How to build a Cloud, Intel’s Reference Architecture Library

Ran across Intel’s Cloud Builders – Reference Library.  If you were confused on what it means to build a cloud this list may help you or confuse you as the the list is long.

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Intel® Cloud Builders Reference Architecture Library

Key challenges and focus areas for IT include enhancing efficiency, security, resource utilization, flexibility, and simplifying data center management, among others. Intel works closely with leading systems and solution providers to deliver proven reference architectures to address IT challenges. This work is based on IT requirements—from a wide range of end users—that address challenges in evolving to cloud and next- generation data centers, including the evolving usage requirements of the Open Data Center Alliance. This lab-based experience is embodied in Intel® Cloud Builders reference architectures. Each reference architecture provides detailed instructions on how to install and configure a particular cloud software solution using Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers.

Developed with ecosystem leaders, the following reference architectures relate to building a cloud, or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and to enhancing and optimizing cloud infrastructure with a focus on security, efficiency, and simplifying your cloud environment.

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One of the NEW solutions is from Nimbula.  I posted about Nimbula here.

Critical Flaw as Companies buy Cloud Companies, not understanding how cloud environments are built, leverage ex-Amazon Web Services team

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2011 AT 2:11AM

I was chatting with a good friend who I worked with at Apple, and we were discussing how cloud environments get built.  We both left Apple 20 years ago, and we have since spent time in the enterprise services space, but we had the fun of building OS solutions while at Apple with a lot of freedom.   So, we are used to making the trade-offs to build an OS.  A Cloud computing environment in many ways is a large operating system.

Here is Intel’s reference solution for Nimbula.

Based on Nimbula’s Cloud Operating Sytems, Nimbula Director allows customers to efficiently manage both on- and off-premise resources by transforming under-utilized private data centers into easily configurable compute capacity and providing controlled access to extern clouds. For this paper, Nimbula and Intel have worked together to prototype a private cloud computing test bed running a private cloud on a cluster of 12 Intel® Xeon® processor-based servers. Using the Nimbula Director API, via the command line as well as the Web-based interface, accounts were created based on organization hierarchies, assigned appropriate permissions to users and groups, monitored and managed resources, demonstrated the elastic nature of resource scaling, and configured the use of cloud federation to enable bursting into external cloud during times of high demand.

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