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Virtual Appliances

Virtual Appliances. Geoffrey Fox gcf@indiana.edu http://www.infomall.org https://portal.futuregrid.org Director, Digital Science Center, Pervasive Technology Institute Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies,  School of Informatics and Computing Indiana University Bloomington.

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Virtual Appliances

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  1. Virtual Appliances Geoffrey Fox gcf@indiana.edu http://www.infomall.orghttps://portal.futuregrid.org Director, Digital Science Center, Pervasive Technology Institute Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies,  School of Informatics and Computing Indiana University Bloomington CTS Conference 2011 Philadelphia May23 2011

  2. Exploit electronic infrastructure to enhance learning • Several quite old approaches are critical and dominant • “Just a bunch of web pages” aka digital library • Video conferencing • Shared material as in Webex, Adobe Connect • Note asynchronous interaction via Twitter, Blackboard, Google docs etc. much easier (and successful) than synchronous (Polycom, access grid, Webex) approaches • Interactive web learning environments such as www.whyville.net • Virtual worlds such as Second Life have not taken off but some think this will change as performance of clients and networks are improving dramatically (VRML failed ~1999) • Must move to an environment consistent with world view of current students aka the “Twitter University”

  3. Higher Education 2020 Computational Thinking Modeling & Simulation C4 Continuous Collaborative Computational Cloud C4 C4 Intelligent People C4 Intelligent Society C4 Intelligent Economy I N T E C(DE)SE L L I Internet & Cyberinfrastructure G E MotivatingIssues job / education mismatch Higher Ed rigidity Interdisciplinary work Engineering v Science, Little v. Big science N C E NSF Educate “Net Generation” Re-educate pre “Net Generation” in Science and Engineering Exploiting and developing C4 C4 Curricula, programs C4 Experiences (delivery mechanism) C4 REUs, Internships, Fellowships CDESE is Computational and Data-enabled Science and Engineering

  4. Educational appliances One component of C4 A flexible, extensible platform for hands-on, lab-oriented education (on FutureGrid) Need to support appliances representing clusters of resources Virtual machines + social/virtual networking to create sandboxed modules • Virtual “Grid” appliances: self-contained, pre-packaged execution environments • Group VPNs: simple management of virtual clusters by students and educators

  5. Why use Virtualization? Traditional ways of delivering hands-on training and education in parallel/distributed computing have non-trivial dependences on the environment Difficult to replicate same environment on different resources (e.g. HPC clusters, desktops) Difficult to cope with changes in the environment (e.g. software upgrades) Virtualization technologies remove key software dependences through a layer of indirection

  6. Appliance Infrastructure - guiding principles Fidelity: activities should use full-fledged, executable software: education/training modules Learn using the proper tools Reproducibility: Creators of content should be able to install, configure, and test their modules once, and be assured of the same functional behavior regardless of where the module is deployed Incentive to invest effort in developing, testing and documenting new modules

  7. Appliance Infrastructure - guiding principles Deployability: Students and users should be able to deploy modules in a simple manner, and in a variety of resources Reduce barriers to entry; avoid dependences upon a particular infrastructure Community-oriented: Modules should be simple to share, discover, reuse, and expand Create conditions for “viral” growth

  8. Towards this vision in FutureGrid Executable modules – virtual appliances Deployable on FutureGrid resources Deployable on other cloud platforms, as well as virtualized desktops Community sharing – Web 2.0 portal, appliance image repositories An aggregation hub for executable modules and documentation

  9. What is a virtual appliance? • An appliance that packages software and configuration needed for a particular purpose into a virtual machine “image” • The virtual appliance has no hardware – just software and configuration • The image is a (big) file • It can be instantiated on hardware

  10. Virtual appliance example Linux, Java, Hadoop, configuration scripts Hadoop image A Hadoop worker Another Hadoop worker instantiate Virtualization Layer copy Repeat…

  11. What about the network? • Multiple Web servers might be completely independent from each other • Parallel processing: workers are not • Need to communicate and coordinate with each other • Each worker needs an IP address, uses TCP/IP sockets • Cluster middleware stacks assume a collection of machines, typically on a LAN (Local Area Network)

  12. Virtual cluster appliances Virtual appliance + virtual network Virtual network Hadoop + Virtual Network Another Hadoop worker A Hadoop worker instantiate Virtual machine copy Repeat…

  13. Virtual cluster appliances • Virtual appliance + virtual network Virtual network MPI + Virtual Network Another MPI node An MPI node instantiate Virtual machine copy Repeat…

  14. Background Virtual appliances • Encapsulate software environment in image • Virtual disk file(s) and virtual hardware configuration The Grid appliance • Encapsulates cluster software environments • Current examples: Condor, MPI, Hadoop • Homogeneous images at each node • Virtual LAN connecting nodes to form a cluster • Deploy within or across domains

  15. Grid appliance in a nutshell • Plug-and-play clusters with a pre-configured software environment • Linux + (Hadoop, Condor, MPI, …) • Scripts for zero-configuration • “Virtual machine” appliance; open-source software runs on Linux, Windows, Mac • Hands-on examples, bootstrap infrastructure, and zero-configuration software – you’re off to a quick start

  16. Grid appliance in a nutshell • Creating an equivalent Grid on your own resources, or on cloud providers, is also easy • Deploy image on FutureGrid, Amazon EC2 • Copy the same appliance to clusters, PC labs • Simple deployment and management of ad-hoc clusters • Opportunistic computing • Testing, evaluation • Education, training

  17. Virtual Clusters in FutureGrid Eucalyptus Nimbus Appliance image Education Training

  18. Social virtual private networks • Education/training: deploy your own cluster! Group VPN MPI + Virtual Network Another MPI worker An MPI worker instantiate Virtual machine copy GroupVPN Credentials Repeat… (from Web site) Virtual IP - DHCP 10.10.1.1 Virtual IP - DHCP 10.10.1.2

  19. Where to go from here? • You can download Grid appliances and run on your own resources • You can create private virtual clusters and manage groups of users • You can customize appliances with other middleware, create images, and share with other users • Tutorials available at FutureGrid.org • More information on Grid appliances also available at Grid-appliance.org • Contact Renato Figueiredorenato@acis.ufl.edu for more information about appliances

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