Alert.png The wiki is deprecated and due to be decommissioned by the end of September 2022.
The content is being migrated to other supports, new updates will be ignored and lost.
If needed you can get in touch with EGI SDIS team using operations @ egi.eu.

Difference between revisions of "Federated Cloud user support"

From EGIWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Fedcloud_Menu}} {{TOC_right}}  
{{Fedcloud_Menu}} {{TOC_right}}  


<br>  
<br> <big>Technical support is available via the [mailto:support@egi.eu EGI.eu Support Team]</big>  


<big>Technical support is available via the [mailto:support@egi.eu EGI.eu Support Team]</big>
<br> The EGI Cloud federation is an hybrid cloud composed by public, community and private clouds, all supported by the EGI Core Infrastructure Platform services and focusing on the requirements of the scientific community. The result is a new type of research e-infrastructure based on the mature federated operations services that make EGI a reliable resource for science. When using EGI Federated Cloud resources, researchers and research communities can count on:


<br>
;Elastic computing infrastructure.
:Execute compute and data intensive workloads (both batch and interactive), host long-running services (e.g. web servers, databases or applications servers), or create disposable testing and development environments on VMs and scale your infrastructure needs over a federation of cloud providers. Select VM configurations (CPU, memory, disk) and application environments that better fit your requirements.


<br>
;VM image sharing and distribution
:Easily share and distribute VM images for your applications on a open library of Virtual Appliances. Community curated appliances are securely and automatically replicated accross the infrastructure. EGI provides a set of securely configured images with basic software ready to use on all providers that can be re-used and extended with contextualisation to execute your applications


Users of the EGI Federated Cloud are scientists working in many fields, who can benefit from a flexible environment for running their workloads. Also, the EGI cloud is suitable for projects aiming to provide services and platforms to the scientific community. <!--
;Unified view of federation
== How to get access to the FedCloud?  ==
:The EGI Cloud provides: Single sing-on (SSO) for authentication and authorisation across all resource providers; Federated accounting with an integrated view of the the resource and service usage; Distributed information system for delivering a real-time view of the capabilities; and Federated monitoring to compute metrics for availability and reliability of the services.


Access to EGI FedCloud resources can be requested in email through the [mailto:ucst@EGI.eu EGI.eu User Community Support Team]. The team will work with you to develop a technical plan for your envisaged use case, identifying the sites, the number and type of resources that your use case requires from EGI. The team will then arrange access for you to these resources and with the site operators provides you further assistance during their use.  
;Beyond VMs
:Run docker applications on the EGI resources or use any of the supported PaaS and SaaS solutions that extend the IaaS capabilities of the EGI cloud and abstract the infrastructure to let you focus on your application development.


To join the EGI FedCloud, please send an email to [mailto:ucst@EGI.eu?subject=Get%20access%20to%20the%20EGI%20FedCloud ucst@EGI.eu] with the following information:
== Current Users and Communities  ==


*Name
EGI Federated Cloud already has a large use base, check the [[Federated Cloud Communities|FedCloud Users Communities]] page for more details.
*Institute
*Email address
*One paragraph long description of the use case
*Envisaged timeline (is there a deadline to finish the setup?; for how long do you think you will need the setup to exist?)
*Estimated number and size of machines that you need from EGI
*Link to webpage, document or other online resource for further information
-->


=== Concept  ===
[[Image:Fedclouduclogos.png|center|550px|Fedclouduclogos.png]]


The EGI Federated Cloud is a seamless grid of academic private clouds and virtualised resources built around open standards and focusing on the requirements of the scientific community. The result is a new type of research e-infrastructure based on the mature federated operations services that make EGI a reliable resource for science. When using EGI Federated Cloud resources, researchers and research communities can count on:
== Usage Models  ==


*Total control over deployed applications  
'''The EGI Federated Cloud considerably widens the usage models supported by EGI'''. Now, web services and interactive applications can be easily integrated in the infrastructure, the computing environments can be finely tuned to satisfy user’s needs in term of software (OSs and software packages) and hardware (number of cores, amount of RAM, etc.) and, many solutions are available to store, update and access big amount of data. These new opportunities offered by EGI hugely extended the potential user base of the infrastructure opening the doors to new research communities with minimal or none knowledge of the EGI ecosystem.
*Elastic resource consumption based on real needs  
*Immediately processed workloads – no more waiting time
*An extended e-Infrastructure across resource providers in Europe
*Service performance scaled with elastic resource consumption
*Single sign-on at multiple, independent providers


After [[Federated_Cloud_user_support|obtaining access]] to one or more sites of the EGI federated cloud, the prospective user can setup and operate custom services, applications and simulations within the virtualized hosting environments of these sites.
We classified the usage models enabled by the EGI Fededated Cloud as follows:


[[Image:Fedcloud.png|center|550px|Fedcloud.png]]
*'''Service hosting''': the EGI Federated Cloud can be used to hosts any IT service as web servers, databases, etc. Cloud features, as elasticity, can help users to provide better performance and reliable services.
*'''Compute and data intensive''': applications needing considerable amount of resources in term of computation and/or memory and/or intensive I/O. Ad-hoc computing environments can be created in the FedCloud sites also to satisfy very hard HW resource requirements.
*'''Datasets repository''': the EGI Federated Cloud can be used to store and manage large datasets exploiting the big amount of disk storage available in the Federation.
*'''Disposable and testing environments''': environments for training or testing new developments.


#Users select Virtual Appliances (a virtual machine image that encapsulates an operating system and optionally a set of applications) from the [http://appdb.egi.eu EGI Applications Database]. Technical developers may also create their own images with any operating system of choice, the scientific software and any optional component needed for the software to function.
<br> [[Image:FedCloudUsageModels.png|center|550px|FedCloudUsageModels.png]] <br>
#*Tip: Images from the [http://appdb.egi.eu EGI Applications Database] may be reusable, customisable for your use case.  
#Instantiate the Virtual Appliance(s) on the EGI cloud. The preferred API for accessing EGI federated cloud is OCCI. For which there exist a command-line client (rOCCI), high-level tools or directly implementing the ‘Open Cloud Computing Interface’ (OCCI) into your environment. OpenStack Nova API is also available for OpenStack sites belonging to the Federation.
#*Tip: Read about the [[Federated Cloud APIs and SDKs|APIs and SDKs for accessing the EGI Federated Cloud resources]].
#*Tip: Follow [[Fedcloud-tf:CLI Environment|this guide]] to setup the rOCCI command line client.
#*Tip: Read in [[HOWTO10|this guidance]] about various options of porting applications to the EGI Federated Cloud.
#*Tip: Use one of these [[HOWTO10|high-level tools]] to instantiate VMs on cloud sites.  
#Users can use block storage (that can be attached as a disk to running Virtual Machines) or object-based storage that can be accessed from anywhere with the CDMI interface.
#*Tip: Read the [[HOWTO09|storage how-to]] for more information on the storage services of FedCloud ('''PREPRODUCTION''')
#Sites support the Virtual Organizations (VOs) and automatically download the Virtual Appliance lists endorsed by the VO managers.


<br>


== Usage Models ==
'''The EGI Federated Cloud considerably widens the usage models supported by EGI'''. Now, web services and interactive applications can be easily integrated in the infrastructure, the computing environments can be finely tuned to satisfy user’s needs in term of software (OSs and software packages) and hardware (number of cores, amount of RAM, etc.) and, many solutions are available to store, update and access big amount of data. These new opportunities offered by EGI hugely extended the potential user base of the infrastructure opening the doors to new research communities with minimal or none knowledge of the EGI ecosystem.


We classified the usage models enabled by the EGI Fededated Cloud as follows:
== How to use the EGI Federated Cloud?  ==
* '''Service hosting''': the EGI Federated Cloud can be used to hosts any IT service as web servers, databases, etc. Cloud features, as elasticity, can help users to provide better performance and reliable services.
* '''Compute and data intensive''': applications needing considerable amount of resources in term of computation and/or memory and/or intensive I/O. Ad-hoc computing environments can be created in the FedCloud sites also to satisfy very hard HW resource requirements.
*''' Datasets repository''': the EGI Federated Cloud can be used to store and manage large datasets exploiting the big amount of disk storage available in the Federation.
* '''Disposable and testing environments''': environments for training or testing new developments.
<BR>
[[Image:FedCloudUsageModels.png|center|550px|FedCloudUsageModels.png]]
<BR>


== Current FedCloud Users and Communities ==
=== Access ===


<!-- [[File:fedclouduclogos.png|800px|thumb]] --> [[Image:Fedclouduclogos.png|center|550px|Fedclouduclogos.png]]
EGI provides users with a single sign-on mechanism to access the federated services with the use of X.509 certificates and Virtual Organisations (VOs). Before using the EGI Federated Cloud you will need to:  


<br> More details of the FedCloud User Communities and their use cases is in the [[Federated Cloud Communities|FedCloud Users Communities]] page.  
*[http://www.egi.eu/how-to/get_a_certificate.html Obtain a grid certificate] from a recognised CA (if you don't own one already).
*Join [https://perun.metacentrum.cz/perun-registrar-cert/?vo=fedcloud.egi.eu fedcloud.egi.eu Virtual Organisation]. This VO provides resources for application prototyping and validation. It can be used for up to 6 month for any new user.
*If you are part of an [http://operations-portal.egi.eu/vo/search existing VO] that has access to cloud resources, you may use that VO.
<!-- TODO: how to know if a VO has cloud resources?, which are those resources? -->


== How to use the FedCloud?  ==
=== Creating your first VM - Instantiate an exiting image ===


A brief description on how to use the FedCloud resources is described in the text below. More information can be found on the '''[[FAQ10|FedCloud FAQ page]]''' and the Guides and Tutorials listed in this page. <br>
The basic user workflow for starting a Virtual Machine (VM) looks like this:


=== Quick Start ===
#Browse in the [https://appdb.egi.eu/browse/cloud Application Database Cloud Marketplace] the available Virtual Appliances. Virtual Appliances are the templates for the root volume of the running instances (Operating System and applications). EGI offers a set of basic images with minimal configuration that can get you started easily, but you can also find complete application stacks. See for example these images:
#*[https://appdb.egi.eu/store/vappliance/egi.ubuntu.14.04 EGI Ubuntu 14], a basic [http://www.ubuntu.com/ Ubuntu 14.04] image
#*[https://appdb.egi.eu/store/vappliance/egi.centos.6 EGI Centos 6], a basic [https://www.centos.org/ CentOS 6] image
#*[https://appdb.egi.eu/store/software/compss.framework COMPSs], a VM for using [[HOWTO14_How_to_use_COMPSs|COMPSs]] programming framework
#*[https://appdb.egi.eu/store/vappliance/biovel.portal BioVel Portal], for executing a http://www.biovel.eu/ biodiversity virtual e-Laboratory]
#Read the description of the appliance for information on how to use it and connect to it once started.
#*You may need to have a ssh key in order to login into the VM, check [[FAQ10#How_can_I_inject_my_public_SSH_key_into_the_machine.3F|the FAQ on how to create one]]
#Get the IDs for starting the appliance at one of the sites supporting it in the "Availability and Usage" tab.
#Get the [[HOWTO11|command line client]] to start the VM using the IDs from previous step
#*Check the [[FAQ10#How_can_I_start_a_VM.3F|How can I start a VM?]] FAQ entry and the [[HOWTO11|command line client how to]] for more information.
#Connect to VM and start using it
#*You may need to allocate a public IP for the VM, check [[FAQ10#How_can_I_assign_a_public_IP_to_a_VM.3F|How can I assign a public IP to a VM]] in the Federated Cloud FAQ


The typical user workflow on the EGI Federated Cloud looks like:
=== Advanced topics  ===


#[http://www.egi.eu/how-to/get_a_certificate.html Obtain a grid certificate] from a recognised CA (if you don't own one already)
==== API and SDKs access to Federated Cloud resources ====
#Join [https://perun.metacentrum.cz/perun-registrar-cert/?vo=fedcloud.egi.eu fedcloud.egi.eu Virtual Organisation]. This VO provides resources for application prototyping and validation. It can be used for up to 6 month for any new user.
#Select existing images from the [https://appdb.egi.eu/browse/cloud Application Database Cloud Marketplace] and instantiate them using:
##A [[HOWTO11|command line client]] (OCCI or OpenStack)
##One of the [[Federated Cloud APIs and SDKs|APIs and SDKs]]
##A [[HOWTO10|high level brokering tool]] that is interoperable with the Federated Cloud.


=== Advanced Usage  ===
Besides the command line client, there are several [[Federated Cloud APIs and SDKs|APIs and SDK ready to be used with the EGI Federated Cloud]].Preferred API for EGI federated cloud is OCCI, which can be accesses using using a command-line client (rOCCI), high-level tools or directly implementing the ‘Open Cloud Computing Interface’ (OCCI) into your environment. OpenStack Nova API is also available for OpenStack sites belonging to the Federation.


==== Virtual Organisation  ====
==== Storage ====


Once the 6-month testing period of fedcloud.egi.eu membership expires, you will need to move into a production VO:  
Every instantiated VM has some disk space provided with it, if you need more storage or need to share data, you can use a cloud storage solution. There are two kind of services: Block Storage and Object Storage. Check the [[HOWTO09|EGI Federated Cloud Storage How To]] for more information.


*Several other VOs of EGI make resources available from the Federated Cloud. Find a suitable VO in the [http://operations-portal.egi.eu/vo/search Operations Portal]. (Search for Cloud as a middleware type.)
==== Docker containers ====
*Existing grid production VOs can be extended by VO&nbsp;manager to cloud by declaring cloud resources in VO&nbsp;ID card (in Operations Portal) and requesting via [http://ggus.eu/ GGUS ](assign to Perun Support Unit) Perun support.
*If no existing VO suits your case, a new VO can be created. Please follow [https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/PROC14_VO_Registration this procedure]. You can invite sites from the infrastructure to support them.


==== Customized Virtual Appliances  ====
You can [[Federated Cloud Containers|run your docker applications on EGI's Cloud]]. EGI also provides a [[Federated_Cloud_Containers#EGI_Federated_Cloud_clients_docker_image|docker image with the clients]] so you can test them easily.


You can prepare fully customised Virtual Appliances and deploy them to the sites:
==== PaaS/SaaS ====


#Prepare Virtual Machine Images (VMIs) that encapsulate your application. See the [[HOWTO10|application porting tutorial]] for tips.
Read in [[HOWTO10|this guidance]] about various options of porting applications to the EGI Federated Cloud that includes information on several [[HOWTO10#4._Infrastructure_broker_2|High level user environments to interact with the EGI Federated Cloud]] to manage your applications as VMs on cloud sites.  
#Make the VMIs available online, for example in the [http://appliance-repo.egi.eu/images/ EGI Appliance Repository]
#Register the VMIs as Virtual Appliance in the [http://appdb.egi.eu EGI Applications Database] (for howto please click [https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/main:faq:how_to_register_a_virtual_appliance here])
#Once your registered set of VMIs, bundled under a vAppliance version, have been published (see howto [https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/main:guides:guide_for_managing_virtual_appliance_versions_using_the_portal here]),inform the Manager of your VO through Applications Database about the new Virtual Appliance (see howto [https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/main:guides:notify_virtual_organization_representatives here]). He/she will include your images in the VO-wide image list, so these will be deployed on the Federated Cloud sites of your VO.


=== Guides and tutorials  ===
==== GPGPUs (pre-production!) ====


These guides and tutorials help you to implement the above described typical user workflow and describe alternative ways of accessing, using high level application broker and infrastructure broker solutions:
'''PRE-PRODUCTION''' GPGPUs-enabled cloud resources are available in selected sites of the EGI Federated Cloud. Check the [[GPGPU-FedCloud|GPGPU guide on FedCloud]] for details on how to access them.


*[[FAQ10|FedCloud FAQ page]]
==== Customized Virtual Appliances  ====
*[http://www.egi.eu/how-to/get_a_certificate.html How to get a certificate (to access Federated Cloud resources)]
*[[Fedcloud-tf:CLI Environment|Setup the rOCCI Command Line Interface environment]]
** [https://gist.github.com/arax/4de4a41fb0fa67719856 rOCCI examples (command line parameters for the client)]
*[[HOWTO10|Porting your application/web service to the EGI Federated Cloud]]
*PRE-PRODUCTION: [[HOWTO09|EGI Federated Cloud Storage solutions]]
*[[HOWTO10#4._Infrastructure_broker_2|High level user environments to interact with the EGI Federated Cloud]]
*[https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/ How to use the Applications Database Cloud Marketplace]
*[[Fedcloud-tf:ResourceProviders#Fully_integrated_Resource_Providers|List and details about certified cloud resource providers]]
*[[Federated Cloud APIs and SDKs|APIs and SDKs for accessing the EGI Federated Cloud resources]]
*[[Federated_Cloud_Containers|Using docker containers on EGI Federated Cloud]]


== Useful resources ==
You can prepare fully customised Virtual Appliances and deploy them to the sites:


* Current status of Federated Cloud resources (NAGIOS test results): https://cloudmon.egi.eu/nagios/cgi-bin/status.cgi?host=all&sorttype=2&sortoption=2
#Prepare Virtual Machine Images (VMIs) that encapsulate your application. See the [[HOWTO10|application porting tutorial]] for tips.
* Current status of OpenStack interfaces in the EGI federated cloud:  https://cloudmon.egi.eu/nagios/cgi-bin/status.cgi?servicegroup=SERVICE_org.openstack.nova&style=overview
#Make the VMI available online, for example in the [http://appliance-repo.egi.eu/images/ EGI Appliance Repository]
* Explanation of NAGIOS tests performed by EGI on cloud resources: https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Cloud_SAM_tests
#Register the VMIs as Virtual Appliances in the [http://appdb.egi.eu EGI Applications Database] (for howto please click [https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/main:faq:how_to_register_a_virtual_appliance here])
* How to write a new NAGIOS test for the EGI monitor: http://argoeu.github.io/samdoc/confluence/display/SAMDOC/Developer%27s%20Guide.html
#Once your VA is published (see howto [https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/main:guides:guide_for_managing_virtual_appliance_versions_using_the_portal here]),inform the Manager of your VO through Applications Database about it (see howto [https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/main:guides:notify_virtual_organization_representatives here]). He/she will include your images in the VO-wide image list, so these will be deployed on the Federated Cloud sites of your VO.


==== Virtual Organisation  ====


<!--
Once the 6-month testing period of fedcloud.egi.eu membership expires, you will need to move into a production VO:
=== Tools  ===


This list provides pointers to client/management tools who may be useful for the . Some of this tools are referred also into the [[#Guides_and_tutorials]] and the [[FAQ10|FedCloud FAQ page]]:
*Several other VOs of EGI make resources available from the Federated Cloud. Find a suitable VO in the [http://operations-portal.egi.eu/vo/search Operations Portal]. (Search for Cloud as a middleware type.)
*Existing grid production VOs can be extended by VO&nbsp;manager to cloud by declaring cloud resources in VO&nbsp;ID card (in Operations Portal) and requesting via [http://ggus.eu/ GGUS ](assign to Perun Support Unit) Perun support.
*If no existing VO suits your case, a new VO can be created. Please follow [[PROC14_VO_Registration|VO Registration procedure]]. You can invite sites from the infrastructure to support them.


*rOCCI (OCCI client/server, used to manage computing resources): [http://github.com/EGI-FCTF/rOCCI-cli/ http://github.com/EGI-FCTF/rOCCI-cli/]
== Useful resources  ==
-->
 
== Technical background  ==
 
Cloud providers in the EGI Federated Cloud use hardware virtualization technologies to host software on their resources. The cloud management platforms that make this possible can [[Fedcloud-tf:Testbed#Resource_Providers_inventory|vary from site to site]], but they all enable the provisioning of virtualized computing, storage and networking resources, thus they empower scientific groups to setup and operate domain specific services, applications and simulations on these resources.
 
=== EGI Federated Cloud Sites ===
 
The EGI Federated Cloud sites are the resource providers. An overview of the resource providers, and their certification status (production status) is available [[Fedcloud-tf:ResourceProviders#Fully_integrated_Resource_Providers|here]].
 
=== Interfaces and protocols  ===
 
The EGI Federated Cloud is designed to satisfy scenarios defined by various scientific communities. The initial set of scenarios that the community collected has been distilled down to capabilities that the EGI Federated Cloud must provide to enable these community use cases. The capabilities were compared to state-of-the-art cloud computing technologies, standards, protocols and APIs to identify a technology stack which can help the National Grid Initiatives and research communities to connect resources into a federated infrastructure. Read more about the [[Federated_Cloud_Technology|technology that drives the Federated Cloud]]


*[[FAQ10|FedCloud FAQ page]]
*[http://www.egi.eu/how-to/get_a_certificate.html How to get a certificate (to access Federated Cloud resources)]
*[https://wiki.appdb.egi.eu/ How to use the Applications Database Cloud Marketplace]
*[[HOWTO10|Porting your application/web service to the EGI Federated Cloud]]
*[[Federated_Cloud_Operation#Current_Resource_Providers|List and details about certified cloud resource providers]]
*[[Cloud_SAM_tests|Explanation of NAGIOS tests performed by EGI on cloud resources]]
**[https://cloudmon.egi.eu/nagios/cgi-bin/status.cgi?host=all&amp;sorttype=2&amp;sortoption=2 Current status of Federated Cloud resources (NAGIOS test results)]
**[https://cloudmon.egi.eu/nagios/cgi-bin/status.cgi?servicegroup=SERVICE_org.openstack.nova&amp;style=overview Current status of OpenStack interfaces in the EGI federated cloud]


== User support  ==
== User support  ==
Line 154: Line 120:
=== Technical support  ===
=== Technical support  ===


Users' technical support is provided via the [mailto:usupport@egi.eu EGI support contact].
Users' technical support is provided via the [mailto:usupport@egi.eu EGI support contact].  


=== Helpdesk  ===
=== Helpdesk  ===


Technical problems and questions relating to the use of the EGI Federated Cloud can be reported and dealt with through the [https://ggus.eu/ EGI Helpdesk ticketing system]. '''Note: '''Please choose 'Federated cloud' in the 'Type of problem' field of the ticket submission form!  
Technical problems and questions relating to the use of the EGI Federated Cloud can be reported and dealt with through the [https://ggus.eu/ EGI Helpdesk ticketing system].
 
'''Note: '''Please choose 'Federated cloud' in the 'Type of problem' field of the ticket submission form!


=== Feedback and open issues  ===
=== Feedback and open issues  ===


A list of open-issue and feedbacks reported by the FedCloud users is available at [[Federated Cloud Users Feedback and open issues|this page]].  
A list of open-issue and feedbacks reported by the FedCloud users is available at [[Federated Cloud Users Feedback and open issues|this page]].


<!--
== Technical background ==
== High Level Services ==
 
The EGI FedCloud, tough the FedCloud User Communities, provides a set of High Level Services to the community users. A non-exaustive list of this services is provided below:


*TBD
Cloud providers in the EGI Federated Cloud use hardware virtualization technologies to host software on their resources. The cloud management platforms that make this possible can [[Federated_Cloud_Operation#Current_Resource_Providers|vary from site to site]], but they all enable the provisioning of virtualized computing, storage and networking resources, thus they empower scientific groups to setup and operate domain specific services, applications and simulations on these resources. Read more about the [[Federated Cloud Technology|technology that drives the Federated Cloud]].
-->

Revision as of 12:19, 20 January 2016

Overview For users For resource providers Infrastructure status Site-specific configuration Architecture





Technical support is available via the EGI.eu Support Team


The EGI Cloud federation is an hybrid cloud composed by public, community and private clouds, all supported by the EGI Core Infrastructure Platform services and focusing on the requirements of the scientific community. The result is a new type of research e-infrastructure based on the mature federated operations services that make EGI a reliable resource for science. When using EGI Federated Cloud resources, researchers and research communities can count on:

Elastic computing infrastructure.
Execute compute and data intensive workloads (both batch and interactive), host long-running services (e.g. web servers, databases or applications servers), or create disposable testing and development environments on VMs and scale your infrastructure needs over a federation of cloud providers. Select VM configurations (CPU, memory, disk) and application environments that better fit your requirements.
VM image sharing and distribution
Easily share and distribute VM images for your applications on a open library of Virtual Appliances. Community curated appliances are securely and automatically replicated accross the infrastructure. EGI provides a set of securely configured images with basic software ready to use on all providers that can be re-used and extended with contextualisation to execute your applications
Unified view of federation
The EGI Cloud provides: Single sing-on (SSO) for authentication and authorisation across all resource providers; Federated accounting with an integrated view of the the resource and service usage; Distributed information system for delivering a real-time view of the capabilities; and Federated monitoring to compute metrics for availability and reliability of the services.
Beyond VMs
Run docker applications on the EGI resources or use any of the supported PaaS and SaaS solutions that extend the IaaS capabilities of the EGI cloud and abstract the infrastructure to let you focus on your application development.

Current Users and Communities

EGI Federated Cloud already has a large use base, check the FedCloud Users Communities page for more details.

Fedclouduclogos.png

Usage Models

The EGI Federated Cloud considerably widens the usage models supported by EGI. Now, web services and interactive applications can be easily integrated in the infrastructure, the computing environments can be finely tuned to satisfy user’s needs in term of software (OSs and software packages) and hardware (number of cores, amount of RAM, etc.) and, many solutions are available to store, update and access big amount of data. These new opportunities offered by EGI hugely extended the potential user base of the infrastructure opening the doors to new research communities with minimal or none knowledge of the EGI ecosystem.

We classified the usage models enabled by the EGI Fededated Cloud as follows:

  • Service hosting: the EGI Federated Cloud can be used to hosts any IT service as web servers, databases, etc. Cloud features, as elasticity, can help users to provide better performance and reliable services.
  • Compute and data intensive: applications needing considerable amount of resources in term of computation and/or memory and/or intensive I/O. Ad-hoc computing environments can be created in the FedCloud sites also to satisfy very hard HW resource requirements.
  • Datasets repository: the EGI Federated Cloud can be used to store and manage large datasets exploiting the big amount of disk storage available in the Federation.
  • Disposable and testing environments: environments for training or testing new developments.


FedCloudUsageModels.png



How to use the EGI Federated Cloud?

Access

EGI provides users with a single sign-on mechanism to access the federated services with the use of X.509 certificates and Virtual Organisations (VOs). Before using the EGI Federated Cloud you will need to:

Creating your first VM - Instantiate an exiting image

The basic user workflow for starting a Virtual Machine (VM) looks like this:

  1. Browse in the Application Database Cloud Marketplace the available Virtual Appliances. Virtual Appliances are the templates for the root volume of the running instances (Operating System and applications). EGI offers a set of basic images with minimal configuration that can get you started easily, but you can also find complete application stacks. See for example these images:
  2. Read the description of the appliance for information on how to use it and connect to it once started.
  3. Get the IDs for starting the appliance at one of the sites supporting it in the "Availability and Usage" tab.
  4. Get the command line client to start the VM using the IDs from previous step
  5. Connect to VM and start using it

Advanced topics

API and SDKs access to Federated Cloud resources

Besides the command line client, there are several APIs and SDK ready to be used with the EGI Federated Cloud.Preferred API for EGI federated cloud is OCCI, which can be accesses using using a command-line client (rOCCI), high-level tools or directly implementing the ‘Open Cloud Computing Interface’ (OCCI) into your environment. OpenStack Nova API is also available for OpenStack sites belonging to the Federation.

Storage

Every instantiated VM has some disk space provided with it, if you need more storage or need to share data, you can use a cloud storage solution. There are two kind of services: Block Storage and Object Storage. Check the EGI Federated Cloud Storage How To for more information.

Docker containers

You can run your docker applications on EGI's Cloud. EGI also provides a docker image with the clients so you can test them easily.

PaaS/SaaS

Read in this guidance about various options of porting applications to the EGI Federated Cloud that includes information on several High level user environments to interact with the EGI Federated Cloud to manage your applications as VMs on cloud sites.

GPGPUs (pre-production!)

PRE-PRODUCTION GPGPUs-enabled cloud resources are available in selected sites of the EGI Federated Cloud. Check the GPGPU guide on FedCloud for details on how to access them.

Customized Virtual Appliances

You can prepare fully customised Virtual Appliances and deploy them to the sites:

  1. Prepare Virtual Machine Images (VMIs) that encapsulate your application. See the application porting tutorial for tips.
  2. Make the VMI available online, for example in the EGI Appliance Repository
  3. Register the VMIs as Virtual Appliances in the EGI Applications Database (for howto please click here)
  4. Once your VA is published (see howto here),inform the Manager of your VO through Applications Database about it (see howto here). He/she will include your images in the VO-wide image list, so these will be deployed on the Federated Cloud sites of your VO.

Virtual Organisation

Once the 6-month testing period of fedcloud.egi.eu membership expires, you will need to move into a production VO:

  • Several other VOs of EGI make resources available from the Federated Cloud. Find a suitable VO in the Operations Portal. (Search for Cloud as a middleware type.)
  • Existing grid production VOs can be extended by VO manager to cloud by declaring cloud resources in VO ID card (in Operations Portal) and requesting via GGUS (assign to Perun Support Unit) Perun support.
  • If no existing VO suits your case, a new VO can be created. Please follow VO Registration procedure. You can invite sites from the infrastructure to support them.

Useful resources

User support

Technical support

Users' technical support is provided via the EGI support contact.

Helpdesk

Technical problems and questions relating to the use of the EGI Federated Cloud can be reported and dealt with through the EGI Helpdesk ticketing system.

Note: Please choose 'Federated cloud' in the 'Type of problem' field of the ticket submission form!

Feedback and open issues

A list of open-issue and feedbacks reported by the FedCloud users is available at this page.

Technical background

Cloud providers in the EGI Federated Cloud use hardware virtualization technologies to host software on their resources. The cloud management platforms that make this possible can vary from site to site, but they all enable the provisioning of virtualized computing, storage and networking resources, thus they empower scientific groups to setup and operate domain specific services, applications and simulations on these resources. Read more about the technology that drives the Federated Cloud.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.egi.eu/w/index.php?title=Federated_Cloud_user_support&oldid=85484"