5

i'm quite a newb on this subject and this is my first attempt.
I could't find much documentation about what MAAS is exactly.
I made my own MAAS server and 1 node is now added and allocated.
SSH works with the node etc.

But now I wonder... what can I do with these nodes?
My idea about MAAS was that nodes share their computing power
with the cluster controller and this cluster controller is your server.
(Where i can make my mysql database, apache2 webserver etc.)

edit:
and then i suddenly found this:

Dynamically re-allocate physical resources to match workload requirements

For example.. I have an server of some sort of game with 6 threads.
does MAAS spread my workload automatically in terms of.. sending 3 threads to my node?
(i'm still learning and i got a lot to learn i know. and i used google but now i really need to ask some more experienced people)

Dylan Westra
  • 245
  • 2
  • 3
  • 6

3 Answers3

9

MAAS stands for "Metal as a Service". It is similar to IAAS "Infrastructure as a Service" as it allows a new machine to be provisioned. The difference is that IAAS normally refers to virtual machines, MAAS is designed to provision bare metal. This means bring a bare metal server with no operating system install to a completely working server ready for the user to deploy services on.

The documentation for MAAS can be found here: http://maas.io/

If your looking for something to deploy services, then I recommend taking a look at JuJu. JuJu allows you to easily deploy services with its charms architecture. JuJu also connects to MAAS to retrieve ready to use servers, to deploy the services on.

The documentation for JuJu can be found here: https://jujucharms.com/

Jorge Castro
  • 71,754
Blake R
  • 431
  • 2
  • 6
1

To me, MAAS is a way of more quickly installing something like Ubuntu Server onto many computers without having to 1) put the CD in, 2) follow the same script of responses to questions and then iteratively 3) run a lot of command line commands like "sudo apt-get install..." for each computer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  OpenStack (a.k.a. Cloud Management Layer)                           |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Juju                                                                |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Metal-as-a-Service (a.k.a. Deployment/Management Automation Layer)  |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
  |              |            |            |            |
----------  -------------  -----------  ------------  -----------
| Node   |  | Node      |  | Node    |  | Node     |  | Node    |
----------  -------------  -----------  ------------  -----------

At the point where you've enlisted and commissioned nodes into MAAS you may then acquire/start them so that you could remote control into one and have a fully-functional Ubuntu server. You wouldn't necessarily need Juju or OpenStack on top of this.

Juju makes it easy to go further and then to automate deployments of services across the collection of available nodes. OpenStack is a collection of services which allow you to, in theory, spin up virtual computers from this collective (like Amazon EC2). Additionally, you have the ability to serve up virtual drives (like Amazon S3). And you can combine these two together so that you can spin up a virtual computer that attaches to a persistent drive with your data on it.

OpenStack is getting more rubust in that it has "high availability" features built in--it's forgiving to system failures on a single node, for example.

Once you've seen the PXE boot in action and watched it successfully enlist and commission a computer you'll be impressed. Unfortunately there are numerous bugs in all versions that I've worked with and you will end up spending plenty of time troubleshooting everything you've attempted to put into place.

Michael Blankenship
  • 435
0

you can visit this web: https://docs.maas.io/2.1/en/

MAAS is Metal As A Service. It lets you treat physical servers like virtual machines (instances) in the cloud. Rather than having to manage each server individually, MAAS turns your bare metal into an elastic cloud-like resource.

Machines can be quickly provisioned and then destroyed again as easily as you can with instances in a public cloud like Amazon AWS, Google GCE, and Microsoft Azure, among others.

MAAS can act as a standalone PXE/preseed service or it can be integrated with other technologies. In particular, it is designed to work especially well with Juju, the service and model management service. It's a perfect arrangement: MAAS manages the machines and Juju manages the services running on those machines.

jerome wong
  • 1