CloudStack’s User Data service by default is provided by the Virtual Router (VR). This architecture is fine when deploying a VR is fine. For some deployments this may be problematic though, as of computational or IP address resources or as of VPC tier limitations. Especially for SDN enriched cloud deployments, there is wide interest to scrap the deployment of VR’s.
The presentation captures two alternative approaches for the Virtual Router, which Nuage Networks implemented and which both are being worked at for upstream inclusion. A first approach is based on Config Drive, made available for Isolated Networks and VPC. A second approach is one in which CloudStack no longer is the User Data provider but in which the location of an external User Data service is provided to the guest VM through user-defined (“extra”) DHCP options.
The presentation outlines both approaches in detail.
