This is a big topic, but I'll try to keep it short.

You could try DevStack, which will get you up and running with less configuration work. If you want to really understand the inner workings of the platform, and since you have the hardware, I would go ahead and install it from scratch on your distro of choice (CentOS and Fedora are fully supported according to the docs - I would suggest reading through them before beginning).

1. You will be installing a Cloud Controller and at least one Compute Node. The Compute nodes should be physical machines, as the tenants in the cloud will run on the Compute nodes as virtual machines. Install Linux on your machines, then install OpenStack and its prerequisites via yum/other package mgr. You can download pre-configured CirrOS images to register on your cloud and test the cloud API. KVM is the default hypervisor for OpenStack, and it has worked well for me.

2. It is a common practice to separate the database from the application front end, whether virtual or physical. In most cases, performance will increase due to the decreased activity on both machines (assuming LAN connection 100mb+).

Building a production cloud isn't trivial, and you may even have to wipe your lab machines and start over more than once, but learning the technologies is exciting.

This is a big topic, but I'll try to keep it short.

You could try DevStack, which will get you up and running with less configuration work. If you want to really understand the inner workings of the platform, and since you have the hardware, I would go ahead and install it from scratch on your distro of choice (CentOS and Fedora are fully supported according to the docs - I would suggest reading through them before beginning).

1. You will be installing a Cloud Controller and at least one Compute Node. The Compute nodes should be physical machines, as the tenants in the cloud will run on the Compute nodes as virtual machines. The other machine can be the controller. Install Linux, then install OpenStack and its prerequisites via yum/other package mgr. You can download pre-configured CirrOS images to register on your cloud and test the cloud API. KVM is the default hypervisor for OpenStack, and it has worked well for me.

2. It is a common practice to separate the database from the application front end, whether virtual or physical. In most cases, performance will increase due to the decreased activity on both machines (assuming LAN connection 100mb+).

Building a production cloud isn't trivial, and you may even have to wipe your lab machines and start over more than once, but learning the technologies is exciting.

This is a big topic, but I'll try to keep it short.

You could try DevStack, which will get you up and running with less configuration work. If you want to really understand the inner workings of the platform, and since you have the hardware, I would go ahead and install it from scratch on your distro of choice (CentOS and Fedora are fully supported according to the docs - I would suggest reading through them before beginning).

1. You will be installing a Cloud Controller and at least one Compute Node. The Compute nodes should be physical machines, as the tenants in the cloud will run on the Compute nodes as virtual machines. Install Linux on your machines, then install OpenStack and its prerequisites via yum/other package mgr. You can download pre-configured CirrOS images to register on your cloud and test the cloud API.

2. It is a common practice to separate the database from the application front end, whether virtual or physical. In most cases, performance will increase due to the decreased activity on both machines (assuming LAN connection 100mb+).

Building a production cloud isn't trivial, and you may even have to wipe your lab machines and start over more than once, but learning the technologies is exciting.

This is a big topic, but I'll try to keep it short.

You could try DevStack, which will get you up and running with less configuration work. If you want to really understand the inner workings of the platform, and since you have the hardware, I would go ahead and install it from scratch on your distro of choice (CentOS and Fedora are fully supported according to the docs - I would suggest reading through them before beginning).

1. You will be installing a Cloud Controller and at least one Compute Node. The Compute nodes should be physical machines, as the tenants in the cloud will run on the Compute nodes as virtual machines. Install Linux on your machines, then install OpenStack and its prerequisites via yum/other package mgr. You can download pre-configured CirrOS images to register on your cloud and test the cloud API. KVM is the default hypervisor for OpenStack, and it has worked well for me.

2. It is a common practice to separate the database from the application front end, whether virtual or physical. In most cases, performance will increase due to the decreased activity on both machines (assuming LAN connection 100mb+).

Building a production cloud isn't trivial, and you may even have to wipe your lab machines and start over more than once, but learning the technologies is exciting.