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

TL;DR

This paper reports on building a production-oriented OpenStack cluster on RISC-V hardware within the EU Vitamin-V project to evaluate the feasibility of a cloud stack on the open ISA. It analyzes hardware maturity, software ecosystem readiness, and VM provisioning using Lichee Pi 4A boards, OpenSBI, and EDK2, highlighting substantial gaps in extensions, tooling, and kernel support. Key findings show a pronounced performance gap between RISC-V and x86 servers, along with software packaging and bootflow challenges that currently prevent production-grade cloud deployments. The work demonstrates practical workarounds for booting VMs and reveals that, despite rapid evolution, RISC-V-based clouds are not yet production-ready, motivating further hardware and software maturation. The results have implications for European technological sovereignty and the feasibility of cloud infrastructures based on open ISA cores.

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.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: Openstack cluster using LicheePi4a boards.