Title: OpenStack: a virtualisation overview

Authors: Faouzi Mechraoui; Pedro Martins; Filipe Caldeira

Addresses: UCLL, University of Leuven Limburg, Leuven, Belgium ' CISeD – Research Centre in Digital Services, Polytechnic of Viseu, Portugal ' CISeD – Research Centre in Digital Services, Polytechnic of Viseu, Portugal

Abstract: The major cloud computing software companies offer a new concept, on which resources are virtualised to provide these as a service on the internet. Currently, there are multiple service providers, and additional options to virtualise services on-premises. OpenStack is an open-source alternative to create virtual local or cloud setups, which supports petabytes of data, unlimited scale, and configurable networking. These features make this tool suitable for large scale virtualisation, reducing maintenance costs and optimising hardware resource utilisation (e.g., schools, government). This paper presents an overview of the study of the OpenStack software, oriented to build a scalable hosting architecture suitable for an educational setup. Functional and architectural details are discussed to implement unique cloud computing to fit virtualisation purposes. An experimental virtualisation setup is described in the scope of an educational scenario. Finally, a guideline to configure OpenStack is given.

Keywords: OpenStack; infrastructure as a service; IaaS; virtualisation; cloud computing; open source.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2024.136181

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2024 Vol.23 No.1, pp.1 - 12

Received: 01 May 2019
Accepted: 20 Apr 2020
Published online: 22 Jan 2024 *

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