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Cloud Expo: Article

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 (UCM) and Executive MBA (IE Business School), is a Full Professor (Catedratico) in Computer Architecture and the Head of the Distributed Systems Architecture Group at UCM, and Chief Executive Advisor and co-founder of the C12G Labs technology start-up. He held several appointments as independent IT expert for the European Commission and several companies and national governments; and consultant positions at ICASE NASA Langley and Sun Microsystems. Prof. Llorente is one of the pioneers and world's leading authorities on Cloud Computing. He has served on several Groups of Experts on Cloud Computing convened by international organizations, such as the European Commission and the World Economic Forum, and has contributed to several Cloud Computing panels and roadmaps. He is the Director of the OpenNebula Open-Source Project and participates in the main European projects in Cloud Computing. He founded and co-chaired the Open Grid Forum Working Group on Open Cloud Computing Interface. Prof. Llorente has given many keynotes and invited talks in the main international events in cloud computing, and has contributed to several cloud computing panels and roadmaps.