Nova - Compute Service

Nova is a core service in OpenStack, and provides compute services. Typically this is via Virtual Machines (VMs), but may also be via bare metal servers if Nova is coupled with Ironic.

Nova is enabled by default, but may be disabled by setting enable_nova to no in globals.yml.

Virtualisation Drivers

The virtualisation driver may be selected via nova_compute_virt_type in globals.yml. Supported options are qemu, kvm, vmware, and xenapi. The default is kvm.

HyperV

Information on using Nova with HyperV can be found in Nova HyperV.

Libvirt

Information on the libvirt-based drivers kvm and qemu can be found in Libvirt - Nova Virtualisation Driver.

VMware

Information on the VMware-based driver vmware can be found in VMware - Nova Virtualisation Driver.

XenServer

Information on the XenServer-based driver xenapi can be found in XenServer - Nova Virtualisation Driver.

Bare Metal

Information on using Nova with Ironic to deploy compute instances to bare metal can be found in Ironic - Bare Metal provisioning.

Fake Driver

The fake driver can be used for testing Nova’s scaling properties without requiring access to a large amount of hardware resources. It is covered in Nova Fake Driver.

Consoles

The console driver may be selected via nova_console in globals.yml. Valid options are none, novnc, spice, or rdp. Additionally, serial console support can be enabled by setting enable_nova_serialconsole_proxy to yes.

Cells

Information on using Nova Cells V2 to scale out can be found in Nova Cells.