Compute controls hypervisors through an API server. Selecting the best hypervisor to use can be difficult, and you must take budget, resource constraints, supported features, and required technical specifications into account. However, the majority of OpenStack development is done on systems using KVM and Xen-based hypervisors. For a detailed list of features and support across different hypervisors, see http://wiki.openstack.org/HypervisorSupportMatrix.
You can also orchestrate clouds using multiple hypervisors in different availability zones. Compute supports the following hypervisors:
For more information about hypervisors, see the Hypervisors section in the OpenStack Configuration Reference.
