Comment 6 for bug 1082689

The nova-conductor service is key to completing no-db-compute. Conceptually, it implements a new layer on top of nova-compute. It should *not* be deployed on compute nodes, or else the security benefits of removing database access from nova-compute will be negated. Just like other nova services such as nova-api or nova-scheduler, it can be scaled horizontally. You can run multiple instances of nova-conductor on different machines as needed for scaling purposes.

The methods exposed by nova-conductor will initially be relatively simple methods used by nova-compute to offload its database operations. Places where nova-compute previously did database access will now be talking to nova-conductor. However, we have plans in the medium to long term to move more and more of what is currently in nova-compute up to the nova-conductor layer. The compute service will start to look like a less intelligent slave service to nova-conductor. The conductor service will implement long running complex operations, ensuring forward progress and graceful error handling. This will be especially beneficial for operations that cross multiple compute nodes, such as migrations or resizes