PA's Data Center Management: the Emilia Romagna Region use case

In 2012, the Emilia-Romagna Region started build- ing up three regional data centers, to provide services to local Public Administrations (PAs), with an aim of reuse and efficiency, to be reached by reducing waste and costs. The data centers are connected to each other in ultra-wide bandwidth technology, thanks to the optical fiber Lepida Network. A challenging theme for LepidaScpA was to manage orders for data center services offered to the shareholders, together with the management of the resources used in each of the three data centers, in a completely flexible and dedicated manner, remaining neutral with respect to the market. To meet this need, LepidaScpA created a system for administering data centers and related services, which allows management of service delivery, invoicing, and that allows to keep in real time an eye on the infrastructures supplied and the used ones. In this paper, the architecture and web service for the orders management will be described

PA’s Data Center Management: Billing and Services Monitoring System

Abstract—In our previous work ’PA’s Data Center Manage- ment: the Emilia Romagna Region use case’ we presented our approach to solve the problem of manage orders for data center services offered to the Public Administrations of Emilia-Romagna Region, in a completely flexible and dedicated manner, and we started describing the system we developed for managing data centers and related services (DCAT, Data Center Administrative Tool). In particular, we described the system architecture and the management of offers and orders. In this paper we describe the billing part of the system, and the way we found to manage the resources used in the three data centers. The proposed solution offers an high number of features and achieves optimal performance ensuring an excellent service to Lepida ScpA and, consequently, to its shareholders

OCP Deployment in a Public Administration Data Center: the Emilia-Romagna Region Use Case

In 2012, the Emilia-Romagna Region started realiz- ing three regional data centers, to provide services to local Public Administrations (PAs), with an aim of reuse and efficiency, to be reached by reducing waste and costs. The data centers are con- nected to each other in ultra-wide bandwidth technology, thanks to the optical fiber Lepida Network owned by the Region and local public entities, already serving the Public Administrations of the territory. One of the strategic goals pursued by the Region through the data center is to provide IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) opensource services to the PAs; for this reason the experimentation for the installation and deployment of the Open City Platform (OCP) was started

Centralized Management of Multiple WiFi Connectivity Services (Part I)

Presence of WiFi connectivity is becoming a necessity felt by everyone: at work, in schools, in public places such as squares or parks or libraries. The main purpose of this work is to start from the experience gained in recent years from LepidaSpA on the highlighted needs in this area, in the region of Emilia Romagna. The different connectivity services offered by LepidaSpA were then analyzed in order of their centralization in one more scalable and secure system

School and Connectivity: from the Needs to the Sevices (Part 2)

In previous work “School and connectivity: from the needs to the services (Part 1)“ we presented our approach to solve the problem of ultra-wideband connectivity to schools. Furthermore, we illustrated our first prototype to provide authen- ticated and filtered access to the web. In this paper we present the evolution from the prototype SchoolBox to the service of authenticated and filtered port (AFP) trying to meet the needs of schools. The AFP is a centralized service that, taking advantage of the network Lepida, allows students to access the web safely with ultra-wideband connectivity. Each school can independently configure access policies and rules to meet specific needs. The proposed solution offers an high number of features and achives optimal performance ensuring an excellent service for thousand of students simultaneously connected

A Share Quota Manager for the Public Administrations

Abstract—Among the data center services that Lepida ScpA offers to the Public Administrations (PAs) of Emilia-Romagna Region, there is the Storage As A Service; in particular, a growing number of PAs is asking for NAS to use for file systems joined to their domain, that we erogate over shared hardware. However, on the storage in our possession only a storage administrator user has the permissions to manage the quotas on the shares; but a storage administrator, on the other hand, would see all the shares of the different PAs that have been allocated on that physical storage. We therefore decided to develop a layer capable of decoupling the users who could access the storage from the permissions necessary for managing the quotas, in order to allow each individual PA to manage independently the quota trees on their own shares; in this paper we describe the solution we have devised and implemented.Among the data center services that Lepida ScpA offers to the Public Administrations (PAs) of Emilia-Romagna Region, there is the Storage As A Service; in particular, a growing number of PAs is asking for NAS to use for file systems joined to their domain, that we erogate over shared hardware. However, on the storage in our possession only a storage administrator user has the permissions to manage the quotas on the shares; but a storage administrator, on the other hand, would see all the shares of the different PAs that have been allocated on that physical storage. We therefore decided to develop a layer capable of decoupling the users who could access the storage from the permissions necessary for managing the quotas, in order to allow each individual PA to manage independently the quota trees on their own shares; in this paper we describe the solution we have devised and implemented

School and Connectivity: from the Needs to the Sevices (Part 1)

The spread of new technologies and the speed with which information circulates today will inevitably lead to a major change in cognitive processes, in the way we learn and teach. In this scenario emerges the need, increasingly felt by those who work in the school environment, of finding new tools and methodologies that enhance existing resources by integrating them with the instruments offered by new technologies, and the Internet access inside education places becomes essential. The main aim of this work was to examine the matter and identify an exportable model for equipping schools with adequate infrastructures and enabling technologies, through which fulfill the web access taking into account regulations and specific schools issues. A prototype system has also been developed to test the proposed model, and it has been deployed in five testbed schools on the regional territory

Centralized Management of Multiple WiFi Connectivity Services (Part II)

The demand for connectivity services in public places has grown exponentially and this led LepidaSpA to design a more robust new architecture capable of handling the increasing number of users. After a first migration, which involved the free connectivity service, the authors reviewed and adapted also to other types of connectivity: authenticated, profiled and filtered by concentrating them in the same architecture

Comments on Probability Distributions for the Number of Radio Transceivers which can Communicate with One Another

We discuss the correctness of one of the main results of [1] about the probability density function of the distance between two audible nodes in an infinite 2-dimensional scenario. We prove that result [1, eq. (7)] is wrong and derive a more general expression, which is valid for an infinite d 12dimensional area. It is worth noting that, although the results on the distribution of the distance between two nodes are wrong, the other results of [1], and in particular the fact that the number of audible nodes in an arbitrary area is a Poisson r.v. is correct