20090914
vmware vcloud
virtualization leader vmware has officially entered into the cloud computing space with vcloud. they've been promising this for over a year, and it has finally happened. the vcloud api allows for enterprises to deploy an internal cloud. this cloud, of course, is supposed to be based upon a software stack of vmware technologies. it does not seem possible to swap out vmware components for equivalent solutions from other providers. so, while this would enable vmware customers features such as elastic computing, i would argue that vendor lock-in excludes it from being an actual cloud.
webgl followup
a blogger has discovered webgl code in webkit, which is the rendering library for apple safari and google chrome.
20090912
cloud computing steals from microsoft
sam ramji, microsoft's open source guru, has announced that he is leaving microsoft for a cloud computing startup. there's no indication yet on which startup it is, except that it's in silicon valley, which excludes companies with vested cloud interests like hp, amazon, redhat and cisco, as well as startups like eucalyptus and rightscale as they are not located in silicon valley. perhaps cloudera? the announcement
20090909
monitoring vm instances using ganglia
there was an excellent email (the author's name is matt massie) on the hadoop listserv on how to setup ganglia on an instance running within amazon. the directions are not specific to amazon's aws, however, and is generalizable to any vm instance. i've copied the email below.
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and some additional info from that same thread
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Ganglia doesn't need to be patched to work. The patches are for Hadoop if
you are running ganglia 3.1.x (because of a breaking change in the ganglia
message format from 3.0.x to 3.1.x).
Since you are running fedora, you should be able to bring ganglia up by
using the ganglia RPMs which are available in the fedora repo.
Try the following commands on each node in the cluster you want to monitor
# yum install ganglia-gmond
# service gmond start
You will need to open TCP/UDP port 8649 as well to allow ganglia
communication (see your iptables configuration). You can verify that gmond
is working by connecting to TCP port 8649
$ telnet localhost 8649
You should see an XML description of the state of the cluster/node. Let me
know when you are this far in the installation and I'll help you through the
next steps.
and some additional info from that same thread
Hadoop comes with a number of scripts to configure EC2 instances, see
"HADOOP_HOME/src/contrib/ec2/
bin"
If you take a look at "src/contrib/ec2/bin/image/hadoop-init" you will see
that it sets up Ganglia.
amazon's virtual private cloud
until now, one of the biggest strengths of amazon's cloud computing model is that it is geared towards small businesses and startups. yet simultaneously, the same model is also one of its biggest weaknesses, due to the lack of enterprise support. this has encouraged a host of competitors to fill in that void. today amazon enters that space as it announces that new functionality to provide an enterprise driven model of support for cloud computing, termed "virtual private cloud".
initially, i thought such an offering would bring gloom to competitors such as eucalyptus. speaking with a member of that group, however, indicates otherwise. they are excited, for two reasons. first, it validates their business model (not that they needed amazon's validation anyway). second, it encourages enterprises to try out their software, since eucalyptus can be run on software you already own. and because the api is the same to both clouds, such enterprises can contract additional hardware on demand. good news for eucalyptus indeed.
initially, i thought such an offering would bring gloom to competitors such as eucalyptus. speaking with a member of that group, however, indicates otherwise. they are excited, for two reasons. first, it validates their business model (not that they needed amazon's validation anyway). second, it encourages enterprises to try out their software, since eucalyptus can be run on software you already own. and because the api is the same to both clouds, such enterprises can contract additional hardware on demand. good news for eucalyptus indeed.
google voice & sms
another exciting piece of news today. you can now forward sms texts sent to your google voice account to an email address. even better, replying to that text in the email will send an sms back to the sending. how cool is that? communications in the cloud! ;) the official announcement.
eucalyptus enterprise edition (eee)
eucalyptus today has announced the first release for the enterprise. the main feature that eee adds on top of the open source version is the inclusion of vmware's virtualization technology, thereby enabling enterprises already invested in vmware to not have to migrate to xen or kvm. this will go will with the recent announcement by amazon for virtual private clouds, to be discussed in an upcoming post. the eucalyptus press release is copied below for archival purposes.
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Eucalyptus’ First Commercial Offering Enables Enterprises to Transform Multiple Data Center Virtualized Environments into a Powerful On-Premise Cloud
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Sept. 9, 2009 – Eucalyptus Systems, Inc., creator of the leading open source private cloud platform, today announced the company’s first commercial offering: the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition (EEE). EEE enables customers to implement an on-premise Eucalyptus cloud with VMware®’s industry-leading virtualization technologies, including vSphere®, ESXTM and ESXiTM.
EEE is the only on-premise cloud computing solution available today for vSphere customers, providing a robust, affordable cloud computing solution that leverages their investment in VMware technologies. EEE also supports other hypervisors typically found in a data center, such as Xen and KVM, providing customers the flexibility to configure cloud solutions that best meet their infrastructure needs.
“Eucalyptus Systems’ mission has been to support the open source Eucalyptus on-premise cloud platform while also delivering solutions for large-scale enterprise deployments, and we are proud to launch the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition as our first commercial offering for the enterprise,” said Dr. Rich Wolski, Eucalyptus Systems co-founder, CTO and former director of the Eucalyptus research project at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). “EEE represents the first step toward broader Eucalyptus-enabled cloud interoperability that leverages multiple virtualization environments and technologies.”
EEE is built on Eucalyptus -- an open source software infrastructure for implementing on-premise cloud computing using an organization’s own information technology (IT) infrastructure, without modification, special-purpose hardware or reconfiguration. Eucalyptus turns data center resources such as machines, networks, and storage systems into a cloud that is controlled and customized by local IT. Eucalyptus is the only cloud architecture to support the same application programming interfaces (APIs) as public clouds, and today Eucalyptus is fully compatible with the Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure.
For EEE, Eucalyptus leverages vSphere, ESXi, and ESX virtualization technologies to provide an on-premise cloud in the data center. EEE also includes an image converter that helps users develop VMware-enabled Eucalyptus applications that are compatible with Amazon EC2. Moreover, Eucalyptus supports popular open source hypervisors such as KVM and Xen, enabling EEE customers to choose the most appropriate software stack for each cloud application while maintaining a single cloud API that is Amazon compatible.
"As enterprises and governments increasingly seek to leverage the benefits of cloud computing in on premise infrastructure, existing datacenters are poised for transformation," said Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst with RedMonk. "With the release of its Enterprise Edition, Eucalyptus is providing customers with the ability to blend their VMware, KVM and Xen assets into a single cloud fabric while ensuring compatibility with existing public cloud options."
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Eucalyptus Systems Launches the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition Which Includes Support for VMware Virtualization Technologies
Eucalyptus’ First Commercial Offering Enables Enterprises to Transform Multiple Data Center Virtualized Environments into a Powerful On-Premise Cloud
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Sept. 9, 2009 – Eucalyptus Systems, Inc., creator of the leading open source private cloud platform, today announced the company’s first commercial offering: the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition (EEE). EEE enables customers to implement an on-premise Eucalyptus cloud with VMware®’s industry-leading virtualization technologies, including vSphere®, ESXTM and ESXiTM.
EEE is the only on-premise cloud computing solution available today for vSphere customers, providing a robust, affordable cloud computing solution that leverages their investment in VMware technologies. EEE also supports other hypervisors typically found in a data center, such as Xen and KVM, providing customers the flexibility to configure cloud solutions that best meet their infrastructure needs.
“Eucalyptus Systems’ mission has been to support the open source Eucalyptus on-premise cloud platform while also delivering solutions for large-scale enterprise deployments, and we are proud to launch the Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition as our first commercial offering for the enterprise,” said Dr. Rich Wolski, Eucalyptus Systems co-founder, CTO and former director of the Eucalyptus research project at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). “EEE represents the first step toward broader Eucalyptus-enabled cloud interoperability that leverages multiple virtualization environments and technologies.”
EEE is built on Eucalyptus -- an open source software infrastructure for implementing on-premise cloud computing using an organization’s own information technology (IT) infrastructure, without modification, special-purpose hardware or reconfiguration. Eucalyptus turns data center resources such as machines, networks, and storage systems into a cloud that is controlled and customized by local IT. Eucalyptus is the only cloud architecture to support the same application programming interfaces (APIs) as public clouds, and today Eucalyptus is fully compatible with the Amazon Web Services cloud infrastructure.
For EEE, Eucalyptus leverages vSphere, ESXi, and ESX virtualization technologies to provide an on-premise cloud in the data center. EEE also includes an image converter that helps users develop VMware-enabled Eucalyptus applications that are compatible with Amazon EC2. Moreover, Eucalyptus supports popular open source hypervisors such as KVM and Xen, enabling EEE customers to choose the most appropriate software stack for each cloud application while maintaining a single cloud API that is Amazon compatible.
"As enterprises and governments increasingly seek to leverage the benefits of cloud computing in on premise infrastructure, existing datacenters are poised for transformation," said Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst with RedMonk. "With the release of its Enterprise Edition, Eucalyptus is providing customers with the ability to blend their VMware, KVM and Xen assets into a single cloud fabric while ensuring compatibility with existing public cloud options."
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