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Innovations in OpenNebula 1.4

OpenNebula Supports the Amazon EC2 Query API on VMware-based Cloud Infrastructures

This is the first post I am writing to illustrate the main novelties of the new version of the OpenNebula Virtual Infrastructure Manager. OpenNebula is an open-source toolkit for building Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud infrastructures based on Xen, KVM and VMware virtualization platforms.OpenNebula v1.4 is available in beta release, incorporating bleeding edge technologies and innovations in many areas of virtual infrastructure management and Cloud Computing.

While previous versions concentrated on functionality for Private and Hybrid Cloud computing, this new version incorporates a new service to expose Cloud interfaces to Private or Hybrid Cloud deployments, so providing partners or external users with access to the private infrastructure, for example to sell  overcapacity. The new version brings a new framework to easily develop Cloud interfaces, and implements as example a subset of the Amazon EC2 Query API. The OpenNebula EC2 Query is a web service that enables users to launch and manage virtual machines in an OpenNebula installation through the Amazon EC2 Query Interface. In this way, besides the Openebula CLI or the new libvirt interface, users can use any EC2 Query tool or utility to access your Private Cloud.

The OpenNebula team is also developing the RESERVOIR Cloud interface and is planning to develop the OGF OCCI API. Moreover, as it is stated in its Ecosystem page, the team will also collaborate with IaaS Cloud providers interested in an open-source implementation of their Cloud interface to foster adoption of their Cloud services.

Other new interesting feature is the support for VMware. The VMware Infrastructure API provides a complete set of language-neutral interfaces to the VMware virtual infrastructure management framework. By targeting the VMware Infrastructure API, the OpenNebula VMware adaptors are able to manage various flavors of VMware hypervisors: ESXi, ESX and VMware Server.

The combination of both innovations allows the creation of a Cloud infrastructure based on VMware that can be interfaced using Amazon EC2 Query API. I will cover more unique features and capabilities in upcoming posts.

More Stories By Ignacio M. Llorente

Ignacio M. Llorente, Ph.D in Computer Science and Executive MBA, is a Full Professor in Computer Architecture and Technology, and the Head of the Distributed Systems Architecture Research Group at Complutense University of Madrid. He has held several appointments as an independent expert for the European Commission (Information Society and Media Directorate-General); visiting positions at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering (NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA); consultancy positions with Sun Microsystems; and a Senior Researcher position in the Advanced Computing Lab at CAB (associated to NASA Astrobiology Institute). He has 17 years of experience in research and development of advanced distributed computing and virtualization technologies, architecture of large-scale distributed infrastructures and resource provisioning platforms, and management of international projects and initiatives on Grid and Cloud computing; having led the research group in 15 sponsored projects; and having published more than 130 scientific papers in the leading journals and proceedings books. He is currently co-leading the research and development of the OpenNebula Virtual Infrastructure Engine, the Globus GridWay Metascheduler, and the Grid4Utility initiative for federation of Grids. He participates in the EGEE and BEinGRID European projects, as UCM partner responsible, and in the Globus Alliance, as chair of one of its projects; and coordinates the Activity on Management of Virtual Execution Environments in the RESERVOIR Project, main EU-funded research initiative in virtualized infrastructures and cloud computing. He is the Grid Community Liaison Coordinator for the Service Oriented Infrastructure Working Group of NESSI; and co-chairs the OGF Working Group on Open Cloud Computing Interface. He coordinates the Middleware Activity in the Spanish Initiative in e-Science and the Working Group on Service Oriented Infrastructures and Grids of INES.