As organizations increasingly build on-premises clouds or enter the Service Provider market with public cloud offerings, the need for the right set of tools to launch, manage and scale the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform has never been greater. However, selecting the appropriate technology stack can be a challenging decision. From hardware to hypervisor, storage to cloud management platforms, the choices are vast and critical to ensuring a reliable and future-proof infrastructure.

When planning an IaaS platform, several factors must be considered, including future growth, team size, budget, project timelines, existing hardware, and the underlying infrastructure. Power consumption is also a crucial consideration, especially as the ARM64 architecture emerges as a compelling option.

The Rise in Adoption of ARM-based Systems

The tech industry is trending towards ARM-based systems, especially with major companies like Apple switching to ARM for their Mac computers. This shift is creating a broader market acceptance and pushing other companies to consider ARM as a viable alternative to x86.

Organizations are turning to Ampere processors over the traditional x86 for several reasons, the major one being energy efficiency. Ampere processors are designed to be highly power-efficient, and the lower power consumption also means less heat generation, lower electricity bills for large infrastructures, and low environmental impact. Ampere processors excel in performance per watt, making them ideal for environments where energy efficiency is paramount, such as data centers. The architecture allows for more cores per chip without significantly increasing power consumption.

ARM64 architecture is highly scalable, allowing cloud builders to deploy more cores per server without drastically increasing power or space requirements. This scalability enables higher server density in data centers, allowing providers to maximize the use of their physical infrastructure. Higher density means more computing power per square foot, which is essential for efficiently managing the vast workloads typical in cloud environments.

Reference Architecture for IaaS Cloud on ARM64

ShapeBlue and Ampere Computing collaborated on preparing a Reference Architecture guide that offers a straightforward set of instructions to help you deploy a CloudStack-based IaaS cloud on ARM64 architecture powered by Mt. Collins by Ampere. The Mt. Collins provides a mix of features to maximise performance and scalability to meet a diverse set of workloads. It allows to maximise application performance with the optimal mix of accelerator cards, storage and compute power in a 2U 2-socket server.

With growing adoption and market momentum, ARM64 architecture is on track to become a choice for a wider range of cloud workloads. Although transitioning to ARM might present some challenges, the long-term benefits could be well worth the effort. As advancements in ARM technology continue, its role in cloud computing is expected to expand, offering a powerful, efficient, and cost-effective alternative to traditional server architectures.

IaaS Cloud with ARM and Apache CloudStack

Ampere Computing and ShapeBlue have partnered to present an alternative approach to building IaaS with ARM and Apache CloudStack, instead of the traditional x86 servers. This collaboration focuses on introducing ARM-based infrastructure, which provides significant advantages in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO), efficiency, and performance. By utilizing ARM64 architecture, companies can benefit from lower energy consumption, reduced operational costs, and enhanced processing power, making it an ideal choice for modern cloud environments. This solution is tailored for organizations seeking to optimize their cloud infrastructure with cutting-edge technology.

This Reference Architecture guide has outlined the process of deploying a CloudStack-based IaaS platform on Ampere processors, offering a scalable and efficient solution for modern cloud infrastructures. By utilising the high-performance capabilities of Ampere Altra Max processors, this setup not only optimises resource use but also significantly reduces power consumption, making it a cost-effective choice for long-term operations.

The document offers a streamlined approach to deploying an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform using Ampere’s ARM64 architecture. Leveraging Ampere’s high-performance, energy-efficient processors, we have selected a configuration that utilises KVM on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, NFS storage, and layer-2 isolation with VLANs. While CloudStack supports a broad range of technologies, this guide focuses on a simplified setup to ensure ease of deployment and management. It’s important to note that production environments may require more complex configurations at a larger scale.

About Ampere Computing

Ampere Computing is a leader in delivering energy-efficient, high-performance processors designed for cloud-native environments. The Ampere Altra Max processors, featuring up to 128 high-performance cores per socket, provide exceptional processing power and scalability. These processors are optimised for modern data centre workloads, including data analytics, AI, and cloud services, with a strong focus on maximising performance per watt. This efficiency enables data centres to reduce operating costs and their overall carbon footprint, making Ampere an ideal choice for sustainable computing.

Ampere processors are engineered to meet the demands of today’s cloud-based applications, with features such as eight channels of DDR4 memory support and 128 channels of PCIe Gen4 interfaces for rapid and reliable data transfer. Their architecture is specifically designed to support dense, scalable configurations, making them particularly well-suited for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platforms.

About ShapeBlue

ShapeBlue is the largest independent integrator of CloudStack technologies globally and are specialists in designing and implementing IaaS cloud infrastructures for both private and public cloud implementations. The company combines 100s of person-years of experience in designing and building complex network, storage and compute infrastructures with globally leading skills in Apache CloudStack.

ShapeBlue offers services include consulting, integration, training and infrastructure support.Their technical teams are all active contributors to the Apache CloudStack project, and a good percentage of our team are also project committers.

ShapeBlue also works with and has deep expertise in a range of networking, storage, and related technologies that we have selected as ideally suited to building out Clouds.

Ivet Petrova

Ivet Petrova is the Marketing Director of ShapeBlue. She is responsible for strengthening ShapeBlue’s global brand and market awareness of ShapeBlue’s services. Specifically, Ivet’s team is responsible for brand, advertising, content and digital marketing, social media, and media relations.

Ivet is also an active member of the CloudStack community, working on increasing the awareness of the technology and showing its benefits to a wider market.

Ivet has 13+ years of experience in marketing for IT service providers including a number of cloud and hosting providers, storage companies, SaaS providers and software development companies. She holds a Masters degree in Marketing.

Away from work, Ivet is passionate about travelling around the world and exploring new cultures.