CloudSigma. Customisable cloud infrastructure and data federation in the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot Phase 8 (AIP-8)

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1 CloudSigma Tzarigradsko Shosse 47A Office center Poligrafia CloudSigma, Floor 3, office 308 Sofia 1124 Bulgaria Customisable cloud infrastructure and data federation in the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot Phase 8 (AIP-8) Response Due Date: 27th February 2015 Programmatic and Technical POC: Alex Georgiev alexander.goergiev@cloudsigma.com

2 CloudSigma s response to the GEOSS AIP-8 CFP 1 Overview The GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP) presents to us the opportunity to exploit cloud infrastructure delivery models capable of harnessing the value coming out of the earth observation space. CloudSigma is looking to host data sets to allow for an eco-system of services to grow around that data, often combining it from different sources. The key here is the recognition that as data volumes continue to increase, the need to move the application to the data (rather than data to the application) also increases. The cloud by design can meet that challenge while at the same time improve the availability of that data. SLAs can be offered on this basis allowing for greater commercial exploitation. In relation to GEOSS we would like to expand upon the concept of data federation. As a response to AIP-8 CFP we would propose the development of a mechanism for data owners to federate that data to cloud hosting. Data owners would potentially have fine grained control over how this is done, as well as unlock other capabilities such as the ability to exclude certain geographies or providers. From a cloud hosting prospective, suppliers would have the ability to discover what data is available/federated and choose what data sets they would like to host in the cloud. This would allow for greater specialisation around EO data and services registered with GEOSS. We believe data federation will increase exploitation of data essentially exposing it to new audiences not exclusive to academic circles. This can also be achieved whilst still working within the boundaries of GEOSS regarding commercial offerings. 2 Proposed Contributions CloudSigma has already demonstrated a strong commitment to a federated cloud approach for the fast emerging EO industry through the Helix Nebula project and wider initiative and its support for such European Space Agency (ESA) use-cases as the SuperSites Exploitation Platform (SSEP). CloudSigma has been working together with the demand side organisations (CERN, EMBL, ESA and PIC) as well as other commercial partners to establish a federated and secure high-performance computing cloud platform. Our work, in particular with ESA EO, the ESA SSEP and the Gia Project (with CGI UK) has greatly enhanced our understanding of EO infrastructure requirements. The cloud-based GEO collaboration platform and marketplace developed during the project phase is designed to facilitate the simple provisioning of CloudSigma s performance optimized IaaS resources to SMEs and start-ups while adding more GEO clients to CloudSigma s existing Big Data and Big Science compute-intensive client base. We are continually looking to increase our understanding of workload-specific compute 2

3 and storage requirements to help us enhance performance and functionality on our proprietary cloud stack Key application support N/A Supporting Technologies We have the potential to contribute to activities that support the key Apps and the community portals with particular interest in data access, including user authentication, security, privacy and geoprocessing workflows as outlined in the CFP under section 3. We are currently involved in the research and development of security and authentication technologies to ensure secure and auditable access to cloud-based services to emergency response services, researchers, public administration, as well as members of the public. Secure Single Sign-On and two-factor authorisation implementations are part of this ongoing research. In addition to the above, we are also working with industrial partners in the field of simulation and in specific use-cases, fluid dynamics in order to research and develop with the goal of bringing to market grid supercomputer-like performance to public cloud. This work involves use-case requirements gathering, ongoing workload deployment on existing infrastructure, benchmarking, identifying bottlenecks and subsequently implementing performance optimisations, which in certain scenarios multiply performance gains. This includes and is not limited to the procurement of new hardware, a well as developing support for it within our cloud stack. As part of the SecInCoRe FP7 project, which we are currently actively involved in, a strong emphasis is placed on the integration of diverse data sets, their secure storage and transmission, as well as authenticated access to these data sets. We are actively involved in the SecInCoRe working groups responsible for establishing a data set ontology and each data type s topology. The ability to search encrypted content by the addition of meta-data is one of the key aspects of the system, enabling standardised data to be further enhanced by domain specific applications. Services which add value are developed atop of this federated data pool, taking into consideration legislative, ethical and established work processes and environmental considerations Architecture and Interoperability Arrangement Development We see one of the key blockers of making Big Data easily accessible to users is the expense and difficulty of moving large amounts of data around. We believe the solution to this is a cloud-based discovery model whereby applications move to the data, rather than the data to the application. We have extensive experience supporting cloud brokerage technologies and platforms. Such industry standard technologies support CloudInit, HEAT, Juju, jclouds, Tapp.in, 3

4 Fog, to name but a few, with multiple proprietary brokerage platforms also being supported. Our in-kind contribution will comprise of data storage offered for the length of the Pilot and beyond as well as programming support for the new data federation aspects. We are interested in building ecosystems out of publicly available data, storing it and making it easily accessible for users to mount on virtual machines and build services around. Providing storage capacity at no cost is permissible, as we believe these data sets will draw in users who will inevitably spend on compute capacity. We can make available a considerable amount of our cloud infrastructure for workload deployment, pending workload requirements gathering. We can offer programmatic support for the purposes of implementing HA infrastructure topologies, as well as putting forward appropriate infrastructure to match workload requirements. Our stack offers high performance low-latency private patch networking ability, and we are currently in the process of implementing Infiniband-like RoCE Ethernet networking capabilities into our public cloud, which will offer very low latencies required by HPC workloads. Pending performance testing and literature review, we can offer programmatic support and systems architecture engineering support for the purpose of optimisation and modification of architectural topologies, infrastructure as well as cloud configurations in order to meet workload performance requirements. We are very customer-focused and depending on project scale, we are capable and willing to customise our API and infrastructure to meet individual customer needs. 3 Description of CloudSigma CloudSigma is a pure-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider that offers highly available, flexible, enterprise-class cloud servers and cloud hosting solutions. CloudSigma is operational in both Europe and the US, with plans to expand into Latin America and Asia. We have offices in San Francisco, Zurich, Sofia & representation in New York & Lima. With infrastructure in Equinix data centres in Zurich, Switzerland, as well as Washington DC, San Jose & Miami, US, and a DRFortress data center in Honolulu, we serve customers globally, with a focus on Europe, North & South America. 4

5 CloudSigma is one of the most customizable cloud providers on the market. CPU, RAM, Storage and bandwidth can be purchased independently enabling the best combination of cloud resources without fixed sizes. Each resource is billed separately and transparently as either subscription or as pay-as-you-go 5-minute billing segments enabling customers to track exactly how much their cloud servers are costing over time. Any operating system and software can be installed with complete administrator/root control. All our cloud servers and drives are persistent and controlled with the same methodology as physical dedicated server equivalents. VLANs and IP addresses are also controlled using standard behaviour. Our recently upgraded CloudSigma 2.0 platform makes technological improvements with regard to Software Defined Networking and All-SSD, high performance storage as well as exposing advanced CPU options for better application performance. Primary contacts: Peter Gray - Project manager M: E: peter.gray@cloudsigma.com Alex Georgiev - Programmatic and Technical liaison M: E: alexander.georgiev@cloudsigma.com Key personnel: Robert Jenkins - Robert is the co-founder and CEO of CloudSigma. Until February 2013 he was CloudSigma s CTO, responsible for leading the technological innovation of the company s pure-cloud IaaS offering. Under Robert s direction, CloudSigma has established an unprecedented open, customer-centric approach to the public cloud. Robert combines a background in investment banking and finance with real-world experience of creating and running various companies as an entrepreneur. Robert s unique experience will be leveraged particularly around building sustainable business models and services. Micheal Higgins - Micheal is Manager of the Enterprise Solutions Architecture division at CloudSigma. Micheal has over 30 years of experience working in the technology industry. He undertook his graduate education in physics and astrophysics at San Diago State University. He subsequently has obtained multiple certifications in technologies such as Oracle, Microsoft, Linux, etc. During his career Micheal has worked for a wide range of innovative and industry leading organizations including Byer California, Netscape, Dell Computer and Advanced Innovation, where he was employed as a Vice President of IT. Alex Georgiev - Alex is a Project Manager and Technical Writer at CloudSigma. He is a BSc Computer Science graduate from Brunel University, West London, graduating with 1st class Honours. His university dissertation was a modular middleware solution, database and device independent bidirectional SMS alerting system primarily for use in, but not limited to the NHS (GP practices), very much akin to the SMS games or SMS car parking services that have since become mainstream. Alex has prolonged exposure to a 5

6 broad range of disciplines in computing including networking, database design and deployment, web and Java development, cloud computing architecture, to name but a few. Since joining CloudSigma where he works as a Director of Research and Project Manager of EU Funding, where he has attained thorough expertise in the operation and development of data centre and cloud stack infrastructure. Peter Gray - Peter is a Project Manager working predominantly on FP7 and Horizon2020 Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, funding programmes facilitated by the European Union. He studied Computer Graphic Design at the National College of Design and Technology in New Zealand, graduating in He has nearly 10 years experience of project management for large scale digitization projects in the museums and archives sector. He has worked with a number of museums and archives including Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand, Auckland War Memorial Museum, Wellington City Archives, Archives New Zealand, National Library of New Zealand and Victoria University of Wellington. He brings experience with the coordination and management of large scale projects. 6