How OpenMetal’s Hosted Private Cloud Networking Is Structured

Q: How is networking structured inside an OpenMetal Hosted Private Cloud?

OpenMetal’s Hosted Private Cloud networking is built on OpenStack Neutron, the software-defined networking layer that ships with every deployment.

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Neutron gives each private cloud an isolated, programmable network environment where you can define VLAN topology, configure virtual routers, control security group rules, and segment workloads without any shared network infrastructure between customers. Because the underlying hardware is dedicated to a single tenant, network performance is not subject to the contention common on shared public cloud hypervisors.

Traffic within a private cloud, between compute nodes, storage nodes, and the control plane, travels over dedicated infrastructure and is included in the base cost of the deployment. Within-VLAN traffic runs at up to 10 Gbps via public or private IP space, and no metering applies to traffic that stays inside the private environment. Only packets that cross the VLAN boundary and exit to the public internet contribute to egress billing, a cost model that separates OpenMetal from providers that charge for all outbound traffic regardless of destination.

The separation between infrastructure-plane and tenant-plane traffic is architectural, not policy-based. Storage replication, OpenStack control-plane communication, and Ceph cluster traffic all move on dedicated paths. This ensures heavy storage activity does not degrade compute networking and vice versa, a common problem in converged public cloud environments where all traffic competes for the same physical bandwidth.