Building Private and Hybrid Clouds with Ubuntu 9.04

New Cloud Computing and Virtualization Features in the new Ubuntu Server Distribution

Dec. 16, 2009 11:15 PM

April 23, 2009 - Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) has been released today bringing highly interesting new features, specially in the Cloud Computing and Virtualization area. The new Ubuntu server distribution includes two complementary cloud tools, OpenNebula and Eucalyptus, so providing the technology required to build the three types of Cloud architectures, namely private, hybrid and public clouds.

Eucalyptus can be used to transform an existing infrastructure into an IaaS public cloud, being compatible with Amazon’s EC2 interface.

Eucalyptus is fully functional with respect to providing cloud-like interfaces and higher-level cloud functionality for security, contextualization and image management.

OpenNebula, on the other hand, is a virtual infrastructure engine that enables the dynamic and scalable deployment and re-placement of groups of interconnected virtual machines within and across sites. OpenNebula can be primarily used as a virtualization tool to manage a distributed virtual infrastructure in the datacenter or cluster. This application is usually referred asprivate cloud, and OpenNebula can also dynamically scale the local infrastructure using external clouds, so building hybrid clouds. OpenNebula provides dynamic “cloudbursting” to any cloud with Amazon EC2 interfaces, including Eucalyptus-based clouds.

OpenNebula is building an ecosytem with tools extending its functionality, such as the Haizea lease management system, a libvirt implementation on top of OpenNebula or a VM consolidation scheduler fro GreenIT. The project provides support to host the development of the new ecosystem projects.

Moreover, because OpenNebula is one of the technologies being enhanced in RESERVOIR, flagship European research initiative in virtualized infrastructures and cloud computing, in few months there will be available several new components complementing its functionality for service elasticity management, VM placement to meet SLA commitments, supporting public cloud interfaces… So please stay tuned for upcoming announcements.

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About Ignacio M. Llorente
Ignacio M. Llorente, Ph.D in Computer Science (UCM) and Executive MBA (IE Business School), is a Full Professor (Catedratico) in Computer Architecture and the Head of the Distributed Systems Architecture Group at UCM, and Chief Executive Advisor and co-founder of the C12G Labs technology start-up. He held several appointments as independent IT expert for the European Commission and several companies and national governments; and consultant positions at ICASE NASA Langley and Sun Microsystems. Prof. Llorente is one of the pioneers and world's leading authorities on Cloud Computing. He has served on several Groups of Experts on Cloud Computing convened by international organizations, such as the European Commission and the World Economic Forum, and has contributed to several Cloud Computing panels and roadmaps. He is the Director of the OpenNebula Open-Source Project and participates in the main European projects in Cloud Computing. He founded and co-chaired the Open Grid Forum Working Group on Open Cloud Computing Interface. Prof. Llorente has given many keynotes and invited talks in the main international events in cloud computing, and has contributed to several cloud computing panels and roadmaps.