Talk given to US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013

1. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
Cloud-Oriented Federated
Projects and Testbeds:
Current Status in the US and
Internationally, and Future Possibilities
Alan Sill
Senior Scientist, High Performance Computing Center
Adjunct Professor of Physics
Texas Tech University
US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013

2. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
Testing Cloud -Oriented
Approaches for Science
• A number of publicly accessible forums and
settings are available for general interoperability
testing, in addition to the internal mechanisms
that may be set up by US and other agencies.
• This talk is intended to inform you as to what
they are, who runs them, and their current
status.
• Opinions expressed are mine only.

3. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
Background
• US Agencies were instructed in 2009 to shift to
“Cloud First” by the US CIO.This has also been
extended recently to include a general approach to
“digital government”.
• Led to the NIST efforts on cloud computing and big
data exploration for these purposes.
• Externally to the US, many similar projects have been
started and in some cases, put into practice
throughout the world. OGF has been involved in
many of these efforts.
• The purposes of this talk are to give you an update,
building on previous presentations, and focus attention
on topics we can take on to move forward on these
and related projects in the US.

4. http://futuregrid.org

5. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
FutureGrid: Cloud
Interoperability Testbed
• Public project within FutureGrid organization
• Open membership (subject to approval)
• No production resources, only short-term tests
allowed (order 1-day or less duration)
• EC2 (Eucalyptus),Argonne Nimbus,
OpenStack among frameworks supported
• Private work is allowed; reports requested

7. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
US NIST SAJACC
• “Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart the
Adoption of Cloud Computing” = SAJACC
• Focused on use case definition and refinement
(especially US Federal government) ==> testable
use cases
• Demo code and presentations part of public
record
• New round recently restarted to refine test cases
• Needs a testbed to move forward.

8. NIST CLOUD PROCESS &TWIKI
http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-cloud-computing/bin/view/CloudComputing/SAJACC

9. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
“Cloud Plugfest” series
• Cooperative community project involving OGF,
SNIA, and ETSI.
• Formal test tool support from ETSI.
• Non-disclosure agreement (optional on the part
of contributors) to encourage business and
private company involvement.
• CDMI, OCCI, OVF among standards tested so
far; moving on soon to CIMI and federated
cloud tools.
• Just completed 7th iteration; more planned.

10. http://cloudplugfest.org

13. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
EGI FedCloud Testbed
• EC-funded project of the European Community
• Associated with EGI Federated Cloud task
Force and e-Science/ e-Government initiatives.
• Running infrastructure! Production resources,
user communities used in projects now.
• Use of many standards already incorporated
(OGF OCCI, SNIA CDMI, OGF Usage Record,
etc.)
• Quite compatible with grid infrastructures.

14. https://wiki.egi.eu/wiki/Fedcloud-tf:Testbed

16. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
Further Discussion
• These are by no means the only such projects
that can be discussed. In the EC, for example,
there are many FP-series funded projects that are
intended to produce a variety of running
infrastructures for both production and test
purposes (FI-Ware, Contrail, Helix Nebula,
BobFIRE, etc.); others include NCHC “Cloudzilla”
mentioned in previous talk.
• In the US, exploration projects such as RedCloud
can help IF brought into a federated environment
though emerging cloud products and standards.

17. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
Conclusions (I)
•A variety of test platforms, resources and projects is
needed to pursue use of cloud computing in
scientific computing and big data processing in high-
scale settings. In terms of ingredients, many are
already in place and suitable for use.
•It would be useful US agencies pursue a project
similar to the EGI Federated Cloud, perhaps
modeled on it or as an extension to FutureGrid and
other US cloud exploration projects.
•Similar projects elsewhere are ALREADY
experiencing production or large-scale pilot use.

18. Cloud-oriented Projects and TestbedsAlan Sill, TTU US NITRD NCO LSN-MAGIC meeting, Feb. 6, 2013
Conclusions (II)
•NIST is doing work to set forth requirements and
design a cloud reference architecture through its
working groups, including the “SAJACC” process.
Important considerations for security,
interoperability, and other considerations may
emerge. We should track the these efforts closely
and try to contribute to their work.
•Federated access and common management tools
are important to science user communities and can
provide goals for such a project or projects that are
compatible with other MAGIC goals.