Hardware: OpenStack components are intended to run on standard hardware. Recommended hardware configurations for a minimum production deployment are as follows for the cloud controller nodes and compute nodes for Compute and the Image Service, and object, account, container, and proxy servers for Object Storage.
| Server | Recommended Hardware | Notes |
| Cloud Controller node (runs network, volume, API, scheduler and image services) |
Processor: 64-bit x86 Memory: 12 GB RAM Disk space: 30 GB (SATA or SAS or SSD) Volume storage: two disks with 2 TB (SATA) for volumes attached to the compute nodes Network: one 1 GB Network Interface Card (NIC) |
Two NICS are recommended but not required. A quad core server with 12 GB RAM would be more than sufficient for a cloud controller node. 32-bit processors will work for the cloud controller node. The package repositories referred to in this guide do not contain i386 packages. |
| Compute nodes (runs virtual instances) |
Processor: 64-bit x86 Memory: 32 GB RAM Disk space: 30 GB (SATA) Network: two 1 GB NICs |
Note that you cannot run 64-bit VM instances on a 32-bit compute node. A 64-bit compute node can run either 32- or 64-bit VMs, however. With 2 GB RAM you can run one m1.small instance on a node or three m1.tiny instances without memory swapping, so 2 GB RAM would be a minimum for a test-environment compute node. As an example, Rackspace Cloud Builders use 96 GB RAM for compute nodes in OpenStack deployments. Specifically for virtualization on certain hypervisors on the node or nodes running nova-compute, you need a x86 machine with an AMD processor with SVM extensions (also called AMD-V) or an Intel processor with VT (virtualization technology) extensions. For Xen-based hypervisors, the Xen wiki contains a list of compatible processors on the HVM Compatible Processors page. For XenServer-compatible Intel processors, refer to the Intel® Virtualization Technology List. For LXC, the VT extensions are not required. The packages referred to in this guide do not contain i386 packages. |
![[Note]](../common/images/admon/note.png) | Note |
|---|---|
While certain parts of OpenStack are known to work on various operating systems, currently the only feature-complete, production-supported host environment is Linux. |
Operating System: OpenStack currently has packages for the following distributions: CentOS, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, Debian, and Ubuntu. These packages are maintained by community members, refer to http://wiki.openstack.org/Packaging for additional links.
Database: For OpenStack Compute, you need access to either a PostgreSQL or MySQL database, or you can install it as part of the OpenStack Compute installation process. For Object Storage, the container and account servers use SQLite, and you can install it as part of the installation process.
Permissions: You can install OpenStack Compute, the Image Service, or Object Storage either as root or as a user with sudo permissions if you configure the sudoers file to enable all the permissions.
Network Time Protocol: You must install a time synchronization program such as NTP. For Compute, time synchronization keeps your cloud controller and compute nodes talking to the same time server to avoid problems scheduling VM launches on compute nodes. For Object Storage, time synchronization ensure the object replications are accurately updating objects when needed so that the freshest content is served.
