Massively scalable
A massively scalable architecture is a cloud
implementation that is either a very large deployment, such as
a commercial service provider might build, or
one that has the capability to support user requests for large
amounts of cloud resources. An example is an
infrastructure in which requests to service 500 or more instances
at a time is common. A massively scalable infrastructure
fulfills such a request without exhausting the available
cloud infrastructure resources. While the high capital cost
of implementing such a cloud architecture means that it is
currently in limited use, many organizations are planning
for massive scalability in the future.
A massively scalable OpenStack cloud design presents a
unique set of challenges and considerations. For the most part
it is similar to a general purpose cloud architecture, as it
is built to address a non-specific range of potential use
cases or functions. Typically, it is rare that particular
workloads determine the design or configuration of massively
scalable clouds. Like the general purpose cloud, the massively
scalable cloud is most often built as a platform for a variety
of workloads. Because private organizations rarely require
or have the resources for them, massively scalable OpenStack clouds
are generally built as commercial, public cloud offerings.
Services provided by a massively scalable OpenStack cloud
include:
Virtual-machine disk image library
Raw block storage
File or object storage
Firewall functionality
Load balancing functionality
Private (non-routable) and public (floating) IP
addresses
Virtualized network topologies
Software bundles
Virtual compute resources
Like a general purpose cloud, the instances deployed in a
massively scalable OpenStack cloud do not necessarily use
any specific aspect of the cloud offering (compute, network,
or storage). As the cloud grows in scale, the number of
workloads can cause stress on all the cloud
components. This adds further stresses to supporting
infrastructure such as databases and message brokers. The
architecture design for such a cloud must account for these
performance pressures without negatively impacting user
experience.