Building Private and Hybrid Clouds with Ubuntu 9.04

New Cloud Computing and Virtualization Features in the new Ubuntu Server Distribution

Dec. 16, 2009 11:15 PM

April 23, 2009 - Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) has been released today bringing highly interesting new features, specially in the Cloud Computing and Virtualization area. The new Ubuntu server distribution includes two complementary cloud tools, OpenNebula and Eucalyptus, so providing the technology required to build the three types of Cloud architectures, namely private, hybrid and public clouds.

Eucalyptus can be used to transform an existing infrastructure into an IaaS public cloud, being compatible with Amazon’s EC2 interface.

Eucalyptus is fully functional with respect to providing cloud-like interfaces and higher-level cloud functionality for security, contextualization and image management.

OpenNebula, on the other hand, is a virtual infrastructure engine that enables the dynamic and scalable deployment and re-placement of groups of interconnected virtual machines within and across sites. OpenNebula can be primarily used as a virtualization tool to manage a distributed virtual infrastructure in the datacenter or cluster. This application is usually referred asprivate cloud, and OpenNebula can also dynamically scale the local infrastructure using external clouds, so building hybrid clouds. OpenNebula provides dynamic “cloudbursting” to any cloud with Amazon EC2 interfaces, including Eucalyptus-based clouds.

OpenNebula is building an ecosytem with tools extending its functionality, such as the Haizea lease management system, a libvirt implementation on top of OpenNebula or a VM consolidation scheduler fro GreenIT. The project provides support to host the development of the new ecosystem projects.

Moreover, because OpenNebula is one of the technologies being enhanced in RESERVOIR, flagship European research initiative in virtualized infrastructures and cloud computing, in few months there will be available several new components complementing its functionality for service elasticity management, VM placement to meet SLA commitments, supporting public cloud interfaces… So please stay tuned for upcoming announcements.

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About Ignacio M. Llorente
Ignacio M. Llorente, Ph.D in Computer Science (UCM) and Executive MBA (IE Business School), is a Full Professor in Computer Architecture and Technology, and the Head of the Distributed Systems Architecture Research Group at Complutense University of Madrid. He has held several appointments as an independent expert for the European Commission (Information Society and Media Directorate-General); visiting positions at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering (NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA); consultancy positions with Sun Microsystems; and a Senior Researcher position in the Advanced Computing Lab at CAB (CSIC/INTA center associated to NASA Astrobiology Institute).

He has 17 years of experience in research and development of advanced distributed computing and virtualization technologies, architecture of large-scale distributed infrastructures and resource provisioning platforms, and management of international projects and initiatives on Grid and Cloud Computing; having led the research group in 15 sponsored projects; having published more than 130 scientific papers in the leading journals and proceedings books; and having participated in the program committee of several yearly-celebrated workshops and conferences.

His current research interests are mainly in the area of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud Computing, co-leading the research and development of the OpenNebula Toolkit for Cloud Computing and coordinating the Activity on Management of Virtual Execution Environments in the RESERVOIR Project, main EU-funded research initiative in virtualized infrastructures and cloud computing. He founded and co-chaired the Open Grid Forum Working Group on Open Cloud Computing Interface; and participates in the European Cloud Computing Group of Experts.