OpenStack on Microsoft Windows

Guest and Hypervisor

It might surprise some Linux users, but Windows systems do not only live as guest VMs in OpenStack. Windows can also be used as a hypervisor in OpenStack, and the credit for this goes to CloudBase. In fact, with just a few mouse clicks, you can convert a Hyper-V system into an OpenStack node, and support for storage (Cinder) and the software-defined network (neutron) is already included.

The fact that the company is now even taking it upon itself to launch Open vSwitch in a version for Windows is great news for anyone who would like to add Hyper-V systems as hypervisors in their clouds. Thus, users can hope that CloudBase is making good progress with the porting work.

If you want to test the capabilities of Windows in OpenStack, check the CloudBase site [5] for all the required OpenStack components, as well as a prebuilt image that demonstrates the abilities of Windows guests in OpenStack. The image is a trial version, but you can convert it into a normal version by entering a serial number.

The OpenStack project documentation archive has useful HowTos on setting up a Windows image for use in OpenStack [8].

Infos

  1. "Ballmer: Linux is a cancer", The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/
  2. OpenStack: http://www.openstack.org
  3. Fedora Virtio drivers for KVM: http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/virtio-win/latest/images/
  4. Sysprep: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766049(v=ws.10).aspx
  5. CloudBase: http://www.cloudbase.it
  6. Open vSwitch: http://openvswitch.org/
  7. Cloudbase-init for Windows instances: http://www.cloudbase.it/cloud-init-for-windows-instances/
  8. Windows image for OpenStack: http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/openstack-image/content/windows-image.html

The Author

Martin Gerhard Loschwitz is the principal consultant with Hastexo, where he focuses on high-availability solutions. In his leisure time, he maintains the Linux Cluster stack for Debian GNU/Linux.

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