since then evolved, requiring an
while the supplier maintains the Cloud virtualization, update. Recently, G. von Laszewski [5] outlined the differences
hardware server, storage, networks. Among the main actors between Eucalyptus IaaS platforms, OpenNebula, Nimbus and
of IaaS we find Amazon EC2, Rackspace, GoGrid. OpenStack. The focus is on the look and feel interface, storage

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 - 8887)
Volume 55 - No. 03, October 2012

3.1 Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a solution that allows the installation of a private
and hybrid cloud infrastructure. It is written in Java language, C
and Python, with a main storage controller walrus and controllers
on each node. The network is managed by the component
cloud controller and each controller is authenticated by SSH
key files and permission to authenticate transactions. Eucalyptus
scalability is limited, compared to the massive scalability, and the
source code of some of its modules are closed. This is why it is
being abandoned for other solutions. Eucalyptus is the platform
used by Amazon EC2.

3.2 OpenNebula
OpenNebula is another cloud solution, it is open source under
Apache 2 license. It is written in C++, Ruby and Shell. The
network is managed manually by the administrator. Storage,
the default copy of the virtual machines are accessed via SSH.
OpenNebula supports authentication via LDAP. OpenNebula
is the recommended platform for Europe and developed by a
Spanish company. It is an easy to use solution for Data Centers
and Private Cloud.

3.3 OpenStack
OpenStack solution is recent and under active development. It
has great potential due to its architecture and community and
the support of its partners. All code is licensed under Apache 2
license. OpenStack is a platform developed by NASA dedicated
Fig. 1. General architecture of the Cloud.
to massive infrastructures.
OpenStack main characteristics are that is :
—Scalable: This solution is already deployed worldwide in
companies whose data volumes is measured in petabytes
of distributed architectures and massively scalable up to 1
million physical machines, up to 60 million virtual machines
and billions of stored objects [8].
—Compatible and Flexible: OpenStack supports most
virtualization solutions of the market: ESX, Hyper-V,
KVM, LXC, QEMU, UML, Xen and XenServer [2, 20].
—Open: Being an open source technology, the entire code can
be modified and adapted as needed. The project OpenStack
also presents a validation process for the adoption and
development of new standards.
This project is supported by many companies in the world
(mainly in the U.S.) and is based on the code used by
NASA and Rackspace Cloud. It is written in python and
currently implements two control APIs, the EC2 API and
Rackspace. It uses different drivers to interface with a maximum
Fig. 2. Using OpenStack and Eucalyptus by Country
number of hypervisors (Xen, KVM, HyperV, Qemu) [16]. This
2011-2012 [6].
project is dedicated to providing the computer industry with
the opportunity to build a hosting architecture and massive
and network usage in a project called FuturGrid. The openness scalability and is completely open source, while it overcomes
of the cloud is not addressed. the constraints of the use of proprietary technologies. According
to this comparative study, it appears that the best solution is
OpenStack, it can become the reference solution of open source
cloud computing because of its characteristics.
3. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CLOUD
SOLUTIONS 4. OPENSTACK ARCHITECTURE
Different solutions exist for the deployment of open source OpenStack architecture is built using three main components:
clouds. Among these, we have Nimbus, Eucalyptus, OpenStack OpenStack Compute, Image and Object (see figure 4). In this
and OpenNebula. We propose a comparative study of the section, we will explain in detail these components and we will
last three solutions in order to select the most appropriate describe other components of OpenStack.
solution to our criteria. These include popularity, community
use, modularity, openness, open source. Figures 2 and 3show 4.1 OpenStack Compute
a comparison of the solutions using Eucalyptus, OpenStack and
OpenNebula in all countries between April 2010 and April 2012 OpenStack Compute, also known as Nova, is a management
and the interest of some countries to these solutions [6]. platform that controls the infrastructure to control IaaS clouds.

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 - 8887)
Volume 55 - No. 03, October 2012

Fig. 3. Comparative solutions Cloud 2010- 2012 [6].

Fig. 4. OpenStack Architecture [9].

Table 1. Comparative study of IAAS solution . Store provides storage services. Volume Controller component
Solutions cloud computing IAAS handles the assignment, attachment and manipulation of
Eucalyptus OpenNebula OpenStack volumes. While the network Controller is responsible for the
Storage +++++ +++ +++++ creation of Bridges / VLAN / DHCP / DNS and firewall rules.
Network ++++ ++++ +++++ Finally, Scheduler distributes tasks and determines where they
Security ++++ +++ +++++ should be executed.
Hypervisor ++++ +++ ++++
Scalable +++ ++++ +++++ 4.2 OpenStack Imaging Service
Installation ++ +++ +++++
Documentation +++ +++ +++++ Imaging Service (project Glance) provides storage services,
Code and License +++ +++++ +++++ recording and distributing the images to virtual machine disks.
It also provides an API compatible with the REST architecture
to perform queries for information on the images hosted on
It is similar in scope to Amazon EC2 [11] and Rackspace different storage systems.
CloudServers [12]. Nova Compute allows managing large
networks of virtual machines and redundant and scalable 4.3 OpenStack Object Storage
architectures. It provides an administrative interface and an API
needed for the orchestration of the Cloud. It includes instances Object Storage (Swift project) is used to create a storage space
management for servers, networks and access control. Compute redundant and scalable for storing multiple petabytes of data. It’s
requires no prerequisite hardware and is completely independent not really a file system but is especially designed for long term
of the hypervisor storage of large volumes. It uses a distributed architecture with
Nova consists of seven main components (Figure 5). At first, multiple access points to avoid SPOF (Single Point of Failure).
we have the API Server, which is considered the heart of
Nova. It acts as the Web front end service control of the 4.4 Other components
hypervisor. Then, we find the Message Queue that implements
the mechanism for dispatching the exchanged instructions Features are added to fill a missing service or improve an existing
to facilitate communication. After that, Compute Controller one like:
handles the lifecycle of instances, it is responsible for creating
and manipulating virtual servers, while the component Object —OpenStack Dashboard - horizon

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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 - 8887)
Volume 55 - No. 03, October 2012

Fig. 5. Nova system architecture [9].

—Keystone, Identity Service for OpenStack. It is the 6. REFERENCES

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