|
Cloud Computing (IaaS) has shown to have powerful capabilities and useful concepts that can be used at any datacenter bigger than just a handful of fisical machines, it has brought a new paradigm with a higther level of virtualization and many new tools one can not live without after trying.
Many would say "It is not Cloud Computing if it's not on the cloud" and they're rigth but, who cares?
The fact is that you can enjoy the full power of Insfraestructure as a Service (IaaS) on your datacenter, may it be connected to the Internet (Hibryd Cloud) or just accesible inside your company (Private Cloud).
The case studies show that the bigger the datacenter, the most you benefit from Cloud Computing techniques and technology; that does not mean there is no benefit for small datacenters. But don't take my word for it... You can try by yourself with little effort by testing any of these Cloud Management software solutions:
Nowadays, several Linux operating systems have some level of cloud computing embeded capabilities.
There are also many propietary solutions out there too, just ask google.
But there are also complete FOSS solutions that are nearly turnkey or need very litle effort to build a complete Open Cloud at your own datacenter:
Eucalyptus:
Eucalyptus is an open-source system for implementing on-premise private and hybrid clouds using the hardware and software infrastructure that is in place, without modification.
Eucalyptus adds capabilities such as end-user customization, self-service provisioning, and legacy application support to data center virtualization features, making IT customer service easier, more fully featured, and less expensive.
Commercial site: http://www.eucalyptus.com/
Open Source community: http://open.eucalyptus.com/
Download: http://open.eucalyptus.com/downloads/
Enomaly:
Enomaly's Elastic Computing Platform (ECP) is a programmable virtual cloud infrastructure for small, medium and large businesses. ECP can help you design, deploy and manage virtual applications in the cloud and in the process significantly reduce administrative and systems workload. Our browser-based dashboard enables IT personnel to simply and efficiently plan deployments, automate VM scaling and load-balancing, and analyze, configure and optimize cloud capacity in an easy to use utility. We've designed the ECP platform to work alongside your current virtual data center, providing additional value and cost savings.
NOTES: Advanced features not included in the FOSS version.
Founded in 2004 and based Toronto, Canada.
Commercial site: http://www.enomaly.com/
Open source community: http://src.enomaly.com/
Live demo: http://www.enomaly.com/Live-Demo.445.0.html (requires registration)
Download: http://www.enomaly.com/Downloads.396.0.html (Requires registration)
Open Nebula:
OpenNebula is a Virtual Infrastructure Manager that orchestrates storage, network and virtualization technologies to enable the dynamic placement of multi-tier services (groups of interconnected virtual machines) on distributed infrastructures, combining both data center resources and remote cloud resources, according to allocation policies. OpenNebula provides internal and Cloud administration and user interfaces for the full management of the Cloud platform.
OpenNebula is an open and flexible tool that fits into existing data center environments to build any type of Cloud deployment. OpenNebula can be primarily used as a virtualization tool to manage your virtual infrastructure in the data-center or cluster, which is usually referred as Private Cloud. OpenNebula supports Hybrid Cloud to combine local infrastructure with public cloud-based infrastructure, enabling highly scalable hosting environments. OpenNebula also supports Public Clouds by providing Cloud interfaces to expose its functionality for virtual machine, storage and network management.
No commercial site, offers paid support and developement.
Open Source community: http://www.opennebula.org/doku.php?id=start
AbiCloud (from Abiquo):
Abicloud is an open source infrastructure software for the creation and integral management of Public & Private Clouds based on heterogeneous environments. The tool mainly offers users the capacity for scaling, management, automatic and immediate provision of servers, storage, networks, virtual network devices as well as applications.
NOTES: As September 5 2009 It stills in beta, not perfectly documented yet (Sep,5).
Platform: Java, either for Linux or Windows.
Offers other cloud products like AbiNtense and AbiData.
Commercial site: http://www.abiquo.com/en/products/abicloud
Community site: http://community.abiquo.com/display/Community/Home
Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/abicloud/files/
If you decide to test any of these, please send back your impressions. |
