Scalability Requirements and Implementation Options

Big Picture Goals for BIRN

• Provide IT Infrastructure for Biomedical Research– Best Practices from CS/Grid Community– Adapted to Biomedical Needs– Highly Available and Scalable

• Provide High Speed Access – Internet2 and TeraGrid– Overflow to Commercially Available Services

when Research Facilities are Overloaded

Current Implementation

• Relies on Dedicated Hardware Resources Per Site– To Ensure Compatibility– Consistent Target for Software Stack

• Requires Dedicated HW/SW Support at BIRN-CC and Site

• Not Scalable Across Sites or Within Institutions– Finite Disk and Compute Resources per Rack– Custom Installations, Troubleshooting

Goals for a Virtualized BIRN Infrastructure

• Meet Specifications of Current BIRN– Security, Audit Trails, Access Controls– BIRN Application Software Stack

• Migrate to Commodity Computing– Machine Instances Created as Needed– Distributed, Redundant Data Centers– Outsource Facilities, Maint, Admin…

• Provide Predictable Costs and Availability to Biomedical Research Customers

Amazon EC2 / S3 as Possible Implementation

• Known Costs per CPU Hour / Gigabyte of Data Transferred– Allows Detailed Budgeting for Grants

• BIRN Software Stack Provided on Boot Disk Images– Known Application Environment to Support Research

Needs

• BIRN Audits Accounts, Permissions• All Administration is Virtual

– Avoid Hardware Headaches– Effort Scales Easily

Practical Requirements

• BIRN Rocks Distributions Ported to Xen• S3FS Fuse Module Needed

– Likely to be Developed by Community– Not yet available– May Require BIRN Extensions

• Make BIRN Authentication Control Login to Virtual BIRN Servers

• Provide Rights-Based Access to / Audit of S3FS Data Resources Based BIRN Credentials

• Provide User Tools and Best Practices to Integrate with Workstations and Desktops Inside Firewalls– sshfs, sftpdisk, rsync, unision…

To Be Determined…

• Feasibility of S3FS

• Performance of S3/EC2

• Migration Path for BIRN Users

• Other Unknowns…