Integrated Management of Cloud Computing Resources

Lunacloud is a cloud service provider with offices in Portugal, Spain, France and UK that focus on delivering reliable, elastic and low cost cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions. The company currently relies on a proprietary IaaS platform - the Parallels Automation for Cloud Infrastructure (PACI) - and wishes to expand and integrate other IaaS solutions seamlessly, namely open source solutions. This is the challenge addressed in this thesis. This proposal, which was fostered by Eurocloud Portugal Association, contributes to the promotion of interoperability and standardisation in Cloud Computing. The goal is to investigate, propose and develop an interoperable open source solution with standard interfaces for the integrated management of IaaS Cloud Computing resources based on new as well as existing abstraction libraries or frameworks. The solution should provide bothWeb and application programming interfaces. The research conducted consisted of two surveys covering existing open source IaaS platforms and PACI (features and API) and open source IaaS abstraction solutions. The first study was focussed on the characteristics of most popular open source IaaS platforms, namely OpenNebula, OpenStack, CloudStack and Eucalyptus, as well as PACI and included a thorough inventory of the provided Application Programming Interfaces (API), i.e., offered operations, followed by a comparison of these platforms in order to establish their similarities and dissimilarities. The second study on existing open source interoperability solutions included the analysis of existing abstraction libraries and frameworks and their comparison. The approach proposed and adopted, which was supported on the conclusions of the carried surveys, reuses an existing open source abstraction solution – the Apache Deltacloud framework. Deltacloud relies on the development of software driver modules to interface with different IaaS platforms, officially provides and supports drivers to sixteen IaaS platform, including OpenNebula and OpenStack, and allows the development of new provider drivers. The latter functionality was used to develop a new Deltacloud driver for PACI. Furthermore, Deltacloud provides a Web dashboard and REpresentational State Transfer (REST) API interfaces. To evaluate the adopted solution, a test bed integrating OpenNebula, Open- Stack and PACI nodes was assembled and deployed. The tests conducted involved time elapsed and data payload measurements via the Deltacloud framework as well as via the pre-existing IaaS platform API. The Deltacloud framework behaved as expected, i.e., introduced additional delays, but no substantial overheads. Both the Web and the REST interfaces were tested and showed identical measurements. The developed interoperable solution for the seamless integration and provision of IaaS resources from PACI, OpenNebula and OpenStack IaaS platforms fulfils the specified requirements, i.e., provides Lunacloud with the ability to expand the range of adopted IaaS platforms and offers a Web dashboard and REST API for the integrated management. The contributions of this work include the surveys and comparisons made, the selection of the abstraction framework and, last, but not the least, the PACI driver developed.

Processo de desenvolvimento e difusão de cloud computing: estudo sobre as redes de colaboração no Brasil

Com base no relatório de Projecto III para o Programa Doutoral em Avaliação de Tecnologia (2011-2012)

Cloud computing adoption - Determinants of cloud computing adoption by firms

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação

Mainroad: Cloud computing

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Estimating data divergence in cloud computing storage systems

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Identificação das práticas de inovação aberta nas parcerias estratégicas: avaliação realizada com prestadores de cloud computing

No atual contexto da inovação, um grande número de estudos tem analisado o potencial do modelo de Inovação Aberta. Neste sentido, o autor Henry Chesbrough (2003) considerado o pai da Inovação Aberta, afirma que as empresas estão vivenciando uma “mudança de paradigma” na maneira como desenvolvem os seus processos de inovação e na comercialização de tecnologia e conhecimento. Desta forma, o modelo de Inovação Aberta defende que as empresas podem e devem utilizar os recursos disponíveis fora das suas fronteiras sendo esta combinação de ideias e tecnologias internas e externas crucial para atingir uma posição de liderança no mercado. Já afirmava Chesbrough (2003) que não se faz inovação isoladamente e o próprio dinamismo do cenário atual reforça esta ideia. Assim, os riscos inerentes ao processo de inovação podem ser atenuados através da realização de parcerias entre empresas e instituições. A adoção do modelo de Inovação Aberta é percebida com base na abundância de conhecimento disponível, que poderá proporcionar valor também à empresa que o criou, como é o caso do licenciamento de patentes. O presente estudo teve como objetivo identificar as práticas de Inovação Aberta entre as parcerias mencionadas pelas empresas prestadoras de Cloud Computing. Através da Análise de Redes Sociais foram construídas matrizes referentes às parcerias mencionadas pelas empresas e informações obtidas em fontes secundárias (Sousa, 2012). Essas matrizes de relacionamento (redes) foram analisadas e representadas através de diagramas. Desta forma, foi possível traçar um panorama das parcerias consideradas estratégicas pelas empresas entrevistadas e identificar quais delas constituem, de fato, práticas de Inovação Aberta. Do total de 26 parcerias estratégicas mencionadas nas entrevistas, apenas 11 foram caracterizadas como práticas do modelo aberto. A análise das práticas conduzidas pelas empresas entrevistadas permite verificar algumas limitações no aproveitamento do modelo de Inovação Aberta. Por fim, são feitas algumas recomendações sobre a implementação deste modelo pelas pequenas e médias empresas baseadas em tecnologias emergentes, como é o caso do conceito de cloud computing.

Posicionamento do Brasil face aos países mais avançados em cloud computing

This study discusses some fundamental issues so that the development and diffusion of services based in cloud computing happen positively in several countries. For exposure of this subject is discusses public initiatives by the most advanced countries in terms of cloud computing application and the brazilin position in this context. Based on presented evidences here it appears that the essential elements for the development and diffusion of cloud computing in Brazil made important steps and show evidence of maturity, as the cybercrime legislation. However, other elements still require analysis and specifically adaptations for the cloud computing case, such as the Intellectual Property Rights. Despite showing broadband services still lacking, one cannot disregard the government effort to facilitate access for all society. In contrast, the large volume of the Brazilian IT market is an interest factor for companies seeking to invest in the country.

OpenNebula y Hadoop : Cloud Computing con herramientas Open Source

El presente proyecto consiste en una introducción al "cloud computing" y un estudio en profundidad de las herramientas OpenNebula, dentro del modelo IaaS (Infraestructure as a Service), y Hadoop, dentro del modelo PaaS (Platform as a Service). El trabajo también incluye la instalación, integración, configuración y puesta en marcha de una plataforma "cloud computing" utilizando OpenNebula y Hadoop con el objetivo de aplicar los conceptos teóricos en una solución real dentro de un entorno de laboratorio que puede ser extrapolable a una instalación real.

Tecnologies de cloud computing Openstack/StackOps

El propòsit d'aquest TFC és investigar i fer una instal·lació des de zero d'un model de negoci basat en l'allotjament web fent servir tecnologies de Cloud Computing. El software open-source que es farà servir per aquesta finalitat serà Openstack el qual es basa en un model de servei com infraestructura (IaaS). La nostra finalitat és poder implementar el model IaaS basat en Openstack. Per duu a terme aquest desplegament es farà servir dos hipervisors (KVM i VMware ESXi) per tal de testejar diferents sistemes d¿hipervisors treballant conjuntament.

Virtualización y cloud computing en la PYME

El presente documento introduce a las pequeñas y medianas empresas en el mundo de la virtualización y el cloud computing. Partiendo de la presentación de ambas tecnologías, se recorren las diferentes fases por las que atraviesa un proyecto tecnológico consistente en la instalación de una plataforma virtualizada que alberga los sistemas informáticos básicos en una PYME.

LVI-suunnittelun ohjaus IPD-projekteissa

Tässä diplomityössä on tutkittu LVI-suunnittelun ohjaamista ja sen kehittämistä integroiduissa rakennushankkeissa. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on löytää kehitysehdotuksia LVI-suunnittelun eteenpäinviemiseksi integroiduissa hankkeissa. Tutkimus on tehty hyödyntäen kirjallisia lähteitä ja haastattelemalla integroiduissa projekteissa mukana ollutta henkilöstöä. Perinteisessä rakennushankkeessa eri suunnittelualat toimitetaan useasta yrityksestä. Tässä työssä lähtökohtana on, että merkittävimmät suunnittelualat kuten arkkitehti-, rakenne- ja talotekninensuunnittelu tulevat samalta toimittajalta. Toimituslaajuuteen voidaan lisätä myös mm. rakennuttajakonsultointi- ja kiinteistönkehitysprosessi. Tutkimuksen tuloksena saatiin määritettyä kehitysehdotukset integroituihin hankkeisiin yleiseltä ja LVI-suunnittelun kannalta. Kehitystyössä tulee panostaa tietomallintamiseen, aikataulutukseen ja yhteistyöhön. Tietomallintamista voidaan parantaa koulutuksen, Yleisten tietomallivaatimusten 2012 ja tietomallien tarkasteluohjelmistojen avulla. Aikataulutus paranee, kun suunnittelijat saadaan hankkeeseen mukaan riittävän aikaisessa vaiheessa ja kun suunnittelijat pyrkivät aktiivisesti vaikuttamaan hankkeen tarjouksen- ja sopimuksentekoon. Yhteistyötä voidaan parantaa avoimen ilmapiirin korostamisella ja projektiorganisaation tiivistämisellä.

Video transcoding in a distributed cloud computing environment

Video transcoding refers to the process of converting a digital video from one format into another format. It is a compute-intensive operation. Therefore, transcoding of a large number of simultaneous video streams requires a large amount of computing resources. Moreover, to handle di erent load conditions in a cost-e cient manner, the video transcoding service should be dynamically scalable. Infrastructure as a Service Clouds currently offer computing resources, such as virtual machines, under the pay-per-use business model. Thus the IaaS Clouds can be leveraged to provide a coste cient, dynamically scalable video transcoding service. To use computing resources e ciently in a cloud computing environment, cost-e cient virtual machine provisioning is required to avoid overutilization and under-utilization of virtual machines. This thesis presents proactive virtual machine resource allocation and de-allocation algorithms for video transcoding in cloud computing. Since users' requests for videos may change at di erent times, a check is required to see if the current computing resources are adequate for the video requests. Therefore, the work on admission control is also provided. In addition to admission control, temporal resolution reduction is used to avoid jitters in a video. Furthermore, in a cloud computing environment such as Amazon EC2, the computing resources are more expensive as compared with the storage resources. Therefore, to avoid repetition of transcoding operations, a transcoded video needs to be stored for a certain time. To store all videos for the same amount of time is also not cost-e cient because popular transcoded videos have high access rate while unpopular transcoded videos are rarely accessed. This thesis provides a cost-e cient computation and storage trade-o strategy, which stores videos in the video repository as long as it is cost-e cient to store them. This thesis also proposes video segmentation strategies for bit rate reduction and spatial resolution reduction video transcoding. The evaluation of proposed strategies is performed using a message passing interface based video transcoder, which uses a coarse-grain parallel processing approach where video is segmented at group of pictures level.

Development of agnostic mobile applications with cross-platform cloud computing platforms

Smart phones became part and parcel of our life, where mobility provides a freedom of not being bounded by time and space. In addition, number of smartphones produced each year is skyrocketing. However, this also created discrepancies or fragmentation among devices and OSes, which in turn made an exceeding hard for developers to deliver hundreds of similar featured applications with various versions for the market consumption. This thesis is an attempt to investigate whether cloud based mobile development platforms can mitigate and eventually eliminate fragmentation challenges. During this research, we have selected and analyzed the most popular cloud based development platforms and tested integrated cloud features. This research showed that cloud based mobile development platforms may able to reduce mobile fragmentation and enable to utilize single codebase to deliver a mobile application for different platforms.

Cooperative Caching Framework for Mobile Cloud Computing

Due to the advancement in mobile devices and wireless networks mobile cloud computing, which combines mobile computing and cloud computing has gained momentum since 2009. The characteristics of mobile devices and wireless network makes the implementation of mobile cloud computing more complicated than for fixed clouds. This section lists some of the major issues in Mobile Cloud Computing. One of the key issues in mobile cloud computing is the end to end delay in servicing a request. Data caching is one of the techniques widely used in wired and wireless networks to improve data access efficiency. In this paper we explore the possibility of a cooperative caching approach to enhance data access efficiency in mobile cloud computing. The proposed approach is based on cloudlets, one of the architecture designed for mobile cloud computing.

Estudio de los beneficios de la implementación del modelo de gestión cloud computing en comparación al modelo de gestión tradicional. Caso de estudio: Corporación ADC-HAS Management Ecuador S.A.

El desarrollo eficiente y oportuno de las actividades propias de las empresas exige una constante renovación en su infraestructura, capacitación permanente de su staff, investigar nuevas tecnológicas y la asignación cada vez mayor del presupuesto para su área de TIC. Varios modelos de gestión han intentado suplir estas necesidades, entre los que se puede mencionar a: hosting, outsourcing, leasing, servicios profesionales, asesorías especializadas, entre otros. El modelo de gestión cloud computing y sus diversas opciones se está posicionando últimamente como la solución más viable y rápida de implementar. De ahí que, este proyecto se enfoca en el estudio de este modelo como una alternativa al modelo de gestión tradicional de servicios TIC, y toma como referencia para el desarrollo de esta tesis la situación actual de la infraestructura tecnológica de la Corporación ADC&HAS Management Ecuador S.A. No se pretende justificar al cloud como una solución definitiva, sino plantear este modelo como una alternativa útil a la realidad tecnológica de la Corporación, y en base a sus propiedades concluir que fue el modelo que mejor se ajustó a la estrategia institucional en términos: organizacionales, tecnológicos y financieros, por lo menos para los próximos cinco años. En los dos primeros capítulos se referencian algunos elementos conceptuales en los que se fundamenta las TIC y se mencionan ciertos parámetros que intervinieron en su evolución. El tercer capítulo describe a la Corporación; y en el capítulo cuarto se aplican los conceptos de los primeros capítulos reforzados con las experiencias publicadas en la revista Computerworld (2010 hasta la presente) y que permitieron evaluar los beneficios de los dos modelos de gestión y las razones para implementarlos o mantenerlos.