Federated Cloud Users Feedback and open issues

Feedback and open issues

The EGI Federated Cloud is provided by members of the EGI-InSPIRE project and evolves according to the feedback received from its user communities. Current and potential users of the EGI Federated Cloud are interviewed on a regular basis and asked to provide feedback about the capabilities of the EGI cloud and tell us about their requirements concerning improvement of the platform and the related support services. the known requirements are listed in the table below.

Feedback/requirement	Submitter/Use case	Further information
VMcatcher test on sites	Use of images from AppDB (Gergely Sipos, EGI.eu)	VMCatcher insatllation is required on a cloud site to use VM images from the Applications Database. The VMcatcher should be tested during site certification, and later on a regular basis with a specific monitoring probe.

Old items:

Feedback/requirement	Submitter/Use case	Further information
Availability (reliable web service with option for a local installation)	CLARIN/BNCweb	Slide 11: https://indico.egi.eu/indico/getFile.py/access?resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=1102
Scalability of compute resources	CLARIN/BNCweb	Slide 11: https://indico.egi.eu/indico/getFile.py/access?resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=1102
Persistence (user workspace records, e.g. saved searches)	CLARIN/BNCweb	Slide 11: https://indico.egi.eu/indico/getFile.py/access?resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=1102
Flexible options for the access and authorization layer (basic auth / local SSO / Shibboleth)	CLARIN/BNCweb	Slide 11: https://indico.egi.eu/indico/getFile.py/access?resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=1102
Access to the VM (Web interface is a plus, but having a CLI not an obstacle)	WeNMR	EGI TF 2012 Demo
VM sharing must be restricted (licensed software bundled in the image)	WeNMR	EGI TF 2012 Demo
DCI based images registered in the Cloud marketplace (ARC, gLite [UI, VOMS, WMS, CREAM CE], UNICORE, GT2/4/5, PBS, LSF, BOINC)	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE
Cloud resources where these images can be deployed	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE	The testbed operated by members of the EGI Federated Cloud Task Force can be used for the use case. Further information at Fedcloud-tf:UserCommunities#How_to_get_access_to_the_TF_test_bed.3F
Unified access mechanism to the cloud (all sites should have the same authorization requirements, which will simplify the access procedure)	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE	The unified access protocols of the FedCloud testbed are listed at Fedcloud-tf:UserCommunities#Interfaces_and_protocols, the protocol to obtaining access to the testbed is centralised through the User Community Support Team of EGI.eu and is described at Fedcloud-tf:UserCommunities#How_to_get_access_to_the_TF_test_bed.3F.
Cloud sites description should have relevant info such as: accepted hypervisors, network access	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE	The list of hypervisors used on the testbed sites are available in a table at Fedcloud-tf:UserCommunities#Sites_overview_table. Information about network capabilities still need to be collected.
Documentation for experts on how to deploy virtual appliances is welcome	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE
Cloud marketplace to store relevant images	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE
Cloud marketplace images should be stripped to the minimum set of packages	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE
Clear policies about the cloud marketplace sustainability (who will maintain the images?)	SCI-BUS/WS-PGRADE
Virtual image registered in the marketplace	Vladimir Viro/Peachnote
Ability to upgrade this image easily	Vladimir Viro/Peachnote
Network stability from inside the VM	Vladimir Viro/Peachnote
Data extraction from inside the VM will be needed (file I/O, storage space, …)	GAIA
Scalability of compute resources (load balancing)	GAIA
Enable people to upload apps and run them against data in VMs	GAIA