Typical cloud deployments - be it Openstack, Eucalyptus etc - have a separate control layer installed and upgraded using separate tools (which might be hand-configured PXE + preseeding, Crowbar, Cobbler, Orchestra/MAAS, FAI etc). As a result you have two distinct provisioning systems in play, which allows for more operator error and requires increased special cases in automation.
Using Openstack’s bare-metal hypervisor, we are building a fully self contained cloud, where the control layer for the cloud is itself deployed and upgraded via the same cloud API.
Come hear me talk about the challenges involved in bootstrapping and operating such an environment, the benefits it can bring and what you can do with it!
A predecessor of this talk was given at Linux.conf.au in January of this year where it was well received.