Apache CloudStack

CloudStack is open-source Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud computing software for creating, managing, and deploying infrastructure cloud services. It uses existing hypervisor platforms for virtualization, such as KVM, VMware vSphere, including ESXi and vCenter, XenServer/XCP and XCP-ng. In addition to its own API, CloudStack also supports the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API^[2] and the Open Cloud Computing Interface from the Open Grid Forum.^[3]

CloudStack

Original author(s)	Cloud.com, Citrix
Developer(s)	Apache Software Foundation
Stable release	4.18.x (LTS) 4.18.2.0 / April 25, 2024; 12 months ago (2024-04-25)[1] 4.17.x (LTS) 4.17.2.0 / December 16, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-12-16)[1]
Repository	CloudStack Repository
Written in	Java (primarily), Python
Platform	Java
Type	Cloud computing
License	Apache License 2.0
Website	cloudstack.apache.org

History

CloudStack was originally developed by Cloud.com, formerly known as VMOps.^[4]

VMOps was founded by Sheng Liang, Shannon Williams, Alex Huang, Will Chan, and Chiradeep Vittal in 2008.^[5][6] The company raised a total of $17.6M in venture funding^[7] from Redpoint Ventures, Nexus Ventures and Index Ventures (Redpoint and Nexus led the initial Series A funding round). The company changed its name from VMOps to Cloud.com on May 4, 2010, when it emerged from stealth mode by announcing its product.^[8][4][9] Cloud.com was based in Cupertino, California.

In May 2010, Cloud.com released most of CloudStack as free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPLv3).^[10] They kept about 5% proprietary.^[11] Cloud.com and Citrix both supported OpenStack, another Apache-licensed cloud computing program, at its announcement in July 2010.^[12][13][14]

In October 2010, Cloud.com announced a partnership with Microsoft to develop the code to provide integration and support of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V to the OpenStack project.^[15]

Citrix Systems purchased Cloud.com on July 12, 2011, for approximately $200 million.^[16][17][18] In August 2011, Citrix released the remaining code under the Apache Software License with further development governed by the Apache Foundation.^[11] In February 2012, Citrix released CloudStack 3.0. Among other features, this added support for Swift, OpenStack's S3-like object storage solution.^[19]

In April 2012, Citrix donated CloudStack to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), where it was accepted into the Apache Incubator; Citrix changed the license to the Apache License version 2. As part of this change, Citrix also ceased their involvement in OpenStack.^[20] On November 6, 2012, CloudStack 4.0.0-incubating was announced,^[21] the first stable release after joining ASF. On March 20, 2013, CloudStack graduated from Apache Incubator and became a Top-Level Project (TLP) of ASF.^[22] The first stable (maintenance) release after graduation is CloudStack 4.0.2.^[23]

Key features

• Rich user-interface
• noVNC-based VM console
• Built-in high-availability for hosts and VMs
• Hypervisor-agnostic
• Multiple storage options including block and shared storage support
• Snapshot management
• Usage metering
• Network management (VLAN, security groups)
• Virtual routers, firewalls, load balancers
• Multi-role support
• LDAP, SAML, 2FA
• End-to-end encryption including secured console, volume and database encryption
• AWS API compatibility

^[24]

Supported Hypervisors

Hypervisor[25]	Version	EOL (End Of Life)
VMware vSphere	6.5	15/10/2022[26]
VMware vSphere	6.7	15/10/2022[26]
VMware vSphere	7.0	02/04/2025[26]
VMware vSphere	8.0	11/10/2029
Citrix Hypervisor	7.1	12/12/2023[27]
Citrix Hypervisor	7.2	12/12/2023[27]
Citrix Hypervisor	7.4	12/12/2023[27]
Citrix Hypervisor	7.5	12/12/2023[27]
Citrix Hypervisor	8.0	25/07/2025[28]
XCP-ng	7.4	31/12/2018[28]
XCP-ng	7.6	30/03/2020[28]
XCP-ng	8.0	13/11/2020[28]
XCP-ng	8.1	31/03/2021[28]
XCP-ng	8.2	25/06/2025[28]
Centos / Red Hat  KVM	7	30/08/2021[29]
Centos / Red Hat  KVM	8	31/05/2029[29]
Rocky/Alma Linux / Red Hat KVM	9	31 May 2034
Ubuntu / KVM	18	2028[30]
Ubuntu / KVM	20	2030[30]
Ubuntu / KVM	22	2027
Opensuse Leap / KVM	15	04/01/2022[31]
Suse Linux Enterprise Server	15	31/07/2028[32]
Rocky Linux	8	2029[33]
Red Hat / LXC	7	30/08/2021[29]
Microsoft Hyper-V	2012 R2	10/10/2023[34]

BareMetal hosts

• RHEL or CentOS, v7.x
• Ubuntu 16.04

Deployment architecture

The minimum production installation consists of one machine running the CloudStack Management Server and another machine to act as the cloud infrastructure (in this case, a very simple infrastructure consisting of one host running hypervisor software). In its smallest deployment, a single machine can act as both the Management Server and the hypervisor host (using the KVM hypervisor).^[35]

Multiple management servers can be configured for redundancy and load balancing, all pointing to a common MySQL database.

Users

In July 2012 it was reported that Datapipe launched the largest international public cloud to be built on CloudStack, which included 6 data centers in the US, Britain, and Asia.^[36]

Events

CloudStack Collaboration Conference 2023

CloudStack India User Group

CloudStack European User Group

CloudStack Collaboration Conference 2022 (Hybrid), Hybrid Event, November 14–16, 2022

CloudStack European User Group (vCSEUG), Virtual Event, 7 April 2022

CloudStack Collaboration Conference 2021, Virtual Event, November 8–12