Flavors
Understanding Flavors
Flavors define the resource specifications of a virtual machine, including CPU, memory, disk space, and additional features.
OpenStack VM flavors come in various configurations, each tailored to meet specific workload requirements. Key parameters of a flavor include:
- CPU: Specifies the number of virtual CPUs (vCPUs) allocated to the VM.
- RAM: Determines the amount of memory (in MB or GB) assigned to the VM.
- Disk: Indicates the size and type (e.g., HDD, SSD) of the VM's storage disk.
Important
Keep in mind that SWITCH has customized OpenStack flavors to best meet their customers needs, so you won't find typical OpenStack VM flavors when spinning up a VM in the OpenStack Project.
Switch flavors naming convention:
Pattern:
c<CPU>r<RAM>
where,
CPU: Number of vCPUs (3 digits)RAM: RAM in GB (3 digits)
Examples:
c001r001: 1 vCPU, 1GB RAMc004r016: 4 vCPUs, 16GB RAM
Purposes of Different Flavors
General-Purpose Flavors:
These flavors offer a balanced combination of CPU, memory, and disk resources, suitable for a wide range of workloads, including web servers, databases, and development environments.
| Name | vCPUs | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| c001r001 | 1 | 1 GB |
| c001r002 | 1 | 2 GB |
| c001r004 | 1 | 4 GB |
| c002r002 | 2 | 2 GB |
Memory-Optimized Flavors:
Designed for memory-intensive applications such as in-memory databases, caching servers, and big data analytics. These flavors allocate a significant amount of RAM to support data-intensive operations efficiently.
| Name | vCPUs | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| c004r032 | 4 | 32 GB |
| c008r032 | 8 | 32 GB |
| c016r032 | 16 | 32 GB |
| c032r032 | 32 | 32 GB |
Compute-Optimized Flavors:
Ideal for CPU-bound workloads that require high computational power, such as video encoding, rendering, and scientific simulations. These flavors prioritize CPU resources to optimize performance.
| Name | vCPUs | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| c008r008 | 8 | 8 GB |
| c016r016 | 16 | 16 GB |
| c032r032 | 32 | 32 GB |
| c032r064 | 32 | 64 GB |
Storage-Optimized Flavors:
Tailored for applications with demanding storage requirements, such as content delivery networks (CDNs), media streaming, and large-scale data processing. These flavors offer ample disk space and may include features for optimized I/O performance.
| Name | vCPUs | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| c008r064 | 8 | 64 GB |
| c016r064 | 16 | 64 GB |
| c032r064 | 32 | 64 GB |
| c032r128 | 32 | 128 GB |
By selecting the appropriate flavor for each application, organizations can optimize performance, enhance resource utilization, and deliver exceptional user experiences across a wide range of use cases.
Important
Flavors starting with 32 vCPUs or 32 GB of RAM are available only if your account has a specific amount of quota.
Use Cases for Different Flavors
-
Web Application Hosting: General-purpose flavors are well-suited for hosting web applications, providing sufficient CPU and memory resources to handle incoming traffic efficiently.
-
Big Data Processing: Memory-optimized flavors excel in processing large datasets and running memory-intensive analytics tasks, making them ideal for big data processing frameworks like Apache Spark and Hadoop.
-
High-Performance Computing (HPC): Compute-optimized flavors are indispensable for running computationally intensive simulations, mathematical modeling, and scientific research in HPC environments.
-
Database Management: Storage-optimized flavors offer ample disk space and optimized I/O capabilities, making them perfect for hosting databases, data warehouses, and file storage systems that require high throughput and low latency.