White Paper

OpenStack Enhanced Platform Awareness

Enterprise Business

OpenStack Enhanced
*
Platform Awareness
Enabling Virtual Machines to Automatically Take Advantage
of Advanced Hardware Capabilities

Executive Summary
Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA) contributions from Intel and others to the OpenStack* Cloud Operating System
enable fine-grained matching of server capabilities to virtual machine (VM) workload requirements prior to launching
a VM. For workloads requiring particular CPU and/or I/O capabilities, EPA helps OpenStack assign VMs to run on the
most appropriate platforms and gain additional benefits from features built into the system. For example, OpenStack
with EPA can specifically and automatically launch a cryptographic workload onto a platform with a hardware-based
crypto-accelerator to improve throughput performance.

EPA can benefit VM performance and operation, such as for Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function
Virtualization (NFV). EPA also enables Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to offer premium, revenue-generating services
based on specific hardware features. For enterprise data centers, IT can use EPA to automatically assign policy-controlled,
sensitive workloads to trusted platforms that provide enhanced capabilities, such as stronger security, compliance, and
data protection. This allows IT to further optimize existing resources from which the organization can benefit the most.

This white paper describes OpenStack EPA and how it can deliver business value to enterprise IT, Telcos, and CSPs.
OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

Table of Contents OpenStack Enhanced Platform Awareness

OpenStack* Enhanced
Matching Virtual Machines to Hardware Capabilities
Platform Awareness........................................................................ 2
The OpenStack Cloud Operating System is a scalable, open-
Matching Virtual Machines source cloud computing platform for private, public, and hybrid
to Hardware Capabilities................................................................................... 2
clouds used by enterprise IT, Telcos, and Cloud Service Providers
Images.......................................................................................................................... 3 (CSPs). OpenStack includes a collection of interoperable, open-
Flavor (Instance Type)......................................................................................... 3 source software modules that orchestrate large pools of com-
pute, storage, and networking resources. All of these resources
Nova Filter Scheduler.......................................................................................... 3
can be managed through a web-based dashboard, command line
Potential Benefits............................................................................ 4 tools, and RESTful APIs, so organizations have a great deal of
Enterprise Data Centers..................................................................................... 4 flexibility in how they deploy, operate, and manage their cloud.
The Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA) addition to OpenStack
Telcos and Network Operators...................................................................... 5
enables fine-grained matching of resources available in the data
Cloud Service Providers..................................................................................... 5 center to varying types of workloads to better optimize the cloud
EPA Usage Examples....................................................................... 5 services being provided.

Enhanced Security with EPA........................................................................... 5 OpenStack fulfills a users request to provision a virtual machine
(VM) by automatically installing it onto server hardware. The
Enhanced Compute with EPA......................................................................... 6
resources allocated to the VM are governed by flavors that
Enhanced Encryption/Compression I/O with EPA.............................. 6 specify basic operating parameters, such as required virtual CPUs,
Enhanced Video Processing with EPA................................................ 6 desired memory, and needed storage space. The filter scheduler
in the OpenStack Nova* module then matches the flavor to an
Implementation................................................................................ 7
available server with the required characteristics (Figure 1).
Summary............................................................................................ 7
With todays advanced technologies embedded in processors and
Appendix A Additional Resources............................................ 8 chipsets, integrated on server boards, and installed in PCIe* slots,
OpenStack.................................................................................................................. 8 hardware platforms offer many more capabilities now than in the
recent past. Until now, OpenStack was unaware of more than the
SDN & NFV................................................................................................................. 8
basic set of server features and functions. OpenStack could not
proactively load an application onto enhanced hardware to
accelerate performance, such as assigning an IPsec VPN workload
to a server with built-in cryptographic acceleration to speed
cryptography tasks.
Today, with EPA, OpenStack can take specific advantage of these
enhancements to benefit the functionality of the VMs services.
EPA enables the Nova filter scheduler to match a flavor with
specific hardware requirements to a server that can deliver them
(Figure 1).
EPA adds the following enhancements to Nova:
1. Detect platform capabilities through the discovery, tracking,
and reporting of enhanced features in the CPU and PCIe slots
(new PCIe contributions are currently being reviewed for
future inclusion in Nova).
2. Filter and match available platforms with specific capabilities
to a flavor requesting the desired features.
3. Schedule and install the VM onto the selected platform with
the enabled features.

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 OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

OpenStack* Server Selection With and Without Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA)

Server Flavor
Capabilities 64 G Storage
Server Capabilities 128 G Storage Depeinding on Weighting
Encryption Acceleration 8 vCPUs Algorithm, New VM
16 vCPUs
Hardware Transcoding 24 G RAM Unlikely to Take Advantage of
128 G RAM
PCIe* GPU Accelerator extra_specs = Enhanced Hardware Support
196 G Storage Server [Hardware Transcoding
8 vCPUs Capabilities Encryption Accelerator
24 G RAM 200 G Storage
12 vCPUs
GPU Accelerator]
64 G RAM

WEIGHTING
HOST SERVERS

HOST SERVERS
FILTERS
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

Server Capabilities
Encryption Acceleration
Server Capabilities Extended Vector Instructions New VM
Encryption Acceleration Hardware Transcoding Takes Advantage of
Hardware Transcoding PCIe GPU Accelerator Enhanced Hardware
48 G Storage 128 G Storage Support
2 vCPUs 8 vCPUs
8 G RAM 28 G RAM

WITH EPA

Figure 1. Enhanced Platform Awareness guides selection of servers for new VM.

Images Nova Filter Scheduler

Nova assumes the image provider has selected and configured a All compute nodes periodically publish their status, resources avail-
VM image that can take advantage of the functionality requested able, and hardware capabilities to the Nova database. The Nova
in the flavor. For example, if the flavor specifies Intel Advanced scheduler uses that data to make decisions when a request comes
Vector Extensions 2 (Intel AVX2),1 Nova assumes the image is in. There are many filtering strategies for the scheduler to support.
optimized to take advantage of the expanded Streaming SIMD The ComputeCapabilitiesFilter method filters those hosts meeting
Extensions (SSE) in the Intel processor instruction set. If the the extra_specs specified in the flavor and passes the list of
image does not use Intel AVX2, Nova still may schedule the image hosts with those capabilities to the weighting function.
to install on an Intel AVX2-enabled platform, but the VM would
not take advantage of those added capabilities. EPA additions to OpenStack help further enable Intels Open
Cloud Vision (Figure 2).
Flavor (Instance Type)
Flavors define a number of parameters in the instance type,
resulting in the user having a choice of what type of VM to run.
The parameters include an extra_specs listing of key-value pairs
that identify specific hardware features desired to support
functions within the VM, such as I/O accelerators.

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OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

Intels Open Cloud Vision

Federated Client-Aware
Data and services seamlessly Secure access and optimal experience
and securely span clouds across a range of devices

Automated
Dynamically allocates resources to manage
service level and maximize efficiency

Figure 2. EPA enables Intels open cloud vision by ensuring the right workloads run on the right hardware with the right
compute, storage, communications, and security capabilities.

Potential Benefits
EPA offers considerable benefits to enterprise, Telco, and CSPs, by enhancing the functionality of VM performance, security, data
protection, and compliance, determined by the flavor and enhanced capabilities in the hardware. These benefits can be offered to
customers for sell-up revenue generation opportunities, as features to differentiate the business from competitors, or to better
optimize workloads with unused resources.

Enterprise Data Centers

EPA enables system administrators and data center architects to automatically take advantage of enhanced platform capabilities and
thus further optimize existing resources in the data center.
Enterprise IT is under increasing constraint to deliver more and differentiated services, enhance security and compliance, and simplify
rollout of new services without expanding their operational budgets. OpenStack alone automates orchestration of new services, easing
the burdens IT faces with provisioning. But when new services comprise policy-controlled, sensitive workloads that require specific
capabilities, EPA allows IT to restrict these types of workloads to trusted platforms without impairing application performance or
throughput. With OpenStack and EPA, IT gains both simplified rollouts and confidence in the type of infrastructure being assigned to
support those rollouts.

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 OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

Telcos and Network Operators Improve VM efficiency and increase the throughput of a
EPA additions will help to scale up performance of virtualized customers workload by directly assigning it to Single Root I/O
networking functions, adding momentum to the growing Virtualization (SR-IOV) PCIe acceleration devices.
movement in the telecommunications industry to transform Enhance the upload and streaming experiences for users of a
the network using Software Defined Networking (SDN) and video service by taking advantage of a server with embedded
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). SDN and NFV will transcoding hardware acceleration in the processor.
allow Telcos and Cloud Service Providers to build powerful,
Reduce time-to-solution for parallel computing operations
flexible software-based network functions and run them on
using PCIe-based accelerators (currently being reviewed for
standards-based, commercial off-the-shelf servers rather than
future inclusion in OpenStack).
proprietary networking appliances. The benefits to these
organizations include:
EPA Usage Examples
Lower capital expenses (CapEx) due to the use of commercial
EPA allows data center architects and IT managers to better
off- the-shelf servers.
optimize resources and enhance cloud services.
Reduced dependence on specific equipment vendors and
greater choice of solutions. Enhanced Security with EPA
Faster time to innovative new services driven by software rather IT administrators using OpenStack to deploy SSL-enabled web
than waiting for hardware vendors to launch new products. sites can use EPA to launch those sites on VMs with encryption/
decryption acceleration, if the server hardware has the appropri-
Greater customer agility through automated deployment of ate capability. CSPs can offer such a service at a premium.
virtual machines that provide the desired functionality, instead
of installing and configuring application-specific hardware. Many of todays encryption software products, such as OpenSSL,*
are optimized to use Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New
Opportunities for equipment providers to expand their Instructions2 (Intel AES NI) to accelerate encryption/decryption
offerings with marketable virtual appliance instances. operations. Intel Xeon processors with Intel Data Protection
Technology2 include Intel AES NI, making SSL transactions many
The successful adoption of NFV and SDN, however, depends on
times faster.
the ability of a virtualized cloud infrastructure to deliver sufficient
performance comparable to todays proprietary network appli- The benefit to the end-user is less time waiting to complete a
ances. Advanced processor and networking technologies transaction. For the owner of the site, it can mean higher return on
embedded in silicon and in PCIe devices offer performance that investment, because more transactions can be processed with the
can help increase workload efficiency when the VM has access to same resources in the same time, earning higher revenues. It can
them. EPA enables that access. also improve completed sales, because faster encryption process-
ing helps result in fewer abandoned shopping carts. Finally, using
Cloud Service Providers Intel AES NI can improve security, because instruction-based
EPA additions will enable CSPs to market richer services built on advanced encryption standard versus a coded table-based
enhanced technologies, which likely have been in their servers all implementation is less subject to side-channel attacks.
along, as sell-up opportunities to customers. By offering premium
There are many public benchmarks illustrating the acceleration
services with EPA, CSPs can generate new revenues and differen-
potentials of Intel AES NI.
tiate their business in the marketplace. Some examples of the
enhanced services might include:
Speed-up secure e-commerce transactions to increase sales
throughput with hardware-based cryptographic acceleration.
Return results faster in a customers rendering engine with
floating-point instruction acceleration using a processors
enhanced instruction set extensions.

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OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

Enhanced Compute with EPA speed up encryption/decryption and compression/decompression.

Enterprises with private clouds delivering VMs to run advanced Intel QuickAssist technology uses industry-standard application
vectorized codes, such as multimedia, scientific, and financial programming interfaces (APIs), enabling easy integration into
software, can use EPA to significantly accelerate code runs and applications and for greater software flexibility and longevity.
reduce times to solution.
Enhanced Video Processing with EPA
Many modern applications utilizing SSE for SIMD processing take Telcos, CSPs, and enterprise data centers that support video
advantage of Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (Intel AVX2) transcoding from one video format to another, can accelerate this
built into several Intel processors, including the Intel Xeon service using Intel Quick Sync Video, dedicated hardware
processors E5 and E7 v3 families. Intel AVX2 has shown to embedded in the silicon of select Intel Xeon processor E3 v1,
improve performance of floating-point and SIMD operations.3 v2, and v3 families. Whether the services are part of a transcod-
When servers with these processor families are available in the ing farm that supports video production customers, to convert
data center, IT can use OpenStack EPA to provision VMs specifi- consumer video formats to an internal format for social media
cally for enhanced performance of vectorized codes. operations, or other types of tasks, accelerating them with Intel
Quick Sync Video can shorten the overall transcode time per job.
Enhanced Encryption/Compression I/O with EPA
Telcos and CSPs using OpenStack to provision VMs for the Using OpenStack EPA to provision VMs specifically on servers
highest performance encryption/decryption and compression/ supporting Intel Quick Sync Video can not only service customers
decompression can accelerate those tasks on Intel Xeon faster, but possibly allow more jobs to run on a particular VM. By
processor E5 and E7 family-based servers with Intel QuickAssist increasing transcoding performance, operators can potentially
technology. The embedded encryption/decryption accelerators reduce the number of servers required to support their customer
are available on select Intel Atom processors, as well as add-on base and without the need of a dedicated GPU. These kinds of
PCIe cards. economies can benefit costs of operations.

Intel QuickAssist technology is a set of hardware acceleration Table 1 summarizes the requirements to help achieve these usages.
modules offered in specific Intel processors, chipsets (such as
Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series), and add-in cards to

Table 1. Enhancing Services with EPA

Enhanced with EPA
Accelerated
Accelerated Encryption/ Accelerated Video
Accelerated SSL Security Floating-Point/
Compression for I/O Processing
Integer Compute
Intel Advanced Encryption Intel Advanced Vector Intel QuickAssist Intel Quick Sync Video
What technology to
Standard New Instructions Extensions 2 (Intel AVX2) Technology (in processors
specify in processors/
(Intel AES NI) and add-on accelerator
platforms
cards)
Intel Xeon Processor Intel Xeon processor E3 Intel Xeon Processor E5 Intel Xeon Processor E3
E3 v3, E5 v3, and E7 v2 v3, E5 v3 Families 2600, E5-2400 v3 Family
Families; Intel Xeon processor E7 Families with Intel
Intel products with Communications
the technology Select Intel Atom v2 Family (supports Intel
processors AVX only) Chipset 89xx Series
Intel QuickAssist
Adapter 8950
ComputeCapabilitiesFilter ComputeCapabilitiesFilter ComputeCapabilitiesFilter
Use this filter pci_passthrough_filter
(for PCIe-based devices)
Workload must use the
Yes
specific technology
Specify the feature
Yes
in the flavor

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 OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

Intel Technologies for Enhanced Platform Awareness

Embedded Processor/Chipset Technologies Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT)
Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New supports trusted launches by measuring the hardware
Instructions (Intel AES NI) in Intel Data Protection and software environment to verify VMs boot into known
technologyaccelerates encryption and decryption when good states.
Intel AES NI instructions are included in the software Intel Node Manager server management technology
code. The technology is provided in 4th generation that extends component instrumentation to the platform
Intel Core processors and Intel Xeon processors. level and can be used to make the most of every watt
Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX) consumed in the data center.
and Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 2 Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) dramatically
(Intel AVX2) accelerates floating-point and integer improves packet processing performance when running
operations with an expanded instruction set for Intel on Intel Xeon processors.
Streaming SIMD Extensions.
SR-IOV technology embedded in Intel Ethernet
Intel Quick Sync Video technology accelerates Controllers, SR-IOV accelerates network I/O between VMs
transcoding of certain video codecs. This technology is and the NIC using hardware resources dedicated to VMs,
provided in 4th generation Intel Core processors. without intervention by the hypervisor.
Intel QuickAssist technology accelerates encryption/
PCIe-based Accelerators
decryption and compression/ decompression of I/O
operations. This technology is provided in select Intel Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor accelerates codes using a
processors and chipsets. Intel QuickAssist technology large number of cores on the PCIe*-based card.
may also be found embedded in certain accelerator
PCIe* boards.

Implementation Summary
Implementing EPA is straightforward (Table 1): With EPA added to OpenStack, a new level of control and
configuration is available for enterprise IT administrators, Telcos,
1. Build the OpenStack compute node with Nova.
and CSPs. The benefits extend from the administrators and
2. Ensure the Nova filter scheduler uses the operators to their customers, with improved web site throughput,
ComputeCapabilitiesFilter and the pci_passthrough_filter. faster network performance, new revenue streams, and greater
3. Specify new servers with the hardware technologies/ optimization of existing and new data center resources.
capabilities you specifically want to apply to your VMs. EPA implementation merely requires simple additions to VM
4. Add those servers to your infrastructure. flavors to enable launch of specific VMs with enhanced hardware
capabilities. While EPA currently addresses enhancements only
5. Confirm the instance for the VM utilizes the
in the processor, the OpenStack community is considering
desired technologies.
adding awareness for PCIe-based devices, such as GPUs and
6. Add or modify a flavor to include the appropriate key pairs coprocessors (see https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/
that call out the desired hardware features. Enhanced-platform-awareness-pcie).

As noted above, the Nova scheduler assumes the selected For more information about EPA, visit the OpenStack web site.
instance supports the desired functionality requiring the
hardware features.

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 OpenStack* Enhanced Platform Awareness

Plan Your Cloud for the Future of OpenStack

OpenStack is quickly becoming the dominant paradigm for agile and efficient IT service delivery for cloud computing. As it
evolves, it will continue to help enterprises, CSPs, and Telcos move forward more quickly and cost effectively. EPA is only one
of recent enhancements to OpenStack. The community continues to add critical features to all OpenStack Modules, readying
for upcoming releases.

Key EPA Features in Kilo Release

Feature Benefit Intel Technology Supported
CPU pinning and huge pages Improved performance for NFV workloads
I/O (PCIe)-based Added efficiencies and performance Intel QuickAssist Technology
NUMA-aware scheduling for NFV workloads
Power and Thermal Greater efficiency of resources and lower
Aware Scheduling (PTAS) cost by making scheduling decisions
based on instrumented power and
thermal data from servers

Appendix A Additional Resources

OpenStack SDN & NFV
IDF presentation on OpenStack ONP Switch Reference Design product brief
Optimizing Workloads in OpenStack Public Cloud ONP Server Reference Design audio-enabled IDF presentation
Environments Intel DPDK-optimized open vSwitch
Configuration & Deployment Guide for OpenStack Swift
Wind River* Open Virtualization Profile
Object Storage
Growth of SDN, NFV, and how the Intel Open Network
Intel Developer Zone OpenStack page Platform speeds development
Open, Simplified Networking based on SDN and NFV
Open Networks Provide Needed Flexibility in IT Market

1
Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX)* are designed to achieve higher throughput to certain integer and floating point operations. Due to varying processor
power characteristics, utilizing AVX instructions may cause a) some parts to operate at less than the rated frequency and b) some parts with Intel Turbo Boost Technology
2.0 to not achieve any or maximum turbo frequencies. Performance varies depending on hardware, software, and system configuration and you should consult your system
manufacturer for more information.
2
No computer system can provide absolute security. Requires an enabled Intel processor and software optimized for use of the technology. Consult your system
manufacturer and/or software vendor for more information.
3
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/how-intel-avx2-improves-performance-on-server-applications

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