Learning Objectives

Chapter 13 Open-source cloud computing solutionsChen Xu, ZhipengGui, Jing LI, Kai Liu, Qunying Huang, and Myra Bambacus

Learning Objectives • This chapter introduces four major cloud computing open-source solutions including CloudStack, Eucalyptus, OpenNebula and Nimbus.

Learning Materials • Video: • Chapter_13-Video_1.mp4

Learning Modules • Introduction • CloudStack • Eucalyptus • OpenNebula • Nimbus

Introduction to open-source cloud computing solutions The architecture of IaaS managed by VIM

Features provided by VIMs • Managing and monitoring the life cycle of virtual machines (VMs) • Placing and replacing VMs dynamically on a pool of physical infrastructure • Scheduling of VMs on physical machines • Providing networking capabilities to enable the VMs to be accessible through network.

CloudStack – Function modules • CloudStack provides: compute orchestration, Network-as-a-Service, user and account management, a full and open native API, resource accounting, and user-friendly User Interfaces (UI).

CloudStack - Architecture

CloudStack – Features of Architecture • All resources are tied together through a shared architecture comprising at least one hypervisor solution. • CloudStack provides a core segmentation model based on account management and resource allocation. • It encompasses core functions such as the user interface and image management, and allows cloud providers to provide advanced services such as high availability and load balancing. • All services are tied together through a series of web service APIs which fully automate CloudStack to support unique needs of consumers.

CloudStack – General characteristics • Scalability: It supports integration with both software and hardware firewalls and load balancers to provide additional security and scalability to a user’s cloud environment, such as F5 load balancer and Netscaler. • Cloud model: an IaaS cloud platform. • Compatibility: Compatible with Amazon EC2 and S3 APIs, vCloud APIs.

CloudStack – General characteristics • Deployment and interface: Web-based interface, command line tools, or a RESTful API. • Hypervisors: VmwarevSphere, Citrix XenServer, Xen Cloud Platform (XCP). • Reliability: a highly robust and scalable IaaS solution. • OS support: Linux for managing the management server and computing nodes. • Cost: CloudStack itself is free software licensed under the Apache License. However, costs may be incurred by using a commercial hypervisor.

Eucalyptus – Function modules • Eucalyptus based IaaS cloud services give consumers the ability to run and control virtual machine instances deployed across a variety of physical resources.

Eucalyptus - Architecture

Eucalyptus – Features of Architecture • Eucalyptus provides an IaaS solution to build private or hybrid clouds. • By virtualization of physical machines in the data center, cloud providers can provide collections of virtualized computer hardware resources, including compute, network, and storage to cloud consumers. • Consumers can access the cloud through command line tools ("euca2ools") or through a web-based dashboard such as Hybridfox. • Eucalyptus also supports an AWS-compatible API on top of Eucalyptus for consumers to communicate with AWS. • Video: Chapter_13_Video_1.mp4

Eucalyptus – General characteristics • Scalability: Eucalyptus supports scalability starting with Eucalyptus 2.0 at two levels: front-end transactional scalability and back-end resource scalability ("Eucalyptus 2.0", 2013). • Cloud model: an IaaS cloud platform. • Compatibility: Eucalyptus provides compatibility with a range of AWS features: Amazon EC2, Amazon EBS, AMI, Amazon S3 and Amazon IAM.

Eucalyptus – General characteristics • Deployment and interface: Amazon AWS APIs for EC2 and S3. Euca2ools for interacting with Web services. • Hypervisors: Xen, KVM and VMware Hypervisors. • Reliability: Eucalyptus 3 improved the reliability of the IaaS cloud using automatic failover and failback mechanisms. • OS support: Eucalyptus 3.2 supports Windows Server 2003 and 2008, Windows 7 and all Modern Linux Distributions such as RedHat, CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian. • Cost: Users can choose between the open source free Eucalyptus Cloud and the priced Eucalyptus Enterprise Cloud.

OpenNebula – Function modules • OpenNebula is designed to provide a solution for building enterprise level data centers and IaaS clouds. Its modular based architecture allows cloud builders to configure and implement a diverse range of cloud services whereas maintains high level of stability and quality.

OpenNebula - Architecture Internal architecture Interfaces

OpenNebula – Features of Architecture • The core module manages and monitors virtual resources such as VMs, virtual networks, virtual storage and images. • It also handles client requests and invokes corresponding drivers to perform operations on resources. • Drivers serve as adapters to interact with middleware. • Core functions are exposed to end users through a set of tools and APIs.

OpenNebula – General characteristics • Scalability: OpenNebula has been employed in building large scale infrastructure as well as highly scalable databases. • Cloud model: an IaaS cloud platform. • Compatibility: OpenNebula can be adapted to existing infrastructure and integrated with various cloud services.

OpenNebula – General characteristics • Deployment and interface: Cloud providers can develop customized tools with cloud interfaces. Consumers can use either the Command Line Interface (CLI) or the SunStone Web Portal to perform most operations, especially the management of resources. • Hypervisors: KVM, Xen and VMware • Reliability: a specialized quality check module, OpenNebula QA, to ensure the quality of every release. • OS support: Major Linux and Windows versions are supported. • Cost: While OpenNebula is a complete free solution, its enterprise version, OpenNebulaPro is distributed on an annual subscription basis.

Nimbus– Function modules • The initial development of Nimbus system targeted computing requirements of scientific studies.

Nimbus - Architecture

OpenNebula – Features of Architecture • The workspace comprises the front-end, the workspace service, and the back-end, the VM workspace. • The VM workspace is deployed onto the Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) node, which is a physical node. • Once the deployment has been done, consumers can access the cloud service node via the HTTP interface. • Cumulus is a crucial component of Nimbus, serving as the front end to the Nimbus VM image repository. • Any VM image must be loaded into the Cumulus repository before booting.

Nimbus – General characteristics • Scalability: The Cumulus Redirection module of Nimbus manages scalability. It can be configured to run as a set of replicated hosts to support horizontal scalability. • Cloud model: an IaaS cloud platform. • Compatibility: Cumulus storage extends the Amazon S3 REST API, and is S3 compatible.

OpenNebula – General characteristics • Deployment and interface: Users directly interact with VMs in the node pool in almost the same way as interacting with a physical machine. • Hypervisors: KVM, Xen and VMware • Reliability: The reliability of Nimbus partially depends on the hardware infrastructure the Cumulus builds on. • OS support: Major Linux. • Cost: Therefore there is no cost for the software.

Conclusion

Questions 1. What are the general features a virtual infrastructure manager (VIM) should provide? 2. What are the general characteristics of CloudStack? 3. What are the general characteristics of Eucalyptus? 4. What are the general characteristics of OpenNebula? 5. Please describe the major differences between Nimbus and other VIMs introduced in the chapter. 6. Use an example to illustrate which one of the three VIMs, CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula, will be the most suitable solution fortheexample.

References • Armbrust, M., Fox, A., Griffith, R., Joseph, A. D., Katz, R., Konwinski, A., Lee, G., Patterson, D., Rabkin, A., Stoica, I., and Zaharia, M., 2010. A view of cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, 53(4), 50-58. • Apache, 2012. CloudStack Installation Guide. http://incubator.apache.org/cloudstack/docs/en-US/Apache_CloudStack/4.0.0-incubating/pdf/Installation_Guide/Apache_CloudStack-4.0.0-incubating-Installation_Guide-en-US.pdf • Huang, Q., Xia, J., Yang, C., Liu, K., Li, J., Gui, Z., Hassan, M., and Chen, S., 2012. An experimental study of open-source cloud platforms for dust storm forecasting. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, ACM, pp.534-537, Redondo Beach, CA, USA. • Mangtani, N. and Bhingarkar, S., 2012. The appraisal and judgment of Nimubs, Open Nebula and Eucalyptus. International Journal of Computational Biology 3(1): 44-47. • Milojičić, D., Llorente, I.M. and Montero, R.S., 2011. OpenNebula: A Cloud Management Tool. IEEE Internet Computing, 15, 11 –14. • Nurmi, D., Wolski, R., Grzegorczyk, C., Obertelli, G., Soman, S., Youseff, L., &Zagorodnov, D. (2009, May). The eucalyptus open-source cloud-computing system. In Cluster Computing and the Grid, 2009.CCGRID'09. 9th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on, May 18-21, 2009. Shanghai China: 124-131. • Rimal, B.P., Jukan, A., Katsaros, D. and Goeleven, Y., 2011. Architectural requirements for cloud computing systems: An enterprise cloud approach. J Grid Computing 9: 3-26. • Sempolinski, P., Thain, D., 2010. A Comparison and Critique of Eucalyptus, OpenNebula and Nimbus. In 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom). • Sotomayor, B., Montero, R.S., Llorente, I.M., Foster, I., 2009. Virtual Infrastructure Management in Private and Hybrid Clouds. IEEE Internet Computing, 13(5): 14-22.

Learning Objectives