An Introduction to Cloud-based Services

Paul Watson
Newcastle University, UK
paul.watson@ncl.ac.uk

 e.g. Amazon

Plan

What is Cloud Computing? Potential Advantages Lessons from our own experiences Cloud Issues

What is Cloud Computing?

.. a broad array of web-based services aimed at allowing users to obtain a wide range of functional capabilities on a pay-as-you-go basis that previously required tremendous hardware/software investments and professional skills to acquire. Irving Wladawsky Berger

Whats New?
illusion of Infinite computing resources On Demand no up-front commitment by users Pay for use of resources on a short-term basis as needed

(from Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing)

Example Amazon Web Services

Based on Xen VMs run any OS & software stack CPU: 1.0Ghz x86 instance Blob Storage External Data Transfer @ $0.10 /hour @ $0.12 /GB month @ $0.10 /GB

Also queue, key store, block store, range of instances

Why is this Important (I): Internal IT Problems

(slide by permission of Arjuna Technologies)
Dynamic Business Demand

Silos = Inflexibility

New demand

Extinct demand

Under-provision

Over-provision
Capacity

Capacity Resources Demand

Resources
Demand

Time

Time

Static IT Supply

Why is this Important (II)? Time to put Ideas into action

Research 1. Have good idea 2. Write proposal 3. Wait 6 months 4. If successful.. 5. Buy Computers 6. Install Computers 7. Start Work

Science Start-ups 1. Have good idea 2. Write Business Plan 3. Ask VCs to fund If successful.. 4. Buy computers 5. Install Computers 6. Start Work

Why is this a Good idea: using commercial clouds

1. 2. 3. 4.

Have good idea Grab nodes as needed from Cloud provider Start Work Pay for what you used

Cloud Services Continuum (based on Robert Anderson)

http://et.cairene.net/2008/07/03/cloud-services-continuum/

Flexibility

Complexity

Google Docs Salesforce.com

Software (SaaS)

Google AppEngine
Microsoft Azure

Platform (PaaS)

Amazon EC2 & S3

Infrastructure (IaaS)

Example Lessons from CARMEN Project

Design began in 2006 Commercial clouds not an option Designed own private cloud Experimenting with Commercial Cloud

CARMEN Project

UK EPSRC e-Science Pilot 4M (2006-10) 20 Investigators

Manchester Leicester Warwick

Stirling
St. Andrews
Newcastle

York

Sheffield

Cambridge
Imperial

Plymouth

Industry & Associates

Research Challenge

Understanding the brain is the greatest informatics challenge Enormous implications for science: Medicine

Biology
Computer Science

Collecting the Evidence

100,000 neuroscientists generate huge quantities of data

molecular (genomic/proteomic) neurophysiological (time-series activity) anatomical (spatial) behavioural

Epilepsy Exemplar
Data analysis guides surgeon during operation Further analysis provides evidence

WARNING!
The next 2 Slides show an exposed human brain

CARMEN

enables sharing and collaborative exploitation of data, analysis code and expertise that are not physically collocated

CARMEN e-Science Requirements

Store very large quantities of data (100TB+) Analyse suite of neuroinformatics services support data intensive analysis Automate workflow Share under user-control

Background: North East Regional e-Science Centre

25 Research Projects across many domains:
Bioinformatics, Ageing & Health, Neuroscience, Chemical Engineering, Transport, Geomatics, Video Archives, Artistic Performance Analysis, Computer Performance Analysis,....

Same key needs:

Share Automate Analyse Store

Result: e-Science Central

Integrated Store-Analyse-Automate-Share infrastructure Generic CARMEN neuroinformatics & chemistry as pilots

e-Science Central
Web based Works anywhere

e-Science Central

Software as a Service
Dynamic Resource Allocation Pay-as-you-Go*

Social Networking
Controlled Sharing Collaboration Communities

Cloud Computing

Science Cloud Architecture

Access over Internet (typically via browser)

Upload data & services

Data storage and analysis

Run analyses

Science Cloud Options

Users Service Developers Science App 1 Science App n Science App 1

....

Science App n

....
Science Platform

Cloud Infrastructure: Storage & Compute

Cloud Infrastructure: Storage & Compute

App

....

App
App API

Security Analysis Services

e-Science Central

Social Networking

Workflow Enactment

Science Cloud Platform

Processing

Storage

Cloud Infrastructure

Editing and Running a Workflow on the Web

Workflow Result File

Viewing the output of Workflow Runs

Viewing results

Blogs and links

Communicating Results

Linking to results & workflows

What we learnt: Moving into a Cloud

Moving existing technologies into a cloud can be difficult some cant run in a Cloud at all

Raw Data Exploration with Signal Data Explorer

What we learnt : Scalability

Clouds offer the potential for scalability grab compute power only when needed Developers have to manage scalability for Infrastructure as a Service Clouds scale up as well as down

Adaptive Dynamic Deployment with Dynasoar Commercial pay-as-you-go

450 400
Response time (seconds)

clouds would allow us to avoid this 18 limit

Response time (Seconds) processors in pool 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
Processors in pool

350 300 250

200 Adding Processors as you need them optimises resources and 150 saves money100 pay-as-you-go in clouds 50 0
0.03 0.03 0.03 0.06 0.06

Ensure system can also release unwanted nodes

1 1 0.5 0.5 0.13 0.13 0.25 0.25 0.5 1

Arrival Rate (messages per second)

0.13

Microsoft Azure Cloud for e-Science Demo

Recent experiments with Microsoft Azure Cloud running Chemical analyses Silverlight App

Thanks to: - Paul Appleby & Team at the Microsoft Technology Centre, Reading - & MS External Research e-Science Group

Microsoft Azure Cloud Demo

When not to use Clouds?

Large data transfers

Time & Cost

High Performance cpu/io/network bandwidth/low latency

Predictable Performance
Confidentiality High Availability?

High Server Utilisation?

private clouds better?

Create Private Cloud

(slides by permission of Arjuna Technologies)
Dynamic Business Demand

New demand

Arjuna AGILITY

Resources

Capacity Demand

Resources

Capacity Demand

Time

Time

37

Agile IT Supply

Private Cloud Examples

Eucalyptus Amazon API Private Cloud deployments of Microsoft Azure Arjuna Agility

Federating Private & Public Clouds

Public Cloud Public Cloud e.g. Amazon
App1

Arjuna Agility App1 Service Agreement Internal Cloud Dept A

39

App1 & 2

Dept B

App1

Public Cloud e.g. Amazon App1 Public Cloud e.g. FlexiScale

Arjuna Agility App1 App1 & 2

Internal Cloud Arjuna Dept A

40

Dept B

Summary
Cloud computing can revolutionise e-science provide sustainable infrastructure reduce time from idea to realisation Dont underestimate complexity building scalable distributed systems is still hard can Science Clouds help by lowering the hurdles? e-Science Central Store-Analyse-Automate-Share e-science platform adding content from a range of domains CARMEN is evaluating it for neuroinformatics