Baremetal Management

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What is Baremetal Management?

Baremetal Management provided by ZStack Cloud offers dedicated physical servers for your applications to ensure high performance and stability of your applications. After you complete the configurations of your servers and other preparations, you can deploy baremetal (BM) chassis in bulk on the UI. Then you can use these BM chassis to create BM instances. Afterwards, you can use preconfigured templates to implement unattended batch installation of operating systems on these BM instances. In addition, you can configure business networks for BM instances and implement lifecycle management of these BM instances.

The Baremetal Management feature is provided in a separate module. Before you can use this feature, you need to purchase the Plus License of Baremetal Management, in addition to the Base License.

Basics

In Baremetal Management, the deployment server provides DHCP and FTP services, instructs PEX boot of multiple baremetal chassis, and assigns dynamic IP addresses to the baremetal chassis. These baremetal chassis then download software packages from the deployment server for the system installation of baremetal instances.

Concepts

Baremetal cluster: A baremetal cluster consists of baremetal chassis. You can manage baremetal chassis by managing a baremetal cluster where the chassis reside.
- You must attach a deployment server to a baremetal cluster to provide PXE services for baremetal instances in the cluster.
- You can attach only one deployment server to a baremetal cluster. However, you can attach a deployment server to multiple baremetal clusters.
- You can attach an L2 network to a baremetal cluster to provide network services for baremetal instances in the cluster.
- Baremetal Management supports flat networks. Baremetal instances and VM instances that share the same L2 network with the baremetal instances can access each other without using the gateway.
Deployment server: A deployment server is a server that provides PXE services and console proxy services for baremetal chassis. You can specify a server as the deployment server.
- We recommend that you deploy a dedicated server as the deployment server. This avoids mutual conflicts with other services and improves deployment efficiency.
- You must attach a deployment server to a baremetal cluster.
- You can attach only one deployment server to a baremetal cluster. However, you can attach a deployment server to multiple baremetal clusters.
- The deployment server must have sufficient storage space to store the image for PXE deployment.
- The deployment server must be connected to the management network so as to connect the management node.
- The deployment server must be connected to the deployment network so as to connect baremetal chassis.
- The DHCP listening NIC of the deployment server must be connected to the deployment network. Note that you cannot configure other DHCP services for the deployment network. Otherwise, conflicts may occur.
- The deployment server must be installed the latest version of ZStack Cloud custom ISO (recommended c76). Otherwise, the deployment server cannot provide software packages for baremetal chassis by using the FTP service.
Baremetal chassis: A baremetal chassis is used to create a baremetal instance and is identified based on the BMC interface and IPMI configuration setting. The management node can remotely manage the power-on, power-off, network boot, disk boot, and other behaviors of baremetal chassis by using the IPMI network. You can use the admin account to complete batch deployment of all baremetal chassis on the UI.
- The management node must be connected with the IPMI network to remotely manage baremetal chassis.
- The baremetal chassis must be configured with the BMC interface, IPMI address, port, username, and password, and be connected to the IPMI network.
- The PXE-capable NIC of the baremetal chassis must be connected to the deployment network.
- Other NICs of baremetal chassis must be connected to corresponding L2 networks.
Preconfigured template: A preconfigured template is used to create a preconfigured file that allows for unattended batch installation of an operating system (OS) on baremetal instances.
- You must have a well-prepared preconfigured template in the Cloud.
- Preconfigured templates can be classified into the following types:
  - System template: A system template is provided by the Cloud and includes basic system variables. You can use a system template for simple unattended deployment scenarios.
  - Custom template: You can upload a UTF-8-encoded custom template file that includes custom variables, in addition to the basic system variables. You can use a custom template for complex unattended deployment scenarios.
Baremetal instance: A baremetal instance is an instantiated baremetal chassis. You need to add a baremetal chassis to a baremetal cluster before you can use the baremetal chassis to create a baremetal instance.
- You can use a preconfigured template to create a preconfigured file and achieve unattended batch installation of an operating system on baremetal instances.
- You can install an operating system that suits your business needs. The supported OSs include the custom OS of the Cloud and mainstream Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, and openSUSE. Note that the Linux distributions must be in ISO format and are not live CDs.
- You can configure a flat network as a business network for baremetal instances. By using a flat network, baremetal instances and VM instances that share the same L2 network with the baremetal instances can access each other without using the gateway. Note that you need to attach the baremetal cluster where the baremetal chassis reside to the related L2 network.

Characteristics

Baremetal Management provides dedicated physical servers for your applications to ensure high performance and stability of your key applications.
We recommend that you deploy a dedicated server as the deployment server. Then you can use the Baremetal Management feature for multi-MN host HA scenarios. The network environments are simpler and DHCP conflicts are avoided. In addition, a dedicated deployment server is attached to a baremetal cluster. This avoid single point of failures and improves deployment efficiency.
You can batch add baremetal chassis on the UI through manual addition or template import. You can batch add IPMI addresses and deploy baremetal clusters to improve O&M efficiencies.
You can use a preconfigured template to create a preconfigured file and achieve unattended batch installation of an operating system on baremetal instances.
You can install an operating system that suits your business needs. The supported OSs include the custom OS of the Cloud and mainstream Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, and openSUSE.
You can configure a flat network for baremetal instances. By using a flat network, baremetal instances and VM instances that share the same L2 network with the baremetal instances can access each other without using the gateway.

Scenarios

Scenarios that require high security and strict monitoring:
The financial and insurance industries have high requirements over business deployment compliance and data security. In these scenarios, you can use Baremetal Management to secure dedicated resources, data isolation, easy management, and operation-tracking. This way, you can ensure the reliability and security compliance of your key business system and data.
High-performance computing scenarios:
In supercomputing, genome sequencing, and other high-performance computing scenarios, the requirements over the computing performance, stability, and timeliness of the server are very high. The Baremetal Management feature is fitting for these scenarios. In addition, the feature can be used for scenarios that require high throughput or high computing performance that can accommodate changing access requests and scenarios. Virtualization and hyperthreading may compromise some performance. Deploying a reasonable number of baremetal clusters can meet the high-performance computing requirements.
Key database scenarios:
To meet business requirements, you may not want to deploy some key databases on VM instances while want to deploy the databases on physical servers that feature dedicated resources, network isolation, and guaranteed performance. In these scenarios, you can use Baremetal Management to provide dedicated high-performance physical servers for your applications.

Next Chapter:Elastic Baremetal Management