OpenStack is an open-source IaaS platform — it turns a pool of bare-metal servers into a self-service cloud: virtual machines, block storage, networking, and object storage, all driven by API.
Scale and fit
There is a rough spectrum of virtualization tools, and picking the wrong tier is a common mistake:
Proxmox / VMware / Hyper-V — the right choice when you want to run virtual machines. SMB, homelab, or a small ops team managing infrastructure directly. Reasonable setup cost, manageable operational overhead, one or a few admins in control. Think of it as a VMware replacement.
OpenStack — the right choice when you are building a cloud, not just running VMs. Multi-tenant infrastructure where teams self-service their own compute, networking, and storage via API. The operational complexity is real and significant; it pays off when the cloud-like abstraction is the actual product, or when the scale justifies the overhead.
The rule of thumb: if the question is “how do I replace VMware?”, the answer is Proxmox. If the question is “how do I build a private cloud platform?”, the answer might be OpenStack.
Core Components
| Service | Code Name | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Nova | Schedules and manages VM lifecycle |
| Networking | Neutron | Virtual networks, routers, floating IPs, security groups |
| Block Storage | Cinder | Persistent volumes attached to VMs |
| Image Service | Glance | Stores and serves OS images |
| Identity | Keystone | Auth, service catalog, RBAC |
| Dashboard | Horizon | Web UI (optional) |
| Object Storage | Swift | S3-like object storage (optional) |
| Bare Metal | Ironic | Provisions physical machines instead of VMs |
You do not need all of them. A minimal useful deployment is Nova + Neutron + Cinder + Glance + Keystone.
OpenStack on Kubernetes
OpenStack services are just applications — and they can run as Kubernetes workloads. Two projects make this practical:
OpenStack-Helm — official Helm charts for deploying OpenStack services on an existing Kubernetes cluster. Each service (Nova, Neutron, Cinder, etc.) becomes a Helm release. Upgrades follow standard rolling deployment patterns.
Atmosphere (by VEXXHOST) — a higher-level operator built on top of OpenStack-Helm. Adds Ansible automation, health checks, and a more opinionated deployment model. Targets production use.
The practical implication: you can run a Talos cluster and deploy OpenStack on top of it — OpenStack as a tenant of Kubernetes rather than a separate platform. This inverts the usual relationship (where Kubernetes runs on top of OpenStack) and is an interesting architectural option for homelab and small private cloud deployments.
Fairbanks (Dutch hosting company specialising in sovereign private clouds) does exactly this in production. Their talk OpenStack on Talos Linux is the clearest real-world example of the pattern.
Deployment Options
Kolla-Ansible
https://docs.openstack.org/kolla-ansible/latest/
Containerised OpenStack deployed via Ansible. Production-grade, well-maintained. The practical choice for homelab and small-scale production deployments. Each service runs in its own container.
DevStack
https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/latest/
All-in-one development install. Not for production or anything you want to survive a reboot. Good for learning the API surface.
Canonical OpenStack (Juju / Sunbeam)
https://ubuntu.com/openstack
Ubuntu-opinionated deployment. Sunbeam is a newer minimal footprint option. Good if you’re already in the Ubuntu/Juju ecosystem.
Concepts Worth Understanding
Flavors — VM sizing templates (vCPU, RAM, disk). You define these; instances pick from them.
Security Groups — stateful firewall rules applied per-port. Default-deny inbound.
Floating IPs — externally routable IPs that can be associated/disassociated from instances dynamically.
Availability Zones — logical groupings of compute nodes. Useful for fault isolation even at small scale.
Hypervisors — Nova supports KVM (default), QEMU, VMware, and others. KVM on Linux is the standard.
Relevance to the Lab
The LLM training experiment plans to use OpenStack as the IaaS layer over the blade nodes in ASGARD — Nova for compute scheduling, Neutron for cluster networking, Cinder for shared model/dataset storage backed by Ceph.