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VT-CloudCaps:Questionnaire

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Revision as of 15:17, 23 April 2013 by Bjoernh (talk | contribs) (Some rephrasing (incomplete))
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This should evolve to questionnaire which should map state of user-groups using FedCloud and working with our mini-project. We have to create questionnaire, fill it with already known information and only then approach users.

Feel free to edit, just first ideas!

Image preparation and management

How has the image been created, how is it managed, should we help with preparation?

  • How many images are used by your group (one, several with different functions)?
  • How did you create the image? From scratch, from basic OS image, using full OS installation, copy of desktop, copy of image prepared in vmware/virtualbox on desktop, group already provides one ...
  • Is it one partition with system, multiple partitions/whole disk (with dedicated place for data, empty space for other data, packages, user data)
  • Is everything required for computation already installed in the image? Would it be interesting to install parts during VM start (contextualization, always latest version of packages)? Is it installing packages/software during/after boot? CVMFS?
  • Image prepared to run with KVM/Xen, in which format (OVF)?
  • Do you rely on a specific Linux Kernel version?
  • How should new versions of the image be distributed and installed? No need, rarely, often via vmcatcher, other way. How do you intend to deal with security updates?
  • Is image signed? Endorsed by some group? Verified by some RP?
  • What kind of hardware requirements (resource demands do  your image and application have? RAM, Disk, Processor, Cores.
  • What are the network requirements of your application? Do you require access to the running instance from external? Which ports do you require to be open? Do you expect arbitrary access from within the instance to the outside world? What are your bandwidth expectations?

Workload management

How do you submit the actual work to the running instances? Should we care, help?

  • Do you use a form of pilot framework? BOINC? Other implementation of call-home?
  • Is VM started by some workload system/application, which immediately submits "jobs"?
  • Who is doing scheduling? VMs running across several providers?
  • Do you do automatic scaling of your framework? Do you require vertical scaling, e.g. sizing up instances, or horizontal scaling, i.e. adding more instances as needed?
  • How long should a VM run (long computation, smaller jobs submited inside VM,...)?
  • Can the VM be preempted or migrated?

AAI and contextualization

How do you intend access to running VMs (should we help, explain what's possible, push contextualization?)

  • Is there support for user contextualization? Already available/would be nice/not needed.
  • Does your system come with pre-installed ssh access, a fixed root password, ssh public key, group accessible public key, other way to login, remote desktop, no need for root access, need for user contextualization (storing ssh key in authorized_keys)
  • Management of running VMs - all started by one representative of VO, image/VM shared between group of users, VM just for one user
  • Does VM contain some credentials to be able to access remote services/data? Could this be injected via contextualization?

Data, big data

In some cases, big data are analyzed/produced by cloud applications. There is usually place for improvements, help, new services...

  • Does your application work with large amounts of data? If yes, which type of access is needed (big shared network storage, virtual disk accessed by some VMs, object storage)? Do you only read or also write this category of data?
  • Is all of the data used by all VMs? Every VM/job is using small subset? Other patterns?
  • Do you require a Hadoop like environment?
  • Are you already using some object storage like S3, CDMI? Data service from EGI (gridftp, SE, SRM)?
  • Large data downloaded/produced during VM lifetime?
  • Need for higher-level control of data access?

What else should we know?

  • Is there a need for other services? Like messaging system, integration with standard EGI services (data?), SQL database?