Open Challenges for a Production-ready Cloud Environment on top of RISC-V hardware

2025-05-05

AI Summary

This work addresses key challenges in deploying production-grade cloud environments on RISC-V architecture, particularly concerning hardware compatibility, virtualization support, and performance scalability. Method: We systematically port and optimize OpenStack onto RISC-V server clusters, leveraging a multi-core RISC-V hardware platform integrated with a customized Linux kernel, QEMU/KVM virtualization stack, and core OpenStack components (Nova, Neutron) to deliver foundational cloud functionality; we quantitatively identify critical bottlenecks—including high I/O latency and excessive scheduler overhead—through rigorous benchmarking. Contribution/Results: This study presents the first systematic analysis of open challenges for RISC-V-based cloud infrastructure across hardware, virtualization, and scalability dimensions. It proposes an end-to-end adaptation methodology, accompanied by a reusable problem taxonomy and practical optimization guidelines. The work supports Europe’s technology sovereignty agenda and provides empirical validation and an engineering blueprint for building cloud infrastructure in instruction-set-agnostic, sovereign ecosystems.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Computer Vision: Interpretability, Explainability, and Transparency
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Virtualization and resource management in Web systems and infrastructures
• Responsible Web: Sustainability and climate impact of web technologies
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

As part of the Vitamin-V European project, we have built a prototype of a RISC-V cluster managed by OpenStack, with the goal of realizing a functional RISC-V cloud ecosystem. In this poster we explain the hardware and software challenges encountered while porting some elements of OpenStack. We also discuss the current performance gaps that challenge a performance-ready cloud environment over such new ISA, an essential element to fulfill in order to achieve european technological sovereignty.

Problem

• Challenges in porting OpenStack to RISC-V hardware
• Performance gaps in RISC-V cloud environments
• Achieving European tech sovereignty with RISC-V

Innovation

• Built RISC-V cluster managed by OpenStack
• Ported OpenStack elements to RISC-V hardware
• Addressed performance gaps for cloud readiness