Using OpenStack Compute cells, the NeCTAR Research Cloud spans eight sites with approximately 4,000 cores per site.
Each site runs a different configuration, as resource cells in an OpenStack Compute cells setup. Some sites span multiple data centers, some use off compute node storage with a shared file system, and some use on compute node storage with a nonshared file system. Each site deploys the Image Service with an Object Storage back end. A central Identity Service, dashboard, and Compute API service is used. A login to the dashboard triggers a SAML login with Shibboleth, which creates an account in the Identity Service with an SQL back end.
Compute nodes have 24 to 48 cores, with at least 4 GB of RAM per core and approximately 40 GB of ephemeral storage per core.
All sites are based on Ubuntu 12.04 with KVM as the hypervisor. The OpenStack version in use is typically the current stable version, with 5 to 10 percent back-ported code from trunk and modifications. Migration to Ubuntu 14.04 is planned as part of the Havana to Icehouse upgrade.
