Examining IaaS-Enabling Technology

The ability to offer IaaS requires software that can manage the infrastructure that’s being shared. In this area, two technologies are worth drawing attention to:
✓ AppLogic from 3Tera
✓ Eucalyptus, an open source initiative



AppLogic
3Tera, Inc., was founded in 2004 to develop system software for utility computing and cloud computing. In February 2006, it launched its AppLogic product, which has since been taken up by many service providers and cloud computing vendors.

You can think of AppLogic as management software that converts arrays of servers into virtualized resource pools that can be shared among multiple users.

The software enables users to create and retire virtual machines but also to define necessary infrastructure such as firewalls, VPNs, load balancers, and storage by using a browser interface. AppLogic enables the configuration of

✓ Virtual private servers
✓ Virtual private data centers (involving complex configuration of application infrastructure)
✓ Cloud data storage
✓ Software as a Service (SaaS) applications

AppLogic is sold either on a usage basis or by software license, so it can be used in house for private clouds. The product has been so successful among service providers that it enables hybrid situations where a customer uses more than one provider. It’s also useful in migrating from a private cloud to a public cloud.



Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a rather forced acronym standing for Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems. Unfortunately the name doesn’t give a reasonable description of what the software does.

Eucalyptus is a system for implementing on-premise private and hybrid clouds, using the hardware and software infrastructure that’s in place, without modification. In effect, it’s an add-on capability for data center virtualization to create genuine cloud capability such as self-service provisioning, security, performance management, and end-user customization.

Eucalyptus is open source, so the software can be downloaded free and it is also shipped with the Ubuntu 9.04 (and later) distribution of Linux. It is thus becoming the default open-source cloud capability. It is implemented by using commonly available Linux tools and basic Web service technologies.
The current interface to Eucalyptus is compatible with Amazon’s EC2, S3, and Elastic Block Store (EBS) — a storage area network (SAN) in the cloud — interfaces, so it is possible to create a private cloud by using Eucalyptus with the intention of moving some or all of it onto EC2.

Source of Information : cloud computing for dummies 2010 retail ebook distribution