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commit 57957783315853a6c8c34b4dc8dd023e2df88a3a
Author: Daan Hoogland <d...@onecht.net>
AuthorDate: Wed Jan 15 13:06:17 2025 +0100
New Features page
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@@ -4,259 +4,125 @@ title: Apache CloudStack Features
# ☁️ Apache CloudStack Features
-As a mature and turnkey Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, Apache
CloudStack has a comprehensive set of features. This is an extensive, but not
exhaustive, set of features.
-
-Have a feature request? We'd invite you to [bring it up on the mailing
list](/mailing-lists), and consider [filing a feature request in our issue
tracker](https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/issues).
-
-<h2>Rich Management User Interface</h2>
-
-CloudStack provides a feature-rich out-of-the-box user interface implemented on
-top of the CloudStack API to manage the cloud infrastructure. It is a fully
AJAX
-based solution compatible with most of the latest internet browsers and can
also
-be easily integrated with your existing portal.
-
-<h2>Brand-able Self Service User Interface</h2>
-
-Our out-of-the-box user interface was built using standard HTML and CSS with
-jQuery as our standard JavaScript library. It can be easily customized and
-branded to mirror your company’s existing look and feel.
-
-<h2>Secure Console Access</h2>
-
-A noVNC based client that allows users to access their virtual machine using
any
-of the latest internet browsers without the need of any external add-on such as
-a JRE, ActiveX, or Flash.
-
-<h2>Powerful API</h2>
-
-Easily build, integrate, and use applications built on top of the CloudStack
-API. The CloudStack API is well-documented and extensible. CloudStack also
-includes support for the Amazon EC2 and S3 APIs.
-
-<h2>Secure Single Sign On</h2>
-
-Aggregate and integrate your existing applications with our management user
-interface via our secure single sign-on for a better user experience.
-
-<h2>Multi-role Support</h2>
-
-Three distinct account roles for user interface and API access are supported
out-of-the-box:
-- Admin: can manage both the virtual and physical resources of the cloud
-- Domain-Admin: can manage only the virtual resources owned by the accounts
within their domain
-- User: can manage their own virtual resources
-
-In addition, CloudStack allows operators to define dynamic roles based on
these core role types.
-
-<h2>On Demand Virtual Data center Hosting</h2>
-
-Provides users with virtually unlimited amount of computing resources – on
-demand, as required and billed by actual usage.
-
-<h2>Dynamic Workload Management</h2>
-
-Completely automates the distribution of compute, network, and storage resource
-across the physical infrastructure while adhering to defined policies on load
-balancing, data security, and compliance.
-
-<h2>Broad network Virtualization Capabilities</h2>
-
-Support for embedded software-based network management as well as VLAN. Our
-Direct Attached IP enables you to integrate with a virtual network architecture
-that best fits your needs.
-
-<h2>MPLS Support in the Cloud</h2>
-
-CloudStack allows you to dedicate an entire VLAN to a specific account for MPLS
-support between network nodes.
-
-<h2>Secure Cloud Deployments</h2>
-
-Ensures that all memory, CPU, network, and storage resources are both available
-and isolated from one user account to another within the cloud.
-
-<h2>Hypervisor Agnostic</h2>
-
-CloudStack provides you with the flexibility to allow you to integrate with the
-major hypervisors in the market today including KVM, VMware, Citrix
-XenServer, XCP-ng.
-
-<h2>Easy Template Creation Process</h2>
-
-The CloudStack User Interface allows you to easily create pre-defined templates
-for efficient virtual machine deployments. Templates can be created by
attaching
-a guest OS ISO to a blank VM or directly from existing VMs in the cloud.
-
-<h2>Rich Template and ISO Management</h2>
-
-Both users and administrators will be able to upload and manage their OS
-templates and ISO images from within the cloud. A few management features
-include the ability to allow others to use the templates/ISOs either on a
global
-public level or on a per-account basis, and to allow the management of
templates
-across multiple zones. CloudStack will ensure that templates are automatically
-copied to the appropriate storage servers.
-
-<h2>Domains and Delegated Administration</h2>
-
-The support for domains allows you to segregate your cloud resources and
-delegate the management of these domains to other administrators.
-
-<h2>Snapshot Management</h2>
-
-To help mitigate data loss and a way of disaster recovery, users are given the
-capability of either taking ad hoc snapshots of their disk volumes or setting
up
-a comprehensive schedule for taking periodic snapshots of their data. Users can
-set limits to the number of snapshots taken to creating new data disk volumes
-from existing snapshots.
-
-<h2>Comprehensive Service Management</h2>
-
-Administrators can define, meter, deploy, and manage multiple service and disk
-offerings within the cloud.
-
-<h2>VM Sync and High Availability</h2>
-
-Our custom VM Sync technology constantly monitors and maintains the state of
all
-virtual machines within the cloud from notifications of individual VM status to
-the ability to automatically ensure that the VM remains running.
-
-<h2>Resource Over Provisioning and Limits</h2>
-
-By leveraging existing hypervisor, storage, and network technologies, you can
-configure the cloud to allow over provisioning of physical resources to
optimize
-the allocation of your virtual machines.
-
-CloudStack also provides administrators the capability of limiting virtual
-resources (such as the number of VMs that an account can create to the number
of
-public IP addresses an account can own).
-
-<h2>Usage Metering</h2>
-
-Be able to deliver real-time visibility, produce historical usage reports, and
-create billing invoices by integrating with metering data generated by the
-CloudStack Usage Engine.
-
-<h2>Alerts and Notifications</h2>
-
-With built-in cloud system monitoring processes, you will be able to receive
-up-to-the-minute alerts such as reaching a certain physical resource threshold
-or detecting machine failures through the CloudStack API and/or via email using
-SMTP.
-
-<h2>Virtual Routers, Firewalls and Load Balancers</h2>
-
-CloudStack supports integration with both software and hardware firewalls and
-load balancers to provide additional security and scalability to a user’s cloud
-environment. Including F5 and Netscaler.
-
-<h2>Multiple Storage Solutions</h2>
-
-CloudStack supports many storage solutions with iSCSI and NFS being preferred,
-but anything that can have multiple nodes mount it simultaneously will work.
-Ceph RBD is also supported in combination with the KVM hypervisor. This gives
-you the ultimate freedom in deciding your storage servers from using commodity
-hardware to integrating with enterprise-grade solutions such as Dell
EqualLogic,
-NetApp, Dell/EMC PowerFlex, Linbit, Storpool.
-
-<h2>Storage Tiering</h2>
-
-As part of the CloudStack’s ability to integrate with multiple storage
-solutions, you will also be able to target specific storage servers to be used
-for VM deployments. This can be extremely beneficial when you have storage
-servers built with commodity hardware to support non disk intensive
applications
-and dedicate fast and robust hardware for disk intensive applications such as
-databases.
-
-<h2>Block Storage Volumes</h2>
-
-CloudStack supports the creation of block storage volumes of arbitrary size on
-both network attached storage (NAS) or local disk that can be attached and
-detached to and from your virtual machine.
-
-<h2>Wide Range Guest VM OS Support</h2>
-
-Depending on the configured hypervisor, CloudStack supports a wide range of
-guest operating system including Windows®, Linux®, and various versions of
BSD®.
-
-<h2>Event/Audit Logs</h2>
-
-All user interactions via the CloudStack UI or API are recorded as events. Each
-event will indicate the type, severity level, description, owner of the
-resource, the user that initiated the action, and when the event occurred.
-
-<h2>User Data Support</h2>
-
-CloudStack supports the notion of allowing a user to submit any type of binary
-user data when deploying a new virtual machine. This gives you the flexibility
-of giving each virtual machine created from the same OS template its own
-identity in the cloud.
-
-<h2>Guest OS Preferences</h2>
-
-To take advantage of today’s hardware and OS licensing models, CloudStack
allows
-administrators to identify physical hosts to “prefer” specific operating
-systems. For example this means that whenever possible, your Windows based
-operating systems will be instantiated on all hosts that have been identified
as
-Windows “preferred.”
-
-<h2>Host Maintenance with Live Migration</h2>
-
-Upgrades and hardware maintenance can be achieved on the cloud with no downtime
-for guest VMs. CloudStack will live-migrate any VMs from hosts that have been
-targeted for maintenance to prevent any disruption of service.
-
-<h2>Flexible Adapter Framework</h2>
-
-The CloudStack was built from the ground up to support integration with a
-variety of hypervisors, storage, network, and authentication solutions. Due to
-this flexibility, we have created an Adapter Framework that will easily allow
-you to further customize the cloud to suit your business needs.
-
-<h2>Random Password for Guest OS</h2>
-
-You can further enhance your guest OS templates to include our custom random
-password feature that will automatically generate a unique password upon the
-creation of a VM. This will allow your customers to securely log in and change
-their password. Both Windows and Linux based OS platforms are currently
-supported.
-
-<h2>OpenStack Swift Integration for Secondary Storage</h2>
-
-Secondary storage (templates and VM snapshots) can be stored in OpenStack Swift
-as an alternative to NFS.
-
-<h2>Projects</h2>
-
-Allow users to collaborate and share resources within a defined group or
-"project". When a user creates an a project all usage under the project is
-attributed to the account who becomes the project owner.
-
-<h2>Clustered LVM Support</h2>
-
-CloudStack can utilize clustered Logical Volume Manager (LVM) storage
-configurations starting with version 3.0.
-
-<h2>NetScaler Support</h2>
-
-CloudStack supports MPX, VPX & SDX devices. Users can set up Layer-4 load
-balancing rules. Supported protocols: HTTP, TCP & UDP; Algorithms: least loaded
-and round robin; Persistent sessions: source IP based, cookie based.
-
-<h2>Network As a Service</h2>
-
-Admin can compose network offerings with different network behaviors. For
-example, a basic network offering with CloudStack Virtual Router offering
-network services and a high-performance network offering with physical devices
-such as NetScaler and Juniper SRX. Users can select the network offering of
-choice while deploying a VM and also migrate VMs from one network offering to
-another.
-
-<h2>SAML and LDAP Integration with 2FA</h2>
-
-CloudStack supports SAML LDAP authentication as a built-in optional AUTH
adapter.
-CloudStack also supports two-factor authentication.
-
-<h2>Notification & Capacity Thresholds</h2>
-
-Admin can set notification threshold to receive an alert when resource pool
-crosses the notification threshold. Capacity threshold prevents CloudStack from
-allocating further resources to that pool.
+As a mature, turnkey Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, Apache
CloudStack has a comprehensive set of features. This is an extensive, but not
exhaustive, set of features.
+
+Do you have a feature request? If so, we’d like to invite you to [bring it up
on the mailing list](/mailing-lists), and consider [filing a feature request in
our issue tracker](https://github.com/apache/cloudstack/issues).
+
+## User Interface
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Rich Management User Interface</div> |
CloudStack provides a feature-rich out-of-the-box UI implemented on top of the
CloudStack API to manage the cloud infrastructure. It is a fully AJAX-based
solution compatible with the latest internet browsers and can be integrated
with existing portals. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Brand-able Self Service User Interface</div>
| The user interface, built with standard HTML and CSS using jQuery, can be
easily customized and branded to match your company’s look and feel. |
+| Secure Console Access | A noVNC client allows users to access their virtual
machines via any latest internet browser without needing external add-ons like
JRE, ActiveX, or Flash. |
+| Usage Management UI | Offers a user-friendly graphical interface for
monitoring, reporting, and managing resource usage, enhancing transparency and
operational efficiency. |
+
+## Security and Access Control
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>OAuth2 Authentication</div> | OAuth2 plugin
provides Single-Sign-On with third-party identity providers such as Google and
GitHub. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Two-Factor Authentication Framework</div> |
Enables two-factor authentication for access to the CloudStack UI, applicable
globally, by domain, or for specific users. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Support for Time based OTP (TOTP)
Authenticator</div> | Provides a Time-based OTP (TOTP) Authenticator plugin for
random OTP per transaction when authenticating cloud users. |
+| Secure Single Sign | On Aggregate and integrate existing applications with
the management UI via secure single sign-on for a better user experience. |
+| Multi-role Support | Supports distinct account roles: Admin, Domain-Admin,
and User, with dynamic role definition options. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>SAML and LDAP Integration with 2FA</div> |
Supports SAML and LDAP authentication and two-factor authentication as a
built-in optional AUTH adapter. |
+
+## APIs
+
+Visit the Integrations page to find out more about the integrations available
with Apache CloudStack.
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| Powerful API | Easily build, integrate, and use applications with the
well-documented and extensible CloudStack API. Supports Amazon EC2 and S3 APIs.
|
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>VMware to KVM Migration</div> | Supports
converting VMware disks to KVM via virt-v2v, facilitating migrations from
managed and unmanaged vCenter to CloudStack-managed KVM hosts. |
+| KVM Import | Enables cloud administrators to import unmanaged KVM hypervisor
infrastructure into Apache CloudStack. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Flexible Adapter Framework</div> | Built to
support integration with various hypervisors, storage, network, and
authentication solutions. The Adapter Framework allows for easy customization. |
+| Object Storage | Implements the Object Storage Framework, allowing operators
to select external object store providers for users as a first-class resource. |
+
+## Virtualization and Compute
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| Hypervisor Agnostic | Provides flexibility to integrate with major
hypervisors including KVM, VMware, Citrix XenServer, and XCP-ng. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Dynamic Workload Management</div> |
Automates distribution and rebalancing of compute, network, and storage
resources based on defined policies on load balancing, compliance and data
security. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>VM Sync and High Availability</div> |
Monitors and maintains VM state, ensuring continuous operation by handling
status notifications and maintaining VM performance. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Host Maintenance with Live Migration</div> |
Enables upgrades and hardware maintenance with no downtime for guest VMs
through live migration. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Scheduled Instance Lifecycle
Operations</div> | Allows users to automate state transitions of cloud
resources with predefined schedules. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>ARM64 Support and Multi-Architecture
Zones</div> | Enables ARM64 compatibility, allowing seamless deployment across
mixed ARM64 and x86_64 Hosts within a single Zone for optimized performance and
flexibility. |
+
+## Storage and Data Management
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Multiple Storage Solutions</div> |
CloudStack supports various storage solutions, with iSCSI and NFS preferred,
and also supports Ceph RBD with KVM. It offers flexibility for both commodity
and enterprise-grade storage systems. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>KVM Multiple Local Storage</div> | Supports
multiple local storage volumes for KVM-based hosts. |
+| Storage Tiering | CloudStack allows targeting specific storage servers for
VM deployments, enabling use of commodity hardware for less demanding apps and
high-performance hardware for disk-intensive applications like databases. |
+| Volume Encryption | Supports encryption of both root and data volumes on KVM
hypervisors, utilizing various storage types including NFS and ScaleIO. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Block Storage Volumes</div> | Supports
creation and management of block storage volumes of arbitrary size on
network-attached or local disks. |
+| Snapshot Management | Allows ad hoc snapshots or scheduled snapshots of data
volumes, with options to create new volumes from existing snapshots. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Rich Template and ISO Management</div> |
Users and administrators can upload and manage OS templates and ISO images,
with global or per-account access and automatic copying to storage servers. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Easy Template Creation Process</div> |
Facilitates creation of pre-defined templates from guest OS ISOs or existing
VMs for efficient deployment. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>CloudStack Snapshot Copy</div> | Enables
copying volume snapshots across zones to ensure data recovery and continuity. |
+| Managed User Data | Users can register and manage UserData scripts as
CloudStack resources, associating them with templates or during deployment. |
+| Shared File Systems | Provides Instances with shared file system access,
supporting NFS with XFS or EXT4, ideal for high-availability and distributed
storage solutions. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>NAS Backup and Recovery Plugin</div> |
Enhances backup capabilities by integrating NAS-based storage, providing a
cost-effective solution for protecting cloud resources. |
+
+## Networking
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Broad Network Virtualization
Capabilities</div> | Supports software-based network management and VLANs, with
Direct Attached IP integration. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>MPLS Support in the Cloud</div> | Supports
dedicating a VLAN to a specific account for MPLS between network nodes. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Virtual Routers, Firewalls and Load
Balancers</div> | Integrates with software and hardware firewalls and load
balancers, including F5 and Netscaler. |
+| Network As a Service | Allows composition of network offerings with various
behaviors and migration of VMs across network offerings. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>IPv6 support for Isolated and VPC
Networks</div> | Before the CloudStack 4.17 release, CloudStack already
supported IPv6 for Shared Networks; since the release IPv6 is also supported
for Isolated Networks and VPC. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Dynamic and Static Routing</div> | Supports
Static Routing with manual route configuration and Dynamic Routing using BGP
for automatic route propagation, enabling flexible and efficient network
traffic management. |
+| VNF Appliances Support | Allows cloud operators to integrate custom Virtual
Network Functions (VNFs) for enhanced network services, including routing,
firewalls, WAN optimization, IDS/IPS, and load balancing, while adhering to
organizational security policies. |
+| VMware NSX-T Support | Seamlessly integrates with NSX-T v4 to provide
advanced networking capabilities such as dynamic routing, security services,
and enhanced scalability in VMware environments. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Security Groups for Shared Networks in
Advanced Zones</div> | Adds support for Security Groups in Shared Networks,
allowing Instance-level security enforcement in Advanced Zones. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Tungsten Fabric Support / OpenSDN</div> |
Integrates the Tungsten Fabric / OpenSDN, offering high-performance networking
with DPDK optimization and lifecycle management. Enhances security and network
capabilities, supporting features like Static NAT, Port Forwarding, Firewall,
and Load Balancing without Virtual Router overhead in KVM environments. |
+
+## Management and Monitoring
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| Usage Metering | Provides real-time visibility, historical usage reports,
and billing invoices through integration with the CloudStack Usage Engine. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Alerts and Notifications</div> | Built-in
monitoring for alerts on resource thresholds and machine failures via API and
email. |
+| Event/Audit Logs | Records all user interactions with details on type,
severity, description, owner, user, and timestamp. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Notification & Capacity Thresholds</div> |
Allows setting of notification thresholds and capacity limits to manage
resource allocation. |
+| CloudStack Webhooks | Introduces a Webhook Framework enabling real-time
notifications and seamless integration with third-party tools triggered by
system events. |
+
+## Projects and Resource Management
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| Projects | Enables collaboration and resource sharing within defined groups,
with all usage attributed to the project owner. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Domains and Delegated Administration</div> |
Supports cloud resource segregation and delegation of domain management to
other administrators. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Resource Over Provisioning and Limits</div>
| Allows over-provisioning of physical resources and setting limits on virtual
resources. |
+
+## Guest OS and Customization
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Wide Range Guest VM OS Support</div> |
Supports various guest operating systems including Windows®, Linux®, and BSD®
based on the hypervisor configuration. |
+| Guest OS Preferences | Allows administrators to prefer specific OS on
physical hosts to optimize for hardware and licensing models. |
+| User Data Support | Supports binary user data submission during VM
deployment for custom VM identities. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Random Password for Guest OS</div> | Enhance
guest OS templates with the custom random passwords upon VM creation for
unique, secure logins on both Windows and Linux OS platforms. |
+
+## Additional Features/Functionality
+
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Feature/Functionality</div> | Description |
+| --- | --- |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Secure Cloud Deployments</div> | Ensures
that all memory, CPU, network, and storage resources are both available and
isolated from one user account to another within the cloud. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Comprehensive Service Management</div> |
Administrators can define, meter, deploy, and manage multiple service and disk
offerings within the cloud. |
+| CloudStack DRS | Automates workload distribution and rebalancing between
hosts to enhance performance and resource utilization. |
+| Edge Zones | Simplifies deployment of lightweight zones in edge locations by
removing complexities like shared storage, external switching and System VMs
not being required for Edge Zones. |
+| Autoscaling | Native autoscaling support starting from CloudStack 4.18,
removing the need for external devices for metrics. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Clustered LVM Support</div> | Supports
clustered Logical Volume Manager (LVM) storage configurations. |
+| NetScaler Support | Integration with MPX, VPX & SDX devices for Layer-4 load
balancing with support for HTTP, TCP & UDP protocols. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>VR Zero Downtime Upgrades and Live
Patching</div> | Enables zero downtime upgrades and live patching of virtual
routers without complete removal or re-instantiation. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>On Demand Virtual Data Center Hosting</div>
| Provides users with virtually unlimited amount of computing resources – on
demand, as required and billed by actual usage. |
+| VR Live Patching | This feature can also be used independently of upgrades
and allow CloudStack admins to apply software updates to Virtual Routers on the
fly. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Granular Resource Limits</div> | Empowers
Administrators to define precise Compute and Storage limits, including
specialized resources such as GPU Servers, ARM/x86 Hosts, and diverse Primary
Storage types, ensuring optimal resource management. |
+| <div style={{ width: '120pt' }}>Scheduled Instance Lifecycle
Operations</div> | Enables users to automate Instance state transitions, such
as start, stop, or reboot, based on predefined schedules for efficient resource
management. |
