View source for EGI Virtualisation Activities

[[Category:Fedcloud-tf]]
= EGI User Virtualisation Workshop  =

This workshop brought together more than [https://www.egi.eu/indico/confRegistrantsDisplay.py/list?confId=415 70 Participants] from three critical groups (resource providers, end-users and technology providers) within the European production infrastructure to ask the following series of questions: 

*Should EGI move towards providing an 'Infrastructure as a Service' model (a.k.a. cloud computing) tuned to support data intensive research communities? 
*Should this service be provided by federations of resource providers from the research community, commercially by ''ad hoc'' agreements between users and resource providers, or by collective negotiation and purchase of resources on behalf of different communities? 
*What sort of use (consuming communities and use cases) would the research community make of such a capability? 
*What are the major issues (e.g. technical, policy, governance, etc.) that need to be resolved for this use to happen?

Over a 2-3 day workshop through a series of presentations and breakouts we tried to answer these questions in order to end the meeting with a set of critical observations that could be developed into a roadmap that will meet the growing need for virtualised resources from the European research communities. 

=== Time and place  ===

The workshop was held 12-13 May 2011 in Amsterdam. 

=== Background Material  ===

The meeting schedule deliberately did not spend a lot of time on technology related presentations or provide an introduction for cloud computing. There are plenty of meetings that can provide that information. A selection of recent events are provided below: 

*[http://www.sienainitiative.eu/Pages/SelectedDocument.aspx?id_documento=b3f36217-2588-4169-886a-bd6922824dfe Cloudscape III, Brussels, March] 
*[https://www.egi.eu/indico/sessionDisplay.py?sessionId=6&confId=207#20110411 EGI User Forum - Cloud &amp; Virtualisation sessions, Vilnius, Lithuania, April] 
*[http://www.sienainitiative.eu/Repository/FileScaricati/8ee3587a-f255-4e5c-aed4-9c2dc7b626f6.pdf SIENA Grids and Clouds standards roadmap] 
*[https://documents.egi.eu/document/172 DCI Collaborative Roadmap]

=== Agenda and Post-event Information  ===

*[https://go.egi.eu/uvw1 Workshop webpage] <br> 
*[https://documents.egi.eu/document/535 Detailed minutes] <br> 
*[https://documents.egi.eu/document/559 Summary Report]<br><br>

= Defining a Roadmap for a Federated Virtualised Infrastructure  =

=== EGI Cloud Profile / Architecture  ===

The purpose of this document is to define a technical roadmap for the interoperable integration of virtualised resources from different resource providers to provide an integrated federated virtualised resources infrastructure for exploitation by EGI’s user community. To achieve interoperability between the individual deployments, while allowing individual sites the flexibility to deploy the software that they wish, some interfaces will need to be constrained to clearly defined specifications. This document defines a minimal set of usage scenarios that when supported will provide key functionality for the end-users wishing to utilise ‘cloud’ interfaces provided as part of EGI. From these scenarios a number of functional areas are defined and from these functional areas a set of standards and specifications are identified that will define interaction across this functional areas. These scenarios and specifications are identified to promote discussion amongst the end-user community (as a starting point for their use) and for resource-providers (to verify the deployability of these interfaces). 

*[https://documents.egi.eu/document/435 Document/Report]<br><br>

=== Virtualisation Technologies to be Investigated and Contact  ===

The following table provides an outline of the people and/or organisations who have agreed to investigate the capabilities and functionalities of specific virtualisation technologies and will serve as a tracking and reference mechanisms of their findings. 

{| width="800" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="2" border="1" align="left"
|-
| 
'''Technology''' 

| 
'''Website''' 

| 
'''Principle Investigator''' 

| 
'''Outcome/Findings''' 

|-
| Azure<br> 
| [http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure www.microsoft.com/windowsazure] 
| Ake Edlund, KTH 
| 
|-
| Eucalyptus ([http://www.ubuntu.com/business/cloud/overview Ubuntu EC]) 
| [http://www.eucalyptus.com www.eucalyptus.com] 
| David Wallom, OeRC 
| 
|-
| Hyper-V<br> 
| [http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx www.microsoft.com/hyper-v] 
| STFC / CERN 
| 
|-
| OpenNebula 
| [http://opennebula.org http://opennebula.org] 
| CESGA and OpenNebula team 
| 
|-
| OpenStack 
| [http://www.openstack.org/ www.openstack.org] 
| CSC 
| 
|-
| Platform ISF 
| [http://www.platform.com/private-cloud-computing/private-cloud-platform-isf www.platform.com/private-cloud-platform-isf] 
| CERN 
| 
|-
| StratusLab 
| [http://stratuslab.eu/index.php www.stratuslab.eu] 
| Cal Loomis / David O'Callaghan 
| 
|-
| VMware 
| [http://www.vmware.com/ www.vmware.com] 
| David Wallom, OeRC 
| 
|}

<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> 

=== Partners to Provide Resources for Virtualisation Testbed  ===

An informal agreement was established to move forward with implementation of virtualisation, but first on a “testbed” environment. A number of resource providers informally committed a part of their infrastructure for virtualisation efforts. Formal communication channels are being established in order to take this forward. The following table provides a list of NGIs represented at the User Virtualisation Workshop, a few comments made by them, and will serve as a tracking and reference table for those who are formally involved and how. 

<br> 


{| cellspacing="1" cellpadding="2" border="1" 
|-
! NGI 
! Commitment 
! Contact 
! Number of Provided Resources 
! Comments
|-
| Czech Republic 
| Yes 
| Ludĕk Matyska, CESNET 
| 
| Will collaborate towards virtualisation. They have national program for virtualisation and there should not be too much deviation from that.
|-
| Finland 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| France 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| German 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| Greece 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| Ireland 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| Italy 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| Netherlands 
| Yes 
| 
| 
| BigGrid will offer a part of the infrastructure for virtualisation efforts, but not with unlimited manpower to the project
|-
| Poland 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| Sweden 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|-
| UK 
| Yes 
| David Wallom, OeRC 
| 
| 
|}



= Federated Clouds Task Force =

In order to take a proactive stance and ensuring that how virtualisation efforts will be coordinated and implemented, a dedicated Task Force has been set up. Visit the [[Fedcloud-tf:FederatedCloudsTaskForce |dedicated FCTF wiki page]] for: 

*Mandate 
*Expected Outputs 
*Members 
*Conference calls<br><br>

= Mailing Lists  =

If you are interested in contributing to the virtualisation discussion or would like to keep updated on ongoing activities, feel free to use or join [mailto:cloud-discuss@mailman.egi.eu cloud-discuss@mailman.egi.eu]. <br> If you are looking to become an active member of EGI's virtualisation efforts then contact [mailto:fedcloud-tf@mailman.egi.eu fedcloud-tf@mailman.egi.eu]<br><br>