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I’d like to set up a public cloud for web hosting (cloud shared hosting, cloud vps, cloud servers) for a new venture, using Apache CloudStack platform.

----- Question #1 -----

What is the proper way to initially start the hardware infrastructure (example)? I’m thinking the below would be a good starting point, but please correct me if I’m wrong. Note that, I’d like to start off a little beefy.

Server #1
Purpose: CloudStack Control Panel Install (Management Server)
Qty: 1
VM Machine (one production, one backup/HA)
Cores: about 2-4 
2-4GB RAM

Server #2
Purpose: Hypervisors (CPU + Memory + Storage)
Qty: 1 plus 1 for failover (HA)
Dual Hexacore CPUs
128GB RAM
12 x 1TB SAS (or SSD) RAID10
*above drives is for main storage, I know is pricey, but it's only for an example*

Server #3
Purpose: Backup Server (NAS)
Qty: 1
Dual Quad Core CPUs
16GB RAM
12 x 2TB SATA RAID10

----- Question #2 -----

With cloud hosting, what would the difference be between a "cloud vps" and "cloud dedicated server"? If I'm not mistaken, they're the same, except the allowance for a 'dedicated server' option would be much higher, right?

Last question: does anyone use this for automated provisioning with WHMCS or do you recommend a better software?

1 Answers1

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Well there are many ways to go about it. However for the scale you are looking at you'd want something more like this:

Load Balancer (Netscaler VPX?) for Management Servers

Server #1
Purpose: CloudStack Management Server & MySQL
Qty: 1
Xeon E3-1230 (or the like)
Cores: 4 
4 X 500GB SSD RAID10
8GB RAM

Server #2
Purpose: CloudStack Management Server & MySQL for HA
Qty: 1
Xeon E3-1230 (or the like)
Cores: 4 
4 X 500GB SSD RAID10
8GB RAM

Server #3
Purpose: Hypervisor 1 (CPU + Memory + Storage)
Qty: 1 plus 1 for failover (HA)
Dual Hexacore CPUs
128GB RAM
4 x 120GB SSD RAID10

Server #4
Purpose: Storage Server (Ceph Block Storage)
Qty: 1 (possibly +1 for replication and failover?)
Dual Quad Core CPUs
16GB RAM
4 x 1Gb NIC or 2 x 1Gb NIC 1 x 10Gb NIC
12 x 2TB SATA RAID10 (36 x 2TB RAID10 might be better)

The fact is you don't need much DAS on the hypervisors. This is because for HA and auto-scaling to work, you have to store the VMs on a storage server, preferably block storage over NFS for obvious reasons. Ceph is least expensive way to do block storage that works with CloudStack.

WHMCS does not support CloudStack at present. Hostbill and Ubersmith do. Also there is an interesting management panel in the works called FogPanel, build just for CloudStack.

Bryan Apperson
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  • Thanks for your reply. Why would the management console need 4 x 500GB ssd drives while the HV only 4x120GB SSD? Shouldn't the size be opposite? What is the "storage" server for (server #4) if the management has storage and server #3 also has storage? Sorry, confused on this part. Is Ceph something simply enabled within Cloudstack management console? Wouldn't SSD be far better performance, like 12 x 1TB SSD or even just 6 x 1TB to start then upgrade later on when needed? Thank you! –  Mar 31 '14 at 19:39