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Cloud-Computing

Real-Cloud-In-Action

On 29 September, 2010, Cisco, EMC and PCCW jointly presented a live demo of real-cloud-in-action, demonstrating automated and quick provisioning of computing resources between multiple datacenters which form a virtualized datacenter. CXOs from service providers, large enterprises, universities and various government bodies were invited to see the demo. The event was well received by the audience.

For this special occasion, we had developed a cloud inftrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution which takes the form of a frontend web portal, a backend Java application and an iPhone application. The solution integrates the infrastructure components together - VMware vSphere hypervisor, Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), EMC SAN storage and some other networking devices. The solution takes advantage of the Palo card of Cisco UCS-B to provide virtual LAN cards which can be configured to operate at speeds of 10M, 100M and 1Gbps. To provide RAID-1 and RAID-5 virtual disks, the Java application talks to the EMC SAN storage using the Navisphere API. The use of pre-cloned LUNs shortens the time to provision virtual machine to only a few minutes. The solution also generates online billing reports in PDF format, based on various charging models including fixed monthly rate and usage-based charging rates. With the iPhone application, the end-user can change the number of CPUs, CPU speed, memory size as well as adding and removing RAID disks and network interface cards (NIC). It is convenient to reconfigure virtual machines while you're on the road.

Hong Kong's First Public Cloud Solution

Year 2011 was the busiest year for us since the company was established, in which we spent most of our time in building and customizing a public cloud solution for a global IT service provider. This multi-tenant cloud solution delivers virtual private datacenter (VPDC) services which contain compute instances of varying sizes, RAID storage and a wide variety of networking and security features including firewall and load-balancing services. Using a web GUI, virtual machines can be provisioned based on templates of open virtualization format (OVF) with a selection of preloaded operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The web portal provides users with self-service access to the creation, reconfiguration, operation and management of virtual machines. Both postpaid and prepaid charging are supported, based on the usage of CPU, memory, disk storage, operating system and application software.

Cloud Service Manager

The core of our public cloud solution is a backend Java application called the Cloud Service Manager (CSM). The application architecture is shown in the figure below.

The following describes the functions of each component in the diagram:

User Interface
    • Devices which send requests for operations to the User Interface Manager using an XML-based API. For example: web browser and i-phone.
User Interface Manager
    • Receives XML-based requests from the User Interface, parses the requests and forwards them to the Service Logic Controller via the Orchestrator.
Service Logic Controller (SLC)
    • It is the brain of the Cloud Resources Manager. Through the Orchestrator, it instructs all the necessary Java program modules to complete the user requests.
Orchestrator
    • Facilitates inter-module communication.
Service Policy Manager
    • Determines the cloud services to be offered and how to offer the services.
Resource Policy Manager
    • Determines the compute, storage, network and software resources to be used to offer the cloud services.
Charging Policy Manager
    • Calculates the fixed and variable charges for the offered cloud services.
Authority Manager
    • Role-based access control and user administration.
License Manager
    • To enforce software licensing.
Device Manager
    • Interfaces directly with external devices through the corresponding device drivers.

For More Information
You are welcomed to contact us for more information about our cloud service management solutions. Please send an email to info@teamup.com.hk or give a ring to +852 2581 1672.