Canonical recently announced the release of MicroCloud 3.1, the latest version of its cloud infrastructure management tools. This release, part of the 3.x branch, enables users to deploy their equipment, cloud systems, and computing clusters with shared distributed data storage and a secure virtual network. MicroCloud is packaged as a snap package, containing the necessary components to manage the operation of cluster nodes. The toolkit is developed in Go and is distributed under the AGPL 3.0 license.
With MicroCloud, users can easily create clusters of 3 to 50 nodes with fault tolerance capabilities. The cluster management software stack is built on tools like LXD for container management, OVN for virtual network building, and Ceph for distributed fault-tolerant storage. These components are automatically configured on all cluster nodes. While the toolkit is designed for Ubuntu Server, it is not limited to Ubuntu and can be utilized in various distribution kits that support the snap toolkit installation.
MicroCloud simplifies the process of identifying new servers on the network that can be added to the cluster. Utilizing mDNS, users can set up the entire cluster by running a single command “microcloud init” on one node and “sudo microcloud join” on the other nodes after installing the necessary snap packages. The toolkit detects additional servers on the local network, facilitates adding disks to the shared Ceph storage, and assists in configuring virtual network settings. For adding more nodes post-initialization, users can utilize