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
(Use new template, update new page address)
 
(217 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Fedcloud_Menu}} {{TOC_right}}  
{{Fedcloud_Menu}} {{TOC_right}}  


<br>
{{DeprecatedAndMovedTo|new_location=https://docs.egi.eu/users/cloud-compute/}}
 
<big>Technical support is available via the [mailto:support@egi.eu EGI.eu Support Team]</big>
 
<br>
 
<br>
 
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. <!--
== How to get access to the FedCloud?  ==
 
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.
 
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:
 
*Name
*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  ===
 
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:
 
*Total control over deployed applications
*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.
 
[[Image:Fedcloud.png|center|550px|Fedcloud.png]]
 
#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.
#*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:
* '''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  ==
 
<!-- [[File:fedclouduclogos.png|800px|thumb]] --> [[Image:Fedclouduclogos.png|center|550px|Fedclouduclogos.png]]
 
<br> More details of the FedCloud User Communities and their use cases is in the [[Federated Cloud Communities|FedCloud Users Communities]] page.
 
== How to use the FedCloud?  ==
 
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>
 
=== Quick Start  ===
 
The typical user workflow on the EGI Federated Cloud looks like:
 
#[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.
#Select existing images from the [https://appdb.egi.eu/browse/cloud Application Database Cloud Marketplace] and instantiate them using:
##The [[HOWTO11|command line client]] (OCCI or OpenStack)
##One of the [[Federated Cloud APIs and SDKs|APIs and SDKs]]
##The [https://github.com/EGI-FCTF/jOCCI-api JOCCI API] (Java-based OCCI API)
##Using one of the [[HOWTO10|high level brokering tools]] that are interoperable with the Federated Cloud.
 
=== Advanced Usage  ===
 
==== 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 [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 [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 prepare fully customised Virtual Appliances and deploy them to the sites:
 
#Prepare Virtual Machine Images (VMIs) that encapsulate your application. See the [[HOWTO10|application porting tutorial]] for tips.
#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  ===
 
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:
 
*[[FAQ10|FedCloud FAQ page]]
*[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 ==
 
* Current status of Federated Cloud resources (NAGIOS test results): https://cloudmon.egi.eu/nagios/cgi-bin/status.cgi?host=all&sorttype=2&sortoption=2
* 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
* Explanation of NAGIOS tests performed by EGI on cloud resources: https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Cloud_SAM_tests
* How to write a new NAGIOS test for the EGI monitor: http://argoeu.github.io/samdoc/confluence/display/SAMDOC/Developer%27s%20Guide.html
 
 
<!--
=== 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]]:
 
*rOCCI (OCCI client/server, used to manage computing resources): [http://github.com/EGI-FCTF/rOCCI-cli/ http://github.com/EGI-FCTF/rOCCI-cli/]
-->
 
== 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]]
 
 
== User support  ==
 
=== Technical support  ===
 
Users' technical support is provided via the [mailto:usupport@egi.eu 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 [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  ===
 
A list of open-issue and feedbacks reported by the FedCloud users is available at [[Federated Cloud Users Feedback and open issues|this page]].
 
<!--
== 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
-->

Latest revision as of 13:37, 13 October 2020