Different Parts of the Cloud
There are many ways to build a Cloud and there are also various levels of clouds. This table aims to cover the key aspects and list various options from top down,
| Component | Why You Need It | What Does it Do | Driving Cloud Concept | BonsaiFramework Pick | Popular Options |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring | |||||
| Health Check | |||||
| DOS and DDOS Mitigation | There is some argument that going true cloud no longer requires this. I'm not convinced. | Akamai |
| ||
| Customer Caching | Take load off of your system. | Akamai |
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| Orchestration of Containers | Unified view and control of containers. |
| |||
| Software Defined Network | |||||
| Virtualization Cloud Provider | No point in running the hardware and base OS yourself. Instead use a provider that will take care of auto-scaling hardware, providing IP addresses, storage and a network infrastructure. Bonus points for instituted caching and monitoring. ++ Bonus points for an proven CICD system. Some of the Bonus items you can implement yourself and are documented higher in this stack. |
| |||
| Environment Configurator | If you have lots of integration points, centralizing one place to configure those small differences suddenly becomes cost effective. | Remove infrastructure dependency. | |||
| Continous Testing | |||||
| Continuous Deployment | When build completes auto deploy and hook up. | ||||
| Continuous Build | Building Application Virtualization from Recipes. Think entire ecosystem (not just code) is built from recipes. |
| |||
| Source Control for Container Receipt | I currently have a gap here of how this would work. | ||||
| Source Control for Code |
| ||||
| Packer | |||||
| External Log Aggregation | Remove infrastructure dependency. | ||||
| Caching System | |||||
| Messaging System | Guarantee delivery and integrity of key transactions across systems. | Depends on your specific messaging needs. Will break this up later. |
| ||
| Application Virtualization | Microservices concept of running ephemeral containers at the focusing on escapulating a single immutable application. |
| Docker |
| |
| Building Operating Virtualization from Recipe |
| ||||
| Optimized Operating System for Containers | Lightweight transactionally updated operating system. |
| |||
| Operating Virtualization | I would put this to a specific use case and it can greatly reduce costs (explain here). | LXD (LXC) | |||
| Vagrant |
Research
Rackspace now provides consulting and support to build your own private cloud on OpenStack - http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/private_edition/
Rackspace even provides their Reference Architecture online - http://www.referencearchitecture.org/
Ubuntu has a program called Jumpstart for $9,000 for 5 days to help you build your own private cloud with UEC (Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud) previously powered by Eucalyptus now powered by OpenStack at http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud
This might be a worthwhile setup tutorial - http://cssoss.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/openstack-beginners-guide-for-ubuntu-11-04-installation-and-configuration/
https://mesosphere.com/ - Dickson recommended
https://www.ansible.com - Dickson recommended
Best Practices for Cloud from IBM - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/1404_brown/1404_brown.html