openstack-manuals/doc/config-reference/compute/section_compute-configure-backing-storage.xml
Summer Long a07a2c037d Updated deprecated usage for libvirt options.
Changed libvirt_image_* => image_*

Closes-bug: #1255324

Change-Id: I52022b7be38acb008c949b52dabd209d4f672f00
2014-05-05 20:00:51 +02:00

39 lines
1.7 KiB
XML

<section xml:id="section_configure-backing-storage"
xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
version="5.0">
<title>Configure Compute backing storage</title>
<para>
Backing Storage is the storage used to provide the expanded
operating system image, and any ephemeral storage. Inside the
virtual machine, this is normally presented as two virtual hard
disks (for example, <filename>/dev/vda</filename> and
<filename>/dev/vdb</filename> respectively). However, inside
OpenStack, this can be derived from one of three methods: LVM,
QCOW or RAW, chosen using the <literal>images_type</literal>
option in <filename>nova.conf</filename> on the compute node.
</para>
<para>
QCOW is the default backing store. It uses a copy-on-write
philosophy to delay allocation of storage until it is actually
needed. This means that the space required for the backing of an
image can be significantly less on the real disk than what seems
available in the virtual machine operating system.
</para>
<para>
RAW creates files without any sort of file formatting, effectively
creating files with the plain binary one would normally see on a
real disk. This can increase performance, but means that the
entire size of the virtual disk is reserved on the physical disk.
</para>
<para>
Local <link
xlink:href="http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Volume_Manager_(Linux)"
>LVM volumes</link> can also be used. Set
<literal>images_volume_group = nova_local</literal> where
<literal>nova_local</literal> is the name of the LVM group you
have created.
</para>
</section>