Cloud services

Timeline
OpenStack as Private Cloud to offer IaaS and PaaS for unmanaged VMs (April 2026 onwards)

In April 2026 we will offer OpenStack to selected users for evaluation and tests, starting September 2026 OpenStack will be available to all students and staff.

Initially we will only offer Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) with self-service for users. Based on this we will further extend the platform with additional services. This will continuesly replace VMware until Q4/2026.

The following is a working draft of the technical service description of our OpenStack platform.

1. Hardware

Due to lack of power in the datacenter, we start with 2+2 nodes only and gradualy increase as the situations allows.

1.1 Control Plane

4x Supermicro Server SYS-122H-TN (8 bay NVMe):

  • 2x Intel Xeon 6530P
  • 16x 32GB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 ECC RDIMM
  • 1x Intel E810-XXVDA2 - PCIe 4.0 x8 - 2x SFP28
  • 2x SolidIGM D7-PS1010 1.92TB U.2
  • 2x SolidIGM D5-P5430 7.68TB U.2

1.2 Data Plan

upto 32x Supermicro Server SYS-122H-TN (8 bay NVMe):

  • 2x Intel Xeon 6756E
  • 16x 64GB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 ECC RDIMM
  • 1x Intel E810-XXVDA4 - PCIe 4.0 x8 - 4x SFP28
  • 2x SolidIGM D7-PS1010 1.92TB

upto 32x Supermicro Server SYS-122H-TN (8 bay NVMe):

  • 2x Intel Xeon 6530P
  • 16x 64GB PC5-51200 6400MHz DDR5 ECC RDIMM
  • 1x Intel E810-XXVDA4 - PCIe 4.0 x8 - 4x SFP28
  • 2x SolidIGM D7-PS1010 1.92TB

2. Software

2.1 Base System

Debian 13 (trixie)

2.2 OpenStack

OpenStack 2025.1 (epoxy)

3. Services

3.1 Core Services

Service Implementation Status
cinder done
glance done
horizon
keystone
neutron done
nova done
placement done
rally done

3.2 Supporting Services

Service Implementation Status
haproxy done
mariadb FIXME: TLS in galera replication
memcached
ovn done
proxysql TODO: implement debian deployment/packaging
rabbitmq done
dehydrated TODO: review and merge patches
Ceph FIXME: needs lifecycle for capacity
SSP TODO: finish OpenStack integration

4. Features

4.1 User Features

Service Implementation Status
VM create done
VM start done
VM stop done
VM remove done
VM console done
VM life migration done
VM cold migration done
VM Snapshot create done
VM Snapshot remove done
VM Snapshot restore done

4.2 Infrastructure Features

Service Implementation Status
Storage completely on Ceph
Ceph RBD and Pool snapshots work alongside (copy image into image pool)
Hostnames TODO: schema needs to be checked/finalized
Subnets TODO: schema needs to be checked/finalized
Addresses TODO: schema needs to be checked/finalized
Permissions TODO: LDAP schema needs to be checked/finalized
Backup TODO: apart from Ceph Snapshots, OpenStack has a Backup service
Monitoring TODO: needs to be implemented

5. TODO

5.1 Notes

  • define VM flavours
  • define user limits
  • define Firewall processes
  • update tooling to build VM images
  • clarify host aggregates vs availability zones
  • clarify MWS Subnets
  • setup test environment
  • clarify maintenance vs development
  • clarify feature roadmap
  • create user documentation
  • check apache hardening
  • document 1way vs 2way TLS

5.2 Problems

  • "horizon slow"

5.3 Procedures

  1. Review
  2. Resiliance/HA tests
  3. Disaster recovery
  4. TLS renew test
  5. Update tests

6. Wishlist

  • fully encrypt memcache