Compute nodes

A compute node provides the ephemeral storage, networking, memory, and processing resources that can be consumed by virtual machine instances. The cloud system supports two types of compute nodes: ESX clusters, where clusters are created in VMware vCenter Server, and KVM compute nodes, where KVM compute nodes are created manually. In the previous chapter, we mentioned the concept of the cloud.

Within a cloud environment, which is quite useful for a more complex project, compute nodes form the core of resources. Typically, these notes supply the processing, memory, network, and storage that virtual machine instances need. When an instance is created, it is matched to a compute node with the available resources. A compute node can host multiple instances until all of its resources are consumed.