features.html

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<h2>Major Features</h2>

<div class="ulmoveleft">

<ul>
    <a name="opensource"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Open Source IaaS _NAMELINK(opensource)</h4></li>
    <p>
    Nimbus provides a 100% freely available and open source Infrastructure as a 
    service (IaaS) system.  Every feature our community develops is freely
    available, there are no add-on or upgrade costs.
    </p>
    <a name="cumulus"></a>
    <li><h4>Storage Cloud Service _NAMELINK(cumulus)</h4></li>
    Cumulus is storage cloud service that is compatible with the S3 REST
    API.  It can be used against many existing clients (boto, s3cmd, jets3t, 
    etc) to provide data storage and transfer services. 

    <a name="remotedep"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Remote deployment and lifecycle management of VMs _NAMELINK(remotedep)</h4>
    </li>
        <p>
            Nimbus clients can deploy, pause, restart and shutdown VMs.
        </p>

        <p>
            On deployment, the client presents the workspace service with:
        </p>
        
        <ol>
            <li>
                <i>meta-data</i> (containing a pointer to the VM
                image to use as well as configuration information
                such as networking)
            </li>
            <li>
                <i>resource allocation</i> (specifying what resources:
                deployment time, CPUs, memory, etc. should be assigned
                to the VM)
            </li>
        </ol>
        <p>
            Once a request for VM deployment is accepted by the workspace
            service, a client can inspect various VM properties (e.g., its
            lifecycle state, time-to-live, the IP address assigned to a VM
            on deployment, or the resources assigned to the VM) via WSRF
            resource properties/notifications or polling (such as EC2
            describe-instances).
        </p>

    <a name="awscompat"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Compatibility with Amazons Network Protocols _NAMELINK(awscompat)</h4>
    </li>
        <p>
           <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2">EC2</a> based clients
            written for EC2 can be used with Nimbus installations.  
            Both SOAP API and the REST API have been implemented in Nimbus.
            For more information, 
            see <a href="faq.html#ec2-frontend">What is the EC2 frontend</a>?
        </P>
        <p> <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3">S3</a> REST API clients 
        can also be used for managing VM storage with the Nimbus system.
        </p>

    <a name="x509"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Supports X509 Credentials  _NAMELINK(x509)</h4>
        <p>
        Users interested in a strong PKI security model can make use of
        our web services interface which uses X509 certificates.  While the main
        feature here is strong security, it can also be a great convenience
        for institutions that are already using DOE certificates or any other
        certificate authority.
        </p>
    <a name="cloudclient"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Easy to Use Cloud Client _NAMELINK(cloudclient)</h4>
    </li>

        <p>
            The workspace cloud client allows authorized clients to access
            many Workspace Service features in a user friendly way.  
            It is designed to get users up and running in a matter of 
            minutes, even from laptops, NATs, etc.
        </p>
        <p>
            cloud-client is the easiest way to use both a storage cloud
            and IaaS.  Even the uninitiate find this fully integrated
            tool easy to use.
        </p>
        <p>
            See the <a href="/clouds/">clouds page</a> as well as a
            behind-the-scenes overview of the service
            <a href="doc/cloud.html">cloud
            configuration</a>.
        </p>

    <a name="lantorrent"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Fast Propagation _NAMELINK(lantorrent)</h4>
    </li>

        <p>
            LANTorrent is a file distribution protocol integrated into the Nimbus IaaS toolkit.  It works as a means to multi-cast virtual machine images to many backend nodes.  The protocol is optimized for propagating virtual machine images (typically large files) from a central repository across a LAN to many virtual machine monitor nodes.
        </p>

    <a name="protocols"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Multiple protocol support / Compartmentalized dependencies _NAMELINK(protocols)</h4>

        <p>
            The workspace service is an implementation of a strong "pure Java"
            internal interface (see <a href="faq.html#rm-api">What is the RM
            API</a>?) which allows multiple remote protocols to be supported as
            well as differing underlying manager implementations.
        </p>

        <p>
            There is currently one known manager implementation (the workspace
            service) and two supported remote protocol sets:
        </p>
        <div class="uldonotmoveleft">
        <ul>
            <li>
                <p>
                <a href="http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=wsrf">WSRF</a>
                based: protocol implementation in longstanding use by previous
                workspace services and clients including the cloud-client.
                </p>
            </li>
            <li>
                <p>
                <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2">EC2</a> based: clients
                written for EC2 can be used with Nimbus installations.  For
                more information, see <a href="faq.html#ec2-frontend">What is the EC2 frontend</a>?
                </p>
            </li>
        </ul>

        <p>
            These protocols happen to both be Web Services based and both
            run in the <a href="http://ws.apache.org/axis/">Apache Axis</a>
            based GT Java container.  But neither thing is a necessity:
        </p>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <p>
                There is nothing specific to web services based remote protocols
                in the workspace service implementation, the messaging system
                just needs to be able to speak to Java based libraries.
                </p>
            </li>
            <li>
                <p>
                Workspace service dependencies have nothing to do with what
                container it is running in, they are normal Java application
                dependencies like
                <a href="http://www.springframework.org/">Spring</a>,
                <a href="http://ehcache.sourceforge.net/">ehcache</a>,
                <a href="http://backport-jsr166.sourceforge.net/">backport-util-concurrent</a>,
                and JDBC (currently using the embedded
                <a href="http://db.apache.org/derby/">Derby</a> database).
                </p>
            </li>
        </ul>
        </div>
    </li>

    <a name="group"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Flexible group management _NAMELINK(group)</h4>

        <p>
            The workspace service can start and manage groups of workspaces at
            a time, as well as groups of groups ("ensembles") where each
            group's VM images, resource allocation, duration, and node number
            can be different. Groups and ensembles will be run in a
            co-scheduled manner.  That is, all group/cluster members will be
            scheduled to run at same time or none will run, even when using
            best-effort schedulers (see the <a href="#pilot">pilot section</a>
            below).
        </p>

        <p>
            Support for auto-configuration of these clusters (see the cloud
            <a href="clouds/clusters.html">clusters</a> page).
        </p>
    </li>


    <a name="accounting"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Per-client usage tracking _NAMELINK(accounting)</h4>

        <p>
            The service can track deployment time (both used and currently
            reserved) on a per-client basis which can be used in
            authorization decisions about subsequent deployments.  Clients
            may query the service about their own usage history.
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="quotas"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Per-user Storage Quota _NAMELINK(quotas)</h4>

        <p> 
        Cumulus (the VM image repository manager for Nimbus) can be configured
        to enforce per user storage usage limits.  This is an especially
        important feature for the scientific community where it is 
        not convenient to directly charge dollars and cents for storage
        but where resources still need to be protected and rationed.
        </p>
    </li>


    <a name="ana"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Flexible request authentication and authorization _NAMELINK(ana)</h4>

        <p>
            Authorization policies can be applied to networking request, VM image files,
            resource request, and time used/reserved by the client. You can assign identities
            to logical groups and then write policies about those groups.
            You can set simultaneous reservation limits, reservation limits
            that take past workspace usage into account, and detailed repository
            node and path checks.
        </p>
    </li>
    <a name="usermanage"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Easy user management _NAMELINK(usermanage)</h4>

        <p>
            New in Nimbus 2.5 are a set of user management tools that 
            make administering a Nimbus cloud significantly easier.
            The tools are both easy to use and scriptable.
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="config"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Configuration management (deployment request) _NAMELINK(config)</h4>

        <p>
            Some configuration operations need to be finished at
            deployment-time because they require information that becomes
            available only late in the deployment process (such as network
            address assignments, physical host assignments, etc.).
        </p>
        <p>
            The workspace service provides optional mechanisms to carry out
            such configuration management actions. Configuration actions
            available are DHCP delivery of network assignments and arbitrary
            file based customizations (mount + alter image).
        </p>
        <p>
            Also see <a href="#ctx">one-click clusters</a>
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="ctx"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>One-click clusters (contextualization) _NAMELINK(ctx)</h4>

        <p>
            See the cloud <a href="clouds/clusters.html">clusters</a> page for
            how auto-configuration of entire clusters (contextualization)
            is supported by the science clouds.  This allows the cloud client
            to launch "one-click" clusters whose nodes securely configure
            themselves to operate in new network and security environments.
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="client"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Workspace client _NAMELINK(client)</h4>

        <p>
            The workspace client allows authorized clients to access
            all Workspace Service features. The current release contains
            a Java reference implementation.
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="net"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>VM network configuration (deployment request) _NAMELINK(net)</h4>

        <p>
            The workspace service allows a client to configure networking
            for the VM accommodating several flexible options (allocating
            new network address from a site pool, bridging an existing
            address, etc.).
        </p>
        <p>
            In particular, a client can request configuring a VM on startup
            with several different NICs allocating different addresses from
            different pools (e.g., public and private, thus implementing
            the Edge Service requirement).
        </p>
        <p>
            There are mechanisms for a site to set aside such address pools
            for the VMs as well as tools intercepting the VM's DHCP requests
            to deliver the right addresses.
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="lrm"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Local resource management plugin _NAMELINK(lrm)</h4>

        <p>
            The workspace service provides a local resource manager with
            the capability to manage a pool of nodes on which VMs are
            deployed to accommodate the service deployment model
            (as opposed to a batch deployment model).
        </p>
        <p>
            To use it, the pool nodes are configured with a lightweight
            Python management script called workspace-control.
        </p>
        <p>
            Besides interfacing with Xen, workspace-control maps networking
            requests to the proper bridge interfaces, controls file isolation
            between different workspace instances, interfaces with ebtables
            and DHCP for IP address delivery, and can accomplish local
            transfers (file propagation from the WAN accessible image node)
            in daemonized mode.
        </p>
    </li>


	<a name="backend"></a>
	<li>
		<h4>Xen and KVM plugins _NAMELINK(backend)</h4>

		<p>
			The default workspace-control plugin is for the Xen
			hypervisor and with configuration you can enable KVM.
		</p>
	</li>


    <a name="pilot"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>Non-invasive site scheduler integration _NAMELINK(pilot)</h4>

        <p>
            When using the local resource management <a href="#lrm">plugin</a>,
            (the default), a set of VMM resources will be managed entirely by
            the workspace service.
            But it can alternatively be integrated with
            a site's scheduler/resource manager (such as PBS) using the
            <b>workspace pilot</b> program.
        </p>
        <p>
            This allows a dual use grid cluster to be achieved: regular jobs
            can run on a VMM node that hosting no guest VMs; but if the node
            is allocated to the workspace service (at the service's request),
            VMs can be used.  The site resource manager maintains full control
            over the cluster and <i>does not need to be modified</i>.
        </p>
        <p>
            Many safeguards are included to ensure nodes are cleanly
            returned to their normal non-VM-hosting state, including protection
            against the workspace service not being available, site (resource
            manager based) early cancellation, node reboots, and to
            provide a "worst case scenario" contingency it includes a
            one-command "kill 9" facility for administrators.
        </p>
    </li>

    <a name="fine"></a>
    <li>
        <h4>VM fine-grain resource usage enforcement (resource allocation) _NAMELINK(fine)</h4>

        <p>
            The workspace service allows the client to specify (ask for)
            the resource allocation to be assigned to a VM and manage that
            resource allocation during deployment. In the current release only
            memory and deployment time are managed.
        </p>

    </li>

</ul>

</div>

<br />
<br />

<p>
    For more details, see the current release's
    <a href="index.html">documentation</a> and
    the Nimbus <a href="faq.html">FAQ</a>.
</p>

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