What is Rackspace Private Cloud Software?

Rackspace Private Cloud Software enables users to quickly deploy an OpenStack cluster configured according to the recommendations of Rackspace OpenStack specialists, using the OpenCenter deployment and management framework.

Previous versions of Rackspace Private Cloud Software were packaged in an ISO that contained a full Ubuntu OS and a Chef server running on a virtual machine. While the ISO was a convenient and simple package, it did not allow a deployment at scale. The user also had no choice of host operating system and Chef server running on a virtual machine was resource-intensive.

Rackspace Private Cloud Software now implements a new deployment approach that enables users to create an OpenStack cluster on Ubuntu, CentOS, or RHEL, and create a dedicated server for Chef. The new version uses install scripts to install Debian or RPM packages on servers, creating a more traditional application experience for the Linux system administrator. It also offers a framework that is capable of being updated without downloading and deploying a whole new ISO.

About OpenCenter

OpenCenter enables cloud administrators to manage the architecture of their OpenStack private cloud through a GUI, command line interface (CLI), or API. With OpenCenter, you can perform the following tasks:

• Create a Chef server that will manage multiple OpenStack nodes.
• Deploy Controller nodes and hypervisors directly to Ubuntu, CentOS, or RHEL servers or virtual machines.
• Deploy and manage an OpenStack cluster in an environment.
• Enable high availability.

OpenCenter is compatible with the following operating systems:

• Ubuntu 12.04
• CentOS 6.3
• RHEL 6.3 or 6.4

OpenCenter has three components:

• OpenCenter Server: The server manages the OpenCenter environment.
• OpenCenter Agent: The agent is installed on each node that will be managed by OpenCenter.
• OpenCenter GUI: A web interface for using OpenCenter.

Rackspace recommends that you run OpenCenter behind a firewall, as it is not considered secure at this time.

The Rackspace Private Cloud Configuration

Rackspace Private Cloud Software v 2.0 (Alamo) uses the Folsom release of OpenStack, and includes Compute (Nova), Image Service (Glance), Dashboard (Horizon), and Identity (Keystone).

Virtual Network Service (Quantum) is not supported at this time.               

Supported OpenStack Features

Rackspace supports integration with the other components of OpenStack, as well as features such as floating IP address management, security groups, availability zones, and the python-novaclient command line client. The following features are also supported:

• Single and dual NIC configurations
• NFS and ISCSI file storage as backing stores for VM storage
• VNC Proxy
• KVM hypervisor
• Nova Multi Scheduler instead of Filter Scheduler
• Keystone integrated authentication
• Glance integrated image service
• Horizon dashboard
• Linux and Windows guests to the extent to which they accept handoff from KVM and boot
• Single metadata server running on each device
• Cloud management through OpenStack APIs

The following OpenStack features are not deployed with OpenCenter, but can be manually configured with Rackspace Private Cloud Software Chef cookbooks:

• Cinder block storage service, documented in Rackspace Private Cloud Software: OpenStack Block Storage
• Swift object storage service, documented in Rackspace Private Cloud Software: OpenStack Object Storage

Rackspace Private Cloud Software also supports the use of Rackspace Cloud Files as a backend for OpenStack Image Storage.

Unsupported OpenStack Features

The following features are not supported:

• Nova object store
• Nova volumes
• Boot-from-volume for guest VMs
• Clustered file system solutions
• xpvnc
• Xen and other hypervisors
• Centralized metadata servers
• Software Defined Networking (Quantum)
• Any other OpenStack project, extension or configuration not explicitly listed in the supported features or installed components sections

Rackspace Private Cloud Software is an evolving product and we will continue to develop and enhance it.

Rackspace Private Cloud Support

Rackspace Private Cloud is offered primarily as a "do it yourself" package, free of charge. You can also access the Rackspace Private Cloud Support Forum, a Rackspace-provided user forum, at the following URL:

https://privatecloudforums.rackspace.com/

The forum is open to all Rackspace Private Cloud users and is moderated and maintained by Rackspace personnel and OpenStack specialists.

Rackspace offers 24x7 support for Rackspace Private Cloud Software. If you are interested in purchasing Rackspace Private Cloud Escalation Support, or you plan to install on more than 20 nodes, please email us at opencloudinfo@rackspace.com.