Cloud computing has always been benefitted from open source tools for cloud management. Cloud users should pay their attention to such tools as KVM, Eucalyptus and Delta cloud. In general, open source technology is about to have a big influence on cloud computing technology for two major following reasons. First of all, open source software is not charged and is not affected by different software license models from proprietary software.
A lot of reputable software providers such as Microsoft and Oracle are making effort to keep the old but costly license models, in spite of the fact that they have already taken advantage of the flexibility from cloud computing technology.
KVM, which stands for Kernel – based Virtual Machine, is an open source tool used by Linux operating on x86 hardware. This tool also comprises of a lot of virtualization extensions such as Intel VT or AMDV. Thanks to KVM, users are now able to operate a lot of virtual machines to operate non-modified Linux or Windows pictures. KVM is located inside the Linux kernel, whose major responsibility is to turn the kernel into a bare metal hypervisor. When the kernel of Linux is updated, KVM will start to make use of them automatically. This open source tool is now being utilized in Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
The intent of Cloud Paks is to supply a pre-configured, containerized and examined answer that's licensed by IBM. This strategy is supposed to eradicate lots of the unknowns in deploying workloads within the cloud. Whereas we expect it is a nice strategy to simplification, there's nonetheless a major quantity of customization that must be made for every occasion of the answer that can be distinctive to a person group’s wants. As such, a good portion of the Cloud Pak deployment should be customized applied by IBM providers. That in and of itself isn't essentially an issue, however it does imply that this isn't a easy “off the shelf” answer that may be applied simply by inside IT staffs in most organizations.
Another valuable open source tool is Delta cloud, which was just introduced in the previous year by Red Hat. Currently, it is a project of Apache instead of just being an endeavor of Red Hat. In general, Delta Cloud differs the clouds and clarify the app programming interface of a cloud user into the API of a lot of well-known clouds such as Amazon EC2, Go Grid, Open Nebula and so on. To sum up, Delta cloud is very effective in supporting a cloud virtualization structure.
Moreover, Delta cloud lets a lot of virtualized environments such as those depended on KVM and Hyper V to be controlled from only one manage interface. In other words, rather than setting up a management console for virtual machines according to ESX and a management console for other virtual machines depending on Hyper – V. And all of these virtual machines can be controlled from one management console. To get this done, Delta Cloud allows various virtual machines to be delivered and moved in real time from one virtualization capacity to another one.
This is also a reliable name when it comes to open source tools for managing cloud: Eucalyptus Community Cloud, which is a sandbox area for users to both check the drive and have a trial with this tool. To be more specific, this is a private cloud base which takes advantage of Amazon techniques for EC2 as Infrastructure as a Service. What is more, Eucalyptus is also designed with a lot of admin capabilities like user control, storage configuration, network monitoring as well as protecting private clouds.
Cloud.com, which was called VMOps, provides users with a new open source edition of its Cloud Stack structure control item: Cloud Stack Community Edition. More precisely, Cloud Stack assists such things as VMware ESX, Xen and KVM. This open source tool comes with a lot of functions that users are expecting from a cloud control interface such as VM provision, workload control, environment with multi tenants and so on. Last but not least, it is also useful when it comes to the operating systems from Windows and Linux.
This is an innovative open source tool for cloud computing, which will provide users with opportunities to set up and control private clouds with KVM and VMware ESX as well as hybrid ones with Amazon EC2 together with many different vendors. With this tool, the public vendor will be either a commercial cloud service vendor like Amazon or a normal partner private cloud that needs to operate an Open Nebula.
Currently, there are lots of small businesses and other developed organizations that are on their way of making use of open source products in order to set up and control cloud environments. The concern is whether IT companies can deploy these open source tools to set up and control private cloud environments or not. Also, people are still considering whether there would be any risk as a lot of cloud service vendors are still small while the products are just at the beginning step to be checked.
Therefore, when you are making decisions to utilize cloud tools, regardless of any tools, users had better ask for reviews from others who have already utilized them to be clearer about the technologies.
The above open source cloud tools are valuable ones for you to set up your own private clouds. They are now ready for you to adopt. For instance, Delta Cloud is an indispensable part in Red Hat while Open Nebula is also being utilized in a lot of global projects.
Red Hat has lately used KVM in order to make decisions of applying virtualization tools. Moreover, Red Hat has also set up new tools to support their clients when it comes to transferring from Xen virtual machines to KVM ones. These effective tools can be used with the introduction of Linux 6 from Red Hat with the previous release of Xen in 2014.
If you are considering virtualizing your data center with Red Hat, you had better keep in mind the process of changing to KVM. Such big cloud vendors as Amazon are making use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Xen, which are advised to migrate to KVM as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is made available. Everything should be thought carefully before making any decisions as it will affect a lot on your business operation.
