Virtualize the servers is not an end point. There are other parts of the IT infraestructure beyond servers in order to enable a more flexible and efficient IT environment: the network. Nowadays network components are also moving toward being virtualized enabling a dynamic virtual environments.

There are already some products in the market that show how it is not just servers that can be virtualized and illustrates how the days of static infraestructure networks will soon be over. For example HP recently introduced the HP’s Virtual Connect architecture,  that enables the user to add more NICs to each server blade without more hardware and provides the ability to dynamically adjust bandwidth for each network connection on the fly. HP product details are posted here. Some initial steps towards the integration of virtualization of servers and networks  can be found in the Citrix XenServer based virtualization solutions. HP integrated Citrix XenServer with HP ProLiant Virtual Console provides a straightforward deployment and management environment that speeds adoption of flexible, cost-saving virtualization technology.

It is true that this is a great step towards a more Green IT. Let’s wait and see how things develop, but  the way I see it, there is still mising an intelligent layer that could manage the complexity that virtualization poses and use resources efficiently.  For example, those virtualized server (acording their workloads) should be able to talk intelligently and dinamically with the network infrastructure if we what to optimize the use of the resources in the Cloud.  My vision is that the solution for this important challenge of building more sustainable and efficient IT is still open and only could have to come from cross-disciplinary studies over a diverse set of research areas.

La virtualització dels servidors i la  xarxa alhora: És necessària  una capa intel.ligent que gestioni la nova complexitat.

La virtualització no s’acaba en la virtualització dels servidors. Hi ha altres parts de les infraestructures TIC  més enllà dels servidors a tenir en compte per tal de permetre entorns TIC més eficients i eficients, la xarxa per exemple. Avui en dia els components de la xarxa també s’estan movent cap a la virtualització permetent entorns virtuals dinàmics.

En aquest sentit ja podem trobar alguns productes en el mercat que mostra que no només els servidors poden ser virtualitzats i il.lustren com li queden els dies comptats a les infraestructures estàtiques de xarxa. Per exemple l’empresa HP recentment ha presentat la seva Arquitectura virtual de connexió HP,  que permet a l’usuari afegir més NIC (Network Interface Connector, part del hardware que permet connectar a una xarxa) a cada servidor sense cap hardware addicional i disposa de l’habilitat d’ajustar dinàmicament l’ample de banda per cada connexió en temps d’execució. Detalls dels productes HP poden trobar-se postejats aquí. Alguns dels passos inicials cap a la integració de la virtualització de servidors i xarxes alhora poden trobar-se postejats en Citrix XenServer based virtualization solutions. HP ha integrat en Citrix XenServer amb HP ProLiant Virtual Console que permet  una senzilla implantació de la gestió de l’entorn que permet aquesta flexibilitat derivada de la virtualització.

Certament aquest és un pas important cap a una computació més sostenible (Green Computing). Esperem a veure com avancen les coses, però tal com jo ho veig encara cal la intel.ligència de tot plegat, és a dir, cal un component que permeti gestionar la complexitat que la virtualització afegeix per tal de fer un ús eficient dels recursos.  Per exemple, els servidors virtualitzats (en base a la seva càrrega) han de poder comunicar-se de manera intel.ligent i dinàmica amb la infraestructura de xarxa si volem optimitzar l’ús dels recursos del “Cloud”. La meva visió és que la solució per aquest important repte de disposar de sistemems TIC més sostenibles i eficients és troba encara per resoldre i passa forçosament  per trobar el punt de trobada entre diferents arees de recerca.

From Smart Mobs we can read that Boston College Will Stop Offering New Students E-Mail Accounts. In fact, many students don’t even want a college e-mail address these days because they already have well-established digital identities before they arrive on campus. I’m sure that the same is happening with new UPC students. For example, in the CARS course that I’m teaching this quarter, 57% of students are using their gmail account to contact with me (homeworks, lab reports, etc.) in spite they have an UPC student account.

Many other colleges and universities have already done outsourcing of their e-mail to Google or to Microsoft (both companies offer such services free to colleges, hoping to hook students on their systems). The companies provide free e-mail with gigabytes of space ( some colleges only allow megabytes!). Colleges that use the commercial services may continue to use their institutional names in their addresses, complete with “.edu” at the end. They can even customize the interface so the Web application looks like part of the college’s site. Colleges that have made the switch report significant cost savings. After all, universities are educational institutions, not technology enterprises.

This is only a provocative post, I’m not supporting this option now, even though this post try to be a warning note: The cloud is here!, also in Barcelona!

A Smart Mobs podem llegir que el Boston College deixarà d’oferir comptes de correu electrònic als nous estudiants. De fet, avui en dia molts dels estudiants ja no volen un compte de la seva universitat perquè ja tenen un identitat digital ben establerta abans d’arribar al campus. N’estic segur que això mateix està passant amb els nous estudiants de la UPC. Per exemple, en l’assignatura CARS que estic actualment donant, el 57% dels estudiants estan usant el seu compte gmail per adreçar-se a mi (pels lliuraments de treballs, informes de laboratori, etc.) , malgrat tots ells tenen un compte de correu de la UPC.

Moltes altres universitats i Colleges ja han externalitzat el seu servei de correu electrònic a Google o Microsoft (ambdues companyies ofereixen aquest servei gratuïtament, esperant enganxar els estudiants als seus sistemes). Actualment aquestes companyies ofereixen el servei de correu electronic gratuït amb Gigabytes d’espai (quan encara hi ha institucions acadèmiques que només n’ofereixen de l’ordre de Megabytes!). Les universitats que usen el sistema comercial poden continuar utilitzant els seus noms i adreces institucionals, amb el “.edu” al final sense cap problema. Fins i tot poden personalitzar les interfícies de tal manera que les aplicacions web semblen part de la web de la universitat. Universitats que han fet el canvi expliquen que han tinguit un significant estalvi de costos. De fet, les universitats són institucions d’educació, no empreses tecnològiques.

Bé, està clar que aquest és un post amb to volgudament provocatiu. Ara mateix no estic pas suggerint que fem això, però crec que a vegades no les podem veure venir, però aquesta vegada està clar que estem avisats: El Cloud ja està aquí!, i tambe a Barcelona!

Click here for the answer! ( november 2004)

Few days ago I attended the “Telefonica I+D  Open Research Day” . One of the presentations, “On the future of supercomputers” by Professor Mateo Valero (Director of the Barcelona Supercomputer Center), presented their computer center power projections.  Acording his projections one possible problem to add additional computing capacity could be a lack of power in the future (the space problem could be solved by the increasing density per rack).
A recent survey from the Emerson Network Power is of the same opinion and found that 64% of respondents said their data centers were faced with running out of power capacity by 2011, according to InfoWorld.
Green computing it’s about to become imperative for a corporation’s survival!

Green computing (or Green IT) is the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently. This term generally relates to the use of computing resources in conjunction with minimizing environmental impact, maximizing economic viability and ensuring social duties. Some companies uses green computing philosophies mainly to save up on costs rather than save the environment. This green computing concept emerged naturally as businesses find themselves under pressure to maximize resources in order to compete effectively in the market. Aside from minimizing costs, other companies also takes into account other factors such as marketing and branding.

One of the first manifestations of the green computing movement was the launch of the Energy Star program back in 1992. This resulted in the widespread adoption of sleep mode among consumer electronics. Moreover turning off the monitor when it’s not in use or using more energy efficient monitors like LCDs instead of the traditional CRT monitors, as the concept developed, green computing began to encompass a lot of different initiatives at different levels of the IT world.

Nowadays, some of the important green computing practices rely on a more efficient data centers (that uses more efficient hardware, considering the consolidation of servers using virtualization, or using more energy efficient and less noisy cooling systems) and more efficient networks systems (with more efficient components, or increased online security measures through the use of firewalls or antivirus programs to reduce the increasing amount of useless data/work).

Our group is currently doing research in this area contributing in a more efficient data centers (e.g. recent publications [1] and [2] ) and a more efficient networks systems (e.g. recent publications [3] and [4]) base in Autonomic Computing research concepts.

[1] Jordi Torres, David Carrera, Kevin Hogan, Ricard Gavaldà, Vicenç Beltran and Nicolas Poggi. Reducing wasted resources to help achieve green data centers. In The Fourth Workshop on High-Performance, Power-Aware Computing (HPPAC 2008), April 14, 2008.

[2] Jordi Torres, David Carrera, Vicenç Beltran, Nicolás Poggi, Josep Lluis Berral, Ricard Gavaldà, Eduard Ayguadé, Toni Moreno, Jordi Guitart. Tailoring resources: Energy efficient consolidation strategy goes beyond virtualization Proceedings of ICAC 2008, The IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing, poster session. Chicago, Illinois, USA, June 2008

[3] N. Poggi, J.L. Berral, T. Moreno, R. Gavaldà, J. Torresé. Automatic Detection and Banning of Content Stealing Bots for E-commerce. NIPS 2007 Workshop on Machine Learning in Adversarial Environments for Computer Security. December 8, 2007. British Columbia, Canada.

[4] Josep L. Berral, Nicolas Poggi, Javier Alonso, Ricard Gavalda, Jordi Torres and Manish Parashar. “Adaptive Distributed Mechanism Against Flooding Network Attacks Based on Machine Learning”. ACM Workshop on Articifial Intelligence on Security 2008, October 27th, 2008, Virginia (USA).

Last week Ramon Nou did the PhD presentation obtaining the maximum mark. The thesis introduces  real-time simulation for self-managed grid middleware.  Part of the work have been done in collaboration with  Samuel Kounev and is framed in the BSC research area.

Congratulation to Ramon for their excellent work.

Here you can find the PDF file of the PhD dissertation (in Spanish).

The October 25 issue of The Economist magazine includes a special report on cloud computing that reviews  the promises and pitfalls of this new model of computing. I recommend to read and enjoy the articles, especially to my friend Rosa M: