Hera Object Storage : a seamless, automated multi-tiering solution on top of OpenStack Swift

Over the last couple of decades, the demand for storage in the Cloud has grown exponentially. Distributed Cloud storage and object storage for the increasing share of unstructured data, are in high focus in both academic and industrial research activities. At the same time, efficient storage and the corresponding costs are often contrasting parameters raising a trade-off problem for any proposed solution. To this aim, classifying the data in terms of access probability became a hot topic. This paper introduces Hera Object Storage, a storage system built on top of OpenStack Swift that aims at selecting the most appropriate storage tier for any object to be stored. The goal of the multi-tiering storage we propose is to be automated and seamless, guaranteeing the required storage performance at the lowest possible cost. The paper discusses the design challenges, the proposed algorithmic solutions to the scope and, based on a prototype implementation it presents a basic proof-of-concept validation

Stealth databases : ensuring user-controlled queries in untrusted cloud environments

Sensitive data is increasingly being hosted online in ubiquitous cloud storage services. Recent advances in multi-cloud service integration through provider multiplexing and data dispersion have alleviated most of the associated risks for hosting files which are retrieved by users for further processing. However, for structured data managed in databases, many issues remain, including the need to perform operations directly on the remote data to avoid costly transfers. In this paper, we motivate the need for distributed stealth databases which combine properties from structure-preserving dispersed file storage for capacity-saving increased availability with emerging work on structure-preserving encryption for on-demand increased confidentiality with controllable performance degradation. We contribute an analysis of operators executing in map-reduce or map-carry-reduce phases and derive performance statistics. Our prototype, StealthDB, demonstrates that for typical amounts of personal structured data, stealth databases are a convincing concept for taming untrusted and unsafe cloud environments

Monitoring resilience in a rook-managed containerized cloud storage system

Distributed cloud storage solutions are currently gaining high momentum in industry and academia. The enterprise data volume growth and the recent tendency to move as much as possible data to the cloud is strongly stimulating the storage market growth. In this context, and as a main requirement for cloud native applications, it is of utmost importance to guarantee resilience of the deployed applications and the infrastructure. Indeed, with failures frequently occurring, a storage system should quickly recover to guarantee service availability. In this paper, we focus on containerized cloud storage, proposing a resilience monitoring solution for the recently developed Rook storage operator. While, Rook brings storage systems into a cloud-native container platform, in this paper we design an additional module to monitor and evaluate the resilience of the Rook-based system. Our proposed module is validated in a production environment, with software components generating a constant load and a controlled removal of system elements to evaluate the self-healing capability of the storage system. Failure recovery time revealed to be 41 and 142 seconds on average for a 32GB and a 215GB object storage device respectively

Self-managing cloud-native applications : design, implementation and experience

Running applications in the cloud efficiently requires much more than deploying software in virtual machines. Cloud applications have to be continuously managed: (1) to adjust their resources to the incoming load and (2) to face transient failures replicating and restarting components to provide resiliency on unreliable infrastructure. Continuous management monitors application and infrastructural metrics to provide automated and responsive reactions to failures (health management) and changing environmental conditions (auto-scaling) minimizing human intervention. In the current practice, management functionalities are provided as infrastructural or third party services. In both cases they are external to the application deployment. We claim that this approach has intrinsic limits, namely that separating management functionalities from the application prevents them from naturally scaling with the application and requires additional management code and human intervention. Moreover, using infrastructure provider services for management functionalities results in vendor lock-in effectively preventing cloud applications to adapt and run on the most effective cloud for the job. In this paper we discuss the main characteristics of cloud native applications, propose a novel architecture that enables scalable and resilient self-managing applications in the cloud, and relate on our experience in porting a legacy application to the cloud applying cloud-native principles

Experimental evaluation of the cloud-native application design

Cloud-Native Applications (CNA) are designed to run on top of cloud computing infrastructure services with inherent support for self-management, scalability and resilience across clustered units of application logic. Their systematic design is promising especially for recent hybrid virtual machine and container environments for which no dominant application development model exists. In this paper, we present a case study on a business application running as CNA and demonstrate the advantages of the design experimentally. We also present Dynamite, an application auto-scaler designed for containerised CNA. Our experiments on a Vagrant host, on a private OpenStack installation and on a public Amazon EC2 testbed show that CNA require little additional engineering

Introducing mobile edge computing capabilities through distributed 5G Cloud Enabled Small Cells

Current trends in broadband mobile networks are addressed towards the placement of different capabilities at the edge of the mobile network in a centralised way. On one hand, the split of the eNB between baseband processing units and remote radio headers makes it possible to process some of the protocols in centralised premises, likely with virtualised resources. On the other hand, mobile edge computing makes use of processing and storage capabilities close to the air interface in order to deploy optimised services with minimum delay. The confluence of both trends is a hot topic in the definition of future 5G networks. The full centralisation of both technologies in cloud data centres imposes stringent requirements to the fronthaul connections in terms of throughput and latency. Therefore, all those cells with limited network access would not be able to offer these types of services. This paper proposes a solution for these cases, based on the placement of processing and storage capabilities close to the remote units, which is especially well suited for the deployment of clusters of small cells. The proposed cloud-enabled small cells include a highly efficient microserver with a limited set of virtualised resources offered to the cluster of small cells. As a result, a light data centre is created and commonly used for deploying centralised eNB and mobile edge computing functionalities. The paper covers the proposed architecture, with special focus on the integration of both aspects, and possible scenarios of application.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Network Simulation and Performance Evaluation of WiMAX Extensions for Isolated Research Data Networks

IEEE 802.16 is yet a very recent technology and released hardware does frequently only support standards partially. The same applies to public available simulation tools, in particular for NS-2. As the latter is the de-facto standard in science and as we use it for our research in the context of the WEIRD project, we evaluate the IEEE 802.16 support for NS-2. We present several general but also specific issues, which areimportant in order to carry out reliable research based on thesetools. In particular, we show in much detail where modulesdeviate significantly and even fail totally

Toward a fully cloudified mobile network infrastructure

Cloud computing enables the on-demand delivery of resources for a multitude of services and gives the opportunity for small agile companies to compete with large industries. In the telco world, cloud computing is currently mostly used by mobile network operators (MNO) for hosting non-critical support services and selling cloud services such as applications and data storage. MNOs are investigating the use of cloud computing to deliver key telecommunication services in the access and core networks. Without this, MNOs lose the opportunities of both combining this with over-the-top (OTT) and value-added services to their fundamental service offerings and leveraging cost-effective commodity hardware. Being able to leverage cloud computing technology effectively for the telco world is the focus of mobile cloud networking (MCN). This paper presents the key results of MCN integrated project that includes its architecture advancements, prototype implementation, and evaluation. Results show the efficiency and the simplicity that a MNO can deploy and manage the complete service lifecycle of fully cloudified, composed services that combine OTT/IT- and mobile-network-based services running on commodity hardware. The extensive performance evaluation of MCN using two key proof-of-concept scenarios that compose together many services to deliver novel converged elastic, on-demand mobile-based but innovative OTT services proves the feasibility of such fully virtualized deployments. Results show that it is beneficial to extend cloud computing to telco usage and run fully cloudified mobile-network-based systems with clear advantages and new service opportunities for MNOs and end-users

Protease inhibitors of Manduca sexta expressed in transgenic cotton

To explore the effectiveness of insect derived protease inhibitors in protecting plants against insect feeding, anti-trypsin, anti-chymotrypsin and anti-elastase protease inhibitor (PI) genes from Manduca sexta L. were expressed in transgenic cotton ( Gossypium hirsutum L.). From 198 independent transformants, 35 elite lines were further analyzed. Under the control of the 35S promoter of CaMV, PI accumulated to approximately 0.1% of total protein, depending on the tissue analyzed. Using cell-flow cytometry, DNA content/ nuclei of transgenic and non-transformed cotton were identical. On cotton plants expressing PIs, fecundity of Bemisia tabaci (Genn.), the sweetpotato whitefly, was reduced compared to controls. Expression of these protease inhibitors may reduce the developmental rate of B. tabaci and other insects, and provide a strategy for cotton protection.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46980/1/299_2004_Article_BF00232917.pd