Cloud in a box. Scalable Cloud Computing strategy.

Transcription

1 Cloud in a box. Scalable Cloud Computing strategy. Ing. Alfredo Sánchez Rodríguez SOFTEL, GEIC alfredo@softel.cu Abstract IT infrastructures have become so complicated and vulnerable, that currently 70% percent of the expenses are centered in maintenance, which reduces considerably the resources needed to start new ventures. The Cloud Computing has emerged in this context as a paradigm for converting the management of complex IT infrastructures in a computing s ervice over the Internet, this new approach has led to the creation of business such Amazon Web Service, Microsoft Azure, HP Cloud and others. Despite its many benefits, Cloud Computing needs own deployments, based on Free Software and Open Source, to be adopted fully in the structures of state and government as a Private Cloud. In the current context of IT in Cuba a scalable strategy is also required. This paper proposes the scheme "Cloud in a box" as a development strategy for Cloud Computing in the Ministry of Public Health in Cuba. Consequently the final solution of "Cloud in a box" would become a technology that can be inserted gradually in other government activities. [1]

2 1. Introduction From 2003 the Ministry of Informatics and Communications (MIC) designates SOFTEL as the company that manages the IT Program of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP). Since then SOFTEL has been dedicated to developing applications for health with the more modern and appropriate technology to ensure sovereignty and technological independence which mostly involves use of Free Software and Open Source [2]. The IT Infrastructure Group of SOFTEL is created with the objective of ensuring the deployment and availability of the applications developed by the company in data centers and health institutions in the country. To fulfill this objective, the Group identified the need to design and develop a technology platform that would allow: One click infrastructure management approach, Self-management system of fault tolerance, An unified model of application hosting, A reliable and secure scheme information access control, A flexible process management, A comprehensive telematics services catalog With the name INTEGRO Project, the Infrastructure Group of SOFTEL begins to build an operating system based on Linux Debian providing a single control panel and integrated modules capable of managing an IT infrastructure that can scale to the levels of processing and storage resources of a Data Center, maintaining an adequate quality of service, decentralized and aiming meet different customer needs in infrastructure management.

3 2. Methods and materials 2.1 Architecture The platform has a layered structure (Figure 1) in which each layer provides consistent standardized services to their function within the system. These services are characterized by: Security: Scalability: Flexibility: Sustainability: Expressed in that a user can access its services must be properly authenticated and authorized. The system structure, in time, allow this expand the services offered and offer new services, ensuring compatibility with existing ones. It is expressed in offering various forms of interaction, which include recognized or properly documented and accessible standards themselves. It manifests itself in ensuring the maintenance and development of applications deployed through new stable releases or updates. Figura 1. Estructura por Capas de INTEGR Figure 1. Layered architecture of INTEGRO

4 Function of each of the INTEGRO layers: System layer. It is the basis of infrastructure contains hardware resources for processing, storage and managed to support deployed applications connectivity. Uses virtualization as a strategy for logical resource allocation according to the demand of deployed software. Use application server cluster to ensure high performance web applications hosted on the infrastructure to provide load balancing across multiple servers. Service layer. Other applications offers basic infrastructure services related to user management, Application Hosting, Monitoring, Virtualization, and more. Contains telematics services that customers demand and are exposed to quickly and easily provide, applications deployed on the platform, the ability to use them to expose their operations as Web Services. Orchestration and Integration Layer. In the system there is a component for the orchestration of infrastructure services. This component allows you to define executable processes that model specific customer needs and are presented as a single aggregate service. For it is available to certain privileged users, a group of operations (services), which may be visually organized achieving a sequential exchange of messages between the various services provided. Presentation Layer (UI). In the same are contained: Applications for administrators and infrastructure clients interact with each of its components. Tools for monitoring and management of infrastructure resources. Tool Business Process Management (BPM) for orchestration of services published on the platform. Specific applications that support the various services offered by the platform. Registered applications have access to them as demanded enabled the business for which they are developed. 2.2 Modules:

5 INTEGRO is composed of modules that used, as core variant, the free software that best meets the requirements that are intended to satisfy and offered as value-added system integration with other modules and a single user management mechanism based on a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication for single sign-on and monitoring of trace ensuring non-repudiation of user actions in the Platform. [3] Virtualization Module. The scheme proposed by INTEGRO virtualization module helps to bring resources managed the main objective of business infras tructure, all thanks to the following functions: Save multiple servers using virtualization software like most hypervisors supported by the market and present the user evenly. Create and manage virtual machines (VMs) with the required hardware resources. Install software packages on time of creation of the VM grouped by categories based on the type of telematics service exposes. Create templates MV from a preconfigured VM to serve as a template to create other MV having the same configuration. Make Snapshot Virtual Machine to create a restore point to which you can return at the time that the user requires. Benefits: Management and use of all hardware resources. Rapid incorporation of new resources for virtualized servers. Global Administration centralized and simplified. Improved processes cloning and copying systems. Reduce downtime. Migration of virtual machines. Reduction of hardware and associated costs. [4] Applications Registry Module. Web Hosting enabling infrastructure deployed in web applications based on JAVA, PHP, Python and PERL technology, supported virtualization module which offers the possibility of user-created environments that meet the application needs to be displayed. Hosting most Content Management Systems (CMS), Project Management and other web applications based on free software supported by the market and grouped into different categories.

6 Analytical statistics access to hosted applications (Figure 2) Figure 2. Trends of use daily, weekly and yearly for hosted applications. Benefits: Security applications deployed on the cloud. Backup daily data. Immediate availability of the service. Availability deployment environments catering to the needs of the application. Monitoring module. Its goal is to achieve quality of service (QoS) with the measuring of critical values for parameters such as: memory usage, free disk space, number of established connections, availability, etc. own parameters of the servers that make up the infrastructure. The module maintains a log of the variables surveyed and bounded on reference values that typify states: Critical, Warning, Right, among others (Figure 3); thus facilitates the understanding of the current status and trends of a given parameter which help prevent potential failures in advance. The monitoring module provides the following features: Manage monitoring services.

7 Display statistics on the state of infrastructure services that are under monitoring functions. Display trend graphs for service in a selected time period. Compare trend graphs for the same service to analyze dependencies behavior over a period of time. Figure 3. Pie chart showing the current overall status and Bar chart showing trends of service states. Benefits: Flexible and easily manageable and configurable. Checking parameters to ensure the availability and reliability of services and applications deployed in the infrastructure. 3. Conclusions: The "Cloud in a box" solution obtained, not only respond to initial goal of supporting software applications for the health care and future telemedicine services to be implemented, otherwise it becomes a platform that can support business of different nature, articulating its scope to the concept of Cloud Computing as a paradigm emerged in recent times. [5] The released product, packaged as an operating system based on Free Software and Open Source, is generalizable to both entities requiring agile manage and simplify their IT infrastructure and customers that demand the integration of applications with telematics services in times shorter and at lower cost without sacrificing essential security requirements of an enterprise application. 4. References [1] M. Armbrust et. al., Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing, Technical Report No. UCB/EECS , University of California at Berkeley, 2009.

8 [2]. Delgado Ramos, Ariel. REGISTRO INFORMATIZADO DE SALUD (RIS). Ministerio de Salud Pública. La Habana. Cuba [3] Xue-bin Chi Applications, Software and Supercomputing Environment in SCCAS Supercomputing Center, CNIC, CAS. Hong Kong University [4]. Website of VMWare for virtualization: [5] R. Buyya et. al., Cloud computing and emerging IT platforms: Vision, hype, and reality for delivering computing as the 5th utility, Future Generation Computer Systems, Resume of the author Ing. Alfredo Sánchez Rodríguez graduated in 2000 in Computer engineering at the "Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverria" CUJAE, Havana. He began working at the Empresa de Servicios Informáticos (ESI) of Santiago de Cuba. He moved to work at SOFTEL in October 2003, as a consultant, and months later he was hired by this Company indefinitely as Systems Architect. He is teaching the subject of Software Engineering at the Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas (UCI) in Cuba as Assistant Professor. He has presented papers at various scientific meetings during their working lives. He has won the award for the most relevant project in the FORUM de Ciencia y Técnica that is held annually in Cuba, and other awards in Computer FAIR Havana. He has completed several postgraduate courses related to their professional activity. He has served overseas as an engineer in: Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; Extremadura Center of Advanced Technologies, Extremadura, Spain; Super computer Center of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, PRC. He currently heads the Technological department of SOFTEL in which is develops the INTEGRO project.