Installation Overview

This section contains details for deploying an OpenNebula-managed cloud. There are two principal components of an OpenNebula cloud deployment:

• OpenNebula Front-end: This is the control plane of an OpenNebula cloud deployment. The Front-end enables the deployment of Cluster nodes for handling cloud workloads along with the deployment and management of Virtual Machines, Virtual Networks, Kubernetes Clusters, cloud monitoring, user and security management.

• OpenNebula Clusters: Logical groupings of Hosts, datastores and Virtual Networks that provide compute capacity. The OpenNebula Front-end deploys and manages Clusters using either on-premises hardware or resources from 3rd-party IaaS providers. Through the Edge Provisioning model, the Front-end can dynamically deploy and undeploy Edge Clusters on remote providers to scale cloud compute capacity on demand.

How Should I Read This Chapter

Installation starts with the deployment of an OpenNebula Front-end. You should start with the Front-end Deployment Documentation, choosing the appropriate installation method for your use case. After installing the OpenNebula Front-end, you can proceed with the Cluster Deployment Documentation. After successful deployment of an OpenNebula cloud, you can customize it through configuration.

Front-end Deployment

The first step in deploying an OpenNebula cloud is deploying the OpenNebula Front-end. There are three options:

• Automatic Deployment with miniONE: miniONE is a tool for rapid deployment of an OpenNebula Front-end, suitable for evaluation, testing and learning.
• Manual Deployment with System Packages: This option is appropriate for a production environment, for users needing fine-grained control over an OpenNebula cloud deployment. The process consists of three steps to be followed in order:
  1. Database Setup
  2. Repository Configuration:
     • Repository Configuration for OpenNebula Community Edition
     • Repository Configuration for OpenNebula Enterprise Edition
  3. Single Front-end Installation
• Advanced Deployment with OneDeploy: OneDeploy automates the deployment of cloud infrastructure with advanced configuration options.

After deploying an OpenNebula Front-end, you can move on to deploying and managing Clusters through OpenNebula’s Sunstone user interface, the CLI or the REST API.

Cluster Deployment

After successfully deploying an OpenNebula Front-end, you can proceed to manually install or automatically create (provision) Clusters to handle cloud workloads. There are three options:

• Automated Cluster Provisioning with OneForm
• Manual Cluster Installation with KVM
• Manual Cluster Installation with LXC

OneDeploy can also be used to deploy Cluster nodes (independently or simultaneously with Front-end deployment). Please refer to the Advanced Installation with OneDeploy documentation.

Configuration

After deploying an OpenNebula cloud, you can customize the deployment through configuration. The complete references for configuring OpenNebula services, templates, and hypervisor nodes may be found in Operation References.