Abstract
We analyzed the performance of a multi-node OpenStack cloud amid different types of controlled and self-induced network errors between controller and compute-nodes on the control plane network. These errors included limited bandwidth, delays and packet losses of varying severity. This study compares the effects of network errors on spawning times of batches of instances created using three different virtualization technologies supported by OpenStack, i.e., Docker containers, Linux containers and KVM virtual machines. We identified minimum/maximum thresholds for bandwidth, delay and packet-loss rates below/beyond which instances fail to launch. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first comparative measurement study of its kind on OpenStack. The results will be of particular interest to designers and administrators of distributed OpenStack deployments.