~~NOTOC~~
This section describes the key features and benefits of the last version of OpenNebula (v2.2). For more details you can download {{:documentation:rel2.2:opennebula_2.2_features_rev20110511.pdf|OpenNebula 2.2 Features for Cloud Management, Integration and Production}}.
====== Key Features and Benefits for Cloud Management ======
**Private Cloud Computing**
Capabilities for the management of the private data center or cluster (**Private Cloud Computing**) running **Xen**, **KVM** or **VMware**.
^ Feature ^ Function ^
| **User Management** | Functionality for user management; authentication framework; multiple cloud user and administrator roles; accounting; quota management; and secure multi-tenancy |
| **VM Image Management** | Image repository with catalog and functionality for image management; access control; and creation of images from running virtual machines|
| **Virtual Network Management** | Functionality for virtual network management to interconnect your virtual machines; ranged or fixed networks; sharing of virtual networks; definition of generic attributes associated to Virtual Networks and network isolation at layer 2 |
| **Virtual Machine Management** | Functionality for virtual machine management; support for multiple hypervisors in the same physical box; management of distributed environments with multiple hypervisors; automatic configuration of virtual machines; and triggering of administration scripts upon VM state change|
| **Service Management** | Deployment of multi-tier services consisting of groups of inter-connected VMs; auto-configuration at boot time; and support for Microsoft Windows and Linux machine images|
| **Infrastructure Management** | Management of physical hosts; creation of logical clusters; and system featuring a small footprint, its installation fits in less than 700Kb|
| **Storage Management** | Functionality for virtual machine image management; and support for multiple hardware platforms (FibreChannel, iSCSI, NAS shared storage…) and storage backends for image transferring|
| **Information Management** | Functionality for monitoring of virtual and physical infrastructures, and integration with datacenter monitoring tools, such as Ganglia|
| **Scheduling** | Powerful and flexible requirement/rank matchmaker scheduler; and workload and resource-aware allocation policies such as packing, striping, load-aware, affinity-aware…|
| **User Interface** | Unix-like command line for the management of the cloud infrastructure|
| **Operations Center** | Graphical management of the cloud infrastructure|
**Hybrid Cloud Computing**
Capabilities for the extension of the local infrastructure with remote Cloud resources (**Hybrid Cloud Computing**)
^ Feature ^ Function ^
| **Cloudbursting** | Local infrastructure can be supplemented with computing capacity from an external Cloud to meet peak demands, to better serve user access requests, or to implement high availability strategies. Support for Amazon EC2; and simultaneous access to multiple clouds |
| **Federation** | Federate different cloud instances to build a hierarchy of independent virtualization clusters; enabling higher levels of scalability |
**Public Cloud Computing**
Capabilities for exposing Cloud interfaces to the private infrastructure (**Public Cloud Computing**)
^ Feature ^ Function ^
| **Cloud Interfaces** | Turn your local infrastructure into a public cloud by offering REST interfaces to your users; implementation of OGF OCCI and Amazon EC2; support for simultaneously exposing multiple cloud APIs; client tools; and secure access|
====== Key Features and Benefits for Integration ======
^ Feature ^ Function ^
| **Infrastructure Abstraction** | Seamless operation with any platform for authentication/authorization, virtualization, networking and storage, with a modular architecture to fit into any datacenter |
| **Adaptability and Customization** |Enable the deployment of any cloud architecture: private, public, hybrid and federated; customizable plug-ins to access virtualization, storage, information, authentication/authorization and remote cloud services; new plug-ins can be easily written in any language; configuration and tuning parameters to adjust behavior of the cloud management instance to the requirements of the environment and use cases; and hook mechanism to trigger administration scripts upon VM state change|
| **Interoperability and Standards** |Open standard-based architecture to avoid vendor lock-in and to enable interoperability; and implementation of standards|
| **Openness** |Open-source technology distributed under Apache license that is matured through an active and engaged community; and open internal and external interfaces |
| **Programming Interfaces** |Native cloud API in Ruby and JAVA and XMLRPC API to create new cloud interfaces and to access the core functionality|
====== Key Features and Benefits for Production ======
^ Feature ^ Function ^
| **Security** | Authentication framework based on passwords, ssh rsa keypairs or LDAP; external and internal communications through SSL; secure multi-tenancy; and isolated networks|
| **Robustness** |Persistent database backend to store hosts, networks and virtual machines information|
| **Fault Tolerance** |Configurable behavior in the event of host, VM, or OpenNebula instance failure|
| **Scalability** |Tested on large scale infrastructures consisting of thousands of cores and hundreds of thousands of VMs; highly scalable back-end; and support for MySQL and Sqlite|
| **Performance** |Very efficient core developed in C++ language |
| **Reliability** |Automated thorough testing process for functionality, scalability, performance, robustness and stability |
====== Leverage the Vibrant Cloud Ecosystems ======
^ Feature ^ Function ^
| **OpenNebula Ecosystem** | Leverage the [[http://www.opennebula.org/software:ecosystem|OpenNebula open cloud ecosystem]] with new components enhancing the functionality provided by the OpenNebula Cloud Toolkit or enabling its integration with other products: vCloud API, OpenNebula Express, Haizea Scheduler, Libcloud, Deltacloud, Web Management Console, Deltacloud adaptor for hybrid clouds…|
| **Other Cloud Ecosystems** |Leverage the ecosystems being built around Amazon AWS, OGC OCCI and VMware vCloud|