Open Cloud Reference Architecture

The OpenNebula Cloud Reference Architecture is a blueprint to guide IT architects, consultants, cloud‬ ‭administrators, and field practitioners in the design and deployment of private, hybrid, and edge clouds‬ ‭fully based on ‬‭open source platforms and technologies‭. ‬‭It is based on the collective information and‬ ‭experiences of hundreds of users and client engagements. Besides the main logical components and‬ ‭interrelationships within the architecture, this document includes references to software products, specific‬ ‭configurations, and requirements of infrastructure platforms recommended for a‬‭ smooth OpenNebula‬ ‭installation‭. Three optional functionalities complete‬ ‭this architecture: high availability, true hybrid and‬ ‭edge for workload outsourcing, and federation of geographically-dispersed data centers.‬

The document describes the reference architecture for Basic and Advanced OpenNebula Clouds and provides recommended software for main architectural components, and the rationale behind them. Each section also provides information about other open source infrastructure platforms tested and certified by OpenNebula to work in enterprise environments. As a complement to these certified components, the browseable OpenNebula add-on catalog offers further options supported by partners and by the OpenNebula community. This reference architecture does not include other components in the open cloud ecosystem that are important to consider at the time of designing a cloud, such as configuration management and automation tools for configuring cloud infrastructure and managing large numbers of devices.

Note

The White Paper on the Open Cloud Architecture is publicly available for download.