This report covers OpenStack as an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) management system in context of cloud computing. The goals of this study are: learn the basics of cloud computing, learn more about OpenStack as a cloud OS (Operating System) and retrieve information and concert data out of OpenStack for the monitoring and optimizing of machines on both the physical and logical level. The researched informations in this report should serve the goal of manipulating and monitoring the possibilities of a cloud under OpenStack and the entities of a cloud such as cloud-based applications while considering the physical and the virtual level of the machines in order to optimize each entity of the cloud system to get the cloud environment as a big picture running more eeffectively, eefficiently, and in the best case, automatically.