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OpenStack Nova

OpenStack Nova is the OpenStack cloud computing project that provides a controller for provisioning and managing compute resources (infrastructure-as-a-service / virtualized compute).

  • Compute service for provisioning and managing Virtual Machine (VM) instances and other compute resources (infrastructure-as-a-service)
  • Supports multiple hypervisors and virtualization technologies through a configurable driver model (virtualization management)
  • Provides APIs and services for scheduling, lifecycle operations, and quota control of compute workloads (cloud orchestration)
  • Integrates with other OpenStack services such as Keystone, Neutron, Glance, and Cinder for authentication, networking, images, and block storage (cloud platform integration)
  • Supports multi-tenant, scalable deployments across multiple compute nodes and availability zones (cloud infrastructure)

More About OpenStack Nova

OpenStack Nova is the compute service within the OpenStack open-source cloud platform, responsible for provisioning, scheduling, and managing compute instances and related resources in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) environments (virtualized compute). It addresses the need to programmatically allocate and operate compute capacity across pools of physical servers, abstracting hypervisors and hardware details behind a unified Application Programming Interface (API) (cloud orchestration).

Nova is structured as a collection of interrelated services that coordinate to create and manage instances. Core components include the API service for handling user and system requests (API management), the scheduler for selecting appropriate hosts for instance placement (resource scheduling), the conductor for mediating database access and complex operations (control-plane coordination), and the compute service that runs on each hypervisor node to perform lifecycle operations such as spawn, stop, pause, resize, and delete (compute node management). Nova uses a message queue for internal communication between these services (distributed systems messaging).

The project supports multiple hypervisors and virtualization back ends through a pluggable driver model (virtualization management). Commonly referenced options include Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and QEMU, along with support for bare metal provisioning via integration with other OpenStack services where documented. This abstraction allows enterprises to deploy Nova over heterogeneous infrastructure while exposing a consistent interface for instance management.

In enterprise and institutional environments, Nova is used as the compute layer of private, public, and hybrid OpenStack clouds (cloud infrastructure). Administrators define flavors that represent standardized compute, memory, and storage configurations, and users request instances based on these definitions (resource templating). Nova enforces quotas, manages security-related settings in coordination with other services, and tracks instance state and host capacity in a central database (capacity and tenancy management).

Nova inter operates closely with other OpenStack services. It relies on Keystone for authentication and authorization (identity and access management), Neutron for networking configuration and IP address management (software-defined networking), Glance for retrieval of disk images (image management), and Cinder or other storage services for block volumes attached to instances (block storage integration). This integration positions Nova as the central compute controller within the broader OpenStack architecture.

From a directory and taxonomy perspective, OpenStack Nova is categorized as a cloud compute controller and orchestration service for virtual machines and related compute resources (cloud management platform component). It provides the core APIs and control-plane logic that enable OpenStack clouds to expose on-demand, API-driven compute capacity to applications, developers, and higher-level platform services.