White Paper - 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.

This document describes the reference architecture for Basic and Advanced OpenNebula clouds. It provides recommendations for the main architectural components, including support for KVM-based Virtual Machines. Each section provides information about other open source infrastructure platforms that have been tested and certified by OpenNebula Systems to work in enterprise environments. As a complement for these certified components, the browseable OpenNebula add-on catalog offers further options supported by partners and by the OpenNebula Community.