Cloud @BelnetJean-Philippe Evrard

Welcome !

Wireless:

Eduroam

Belnet guests network:

SSID: Belnet

Pass: belnet2010

Need to print something?

Send an email to cloud@belnet.be

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 2

« Cloud » @Belnet

Storage

Compute

Conclusions

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 3

« Cloud » @Belnet

Storage

Compute

Conclusions

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 4

Storage: Overview

CFT finished: Storage solution ordered;

Hardware delivered;

« Cloud part » is currently shipping;

Goal: Start a beta for october

Interest of our clients:

– Official communication first happened on the 30/08/2013.

– 25 clients have marked their interest to date (update: 09/09/2013)

– 15 clients have confirmed their free participation to the beta.

– No public pricing yet.

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 5

« Cloud » Storage: Usage

New shared drive Replica of theirdata

New virtualizationdata

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

NoMaybeYes

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 6

Decisions for storage

Technical choices

– Protocols: CIFS, NFS, iSCSI

– Local redundancy: double parity (RAID-DP + Hot spares)

– Replication: asynchronous over 2 DCs

What did we drop ?

– Multi-tier storage

– Object storage

– Full SSD performance tier

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 7

Technology & features

SAN– NetApp FAS3220HA + DS4243– ONTAP 8.2– Clustered– Starting with 10GBps uplink per DC.– Dedicated link between DCs.

Web frontend– CA Service catalog for the self-service provisionning– Ability to create vservers per tenant, and then each tenant can

order/delete/resize volumes.– 1 public IP per type of storage per tenant (CIFS/NFS/iSCSI)

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 8

Issues/concerns on storage

CIFS

– CIFS over WAN seems a bad choice

– AD integration over WAN seems even worse

SAML2

– Portal not compliant yet

– Internal discussion about attributes and logins (for multi-homed users)

IOPS

– We don’t have a benchmark yet.

Replication

– Async vs sync, acceptable delays ? Expert feedback would be great.

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 9

Above IaaS, we started procedures for testing…

Owncloud (v4)

Stability issues

TCD

Not ready for production

Spideroak blue

Access to our VMs was not possible (yet)

Wuala

good enough

We still have to continue on this SaaS side

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 10

« Cloud » @Belnet

Storage

Compute

Conclusions

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 11

Compute: overview(it’s the « Cloud: TL;DR; »)

Testing « cloud compute » stacks

– Essay from a student (« Mémoire ») in early 2012.

– Open & Closed source testing in 2012;

– Open source « Cloud » labs in 2013.

In parallel: CFT

– Writing in 2012

– Start of procedure in 2012 – 2013

– End of internal procedures 06/2013

– We are in the evaluation phase: We have our winner, we may not

announce it yet.

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 12

Research step 1: Initiation(with the Early 2012 essay)

Technologies:– CloudStack– OpenNebula– OpenStack– Abiquo– Eucalyptus– OpenQRMComparison of the stacks in terms of:– Monitoring– Ease of install/use– Security– Integration with existing infrastructure (KVM/VMware)– API– Features

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 13

Research step 1: Initiation(with the early 2012 essay)

• Results:1. CloudStack2. OpenNebula

And…First requirements for the CFT based on standard features

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 14

Research step 2: Build our knowledge(Open & closed source testing)

• Methodology:

• Contact vendors, compare them in terms of functionnality, and write a

final CFT document.

• Results:

• CloudStack, Flexiant have really good products.

• OpenNebula is still good.

• OpenStack is lacking a good official public dashboard, but a lot of

different providers made their own, which is good enough for us.

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 15

Decisions for compute

Technical/administrative choices

– Support of KVM & Vmware

– Be able to purchase a 24/7 service

– Integrable with our monitoring & ticketing systems.

– Uses our « cloud storage » in terms of iSCSI.

– Should make use of our SAML2 IAM solution.

– HA of the system is mandatory

What did we drop ?

– Maybe if you ask questions, I’ll find answer to this :)

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 16

Final CFT

Split in 2 parts (early 2013):

– HW• scaling with demand• no limitations in terms of vendors or type of hardware

– SW• with the previous requirements• no limitations in terms of software providers• We wanted to manage it ourselves AND have the

opportunity to switch to a fully managed model

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 17

Research step 3: Improvement

Improve our knowledge of cloud models:

– Talking with partners;

– Implementing our own test lab to evaluate the future problems in

terms of « cloud models » with « traditional Belnet » workflows.

In the test lab…

– (Synnefo)

– OpenStack

– CloudStack

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 18

Testlab: Technologies & feedback

Openstack

– Devstack is a good tool, but need more manual work if you want

complex installation

– Easy to work with

– Integration with KVM, Xen (using XCP and XAPI).

– Installation of Grizzly, with Nova + Cinder + Quantum + Horizon +

Glance + keystone

– Keystone not ready for SAML2…

– … PoC exists (from UK University of Kent)

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 19

Testlab: Technologies & feedback

Cloudstack

– Easy to work with

– Integration with KVM, Xen (using XCP and XAPI) and VMware.

– Creation of a SAML2 portal is easy

– Large and efficient system, integration with HW (Juniper SRX for

example) could be easily done.

– HA is quickly implemented

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 20

Final CFT: Results (end of 08/2013)

HW Offers:

– 8 companies;

– 7/8 provide blades.

SW Offers:

– 7 companies;

– Different « stacks »;

– No stack on opennebula, on Flexiant, nor on Eucalyptus.

– Trend: OpenStack & CloudStack, open source market leaders?

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 21

Issues/concerns on compute

Firewalling

– We don’t have a hardware firewall in front of the cloud.

– Usefullness ?

Licensing

– Don’t know how to offer windows yet: may we install without license

and make every user manage their licenses?

Cloudbursting?

– Amazon compatibility ?

Will the system handle the cloud IOPS?

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 22

« Cloud » @Belnet

Storage

Compute

Conclusions

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 23

General issues/concerns

Backups/snapshot– Should we limit users to only one snapshot?– Should we deliver a backup solution?

Dimensionning– We know our workloads, but have no idea of the real cloud needs of

our institutions.

Engagement period

– Should we force the user to stay for a while?

Customer infrastructure integration– USP!

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 24

Conclusions

Issues/concerns have impact on:

– the service model;

– the price;

– the competition

USP:

– Being « Trusted » and « Belgian ».

– Although it’s already good enough for some of our clients.

19/09/2013 TF-Storage Brussels 25

Questions ?