Cloudware Vendor Solutions - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 344

Nimbus Platform is a set of tools that assists consumers to leverage IaaS cloud
computing. The toolset comprises functions for application installation, con-
figuration, monitoring, and repair. Nimbus supports Xen and KVM hyper-
visors (see Section 15.1.3 “Virtual Machines”). Nimbus Platform enables
consumers to create hybrid clouds of Nimbus Infrastructure, Amazon AWS,
and other clouds.
When a consumer is subscribed to Nimbus service, a virtual workspace is
created. The workspace comprises the front end, the workspace service, the
back end, and the VM workspace. The Virtual Machine (VM) workspace is
deployed onto the Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) node, which is a physi-
cal node. Once the deployment has been done, consumers can access the
cloud service node via the HTTP interface. Cumulus is a crucial component
of Nimbus, serving as the front end to the Nimbus VM image repository.
Any VM image must be loaded into the Cumulus repository before booting.
The general characteristics of Nimbus are as follows:
• Cloud model : Nimbus is a solution for IaaS.
• Compatibility : Cumulus storage extends the Amazon S3 REST API,
and is S3 compatible.
• Deployment and interface : Users directly interact with VMs in the
node pool in almost the same way as interacting with a physical
machine. Nimbus publishes information about the VM such as the
IP address of each VM so that users can know information about
each VM. Users deploy applications to Nimbus clouds by using a
cloudkit configuration that includes a manager service hosting and
an image repository.
• Hypervisors : Nimbus supports KVM and Xen.
• Reliability : To achieve the same level of reliability as S3, the hardware
configuration of Cumulus needs to be at the same level as S3, that is,
the reliability of Nimbus partially depends on the hardware infra-
structure the Cumulus builds on.
• OS support : Nimbus supports various Linux distributions.
• Scalability : The Cumulus Redirection module of Nimbus man-
ages scalability by keeping track of the workload of the service. As
Cumulus is compatible with the Amazon S3 REST API, it can be
configured to run as a set of replicated hosts to support horizontal
scalability.
• Cost : Nimbus is a free, open-source solution.
16.4.2 OpenNebula
OpenNebula was started as a research project in 2005 and the first version
was released in 2008. The latest version of OpenNebula, released in 2013,