Glossary
availability zone
An availability zone for AWS denotes a large subset of their cloud environment. Eucalyptus refines this definition to denote a subset of the
cloud that shares a local area network. Each Eucalyptus
zone has its own Cluster Controller and Storage Controller.
bucket storage
A storage container that accepts objects via PUT and GET
commands.
bundling
A virtual machine image splits the image into multiple image
parts to facilitate ease of uploading. It also generates an XML
manifest file containing metadata referencing the image, including
image parts and kernel, which is used to assemble instances of the
image.
Cloud Controller
The Cloud Controller (CLC) is the entry-point into the cloud
for administrators, developers, project managers, and end-users. The
CLC queries the node managers for information about resources,
makes high-level scheduling decisions, and makes requests to the
Cluster Controllers (CCs). As the interface to the management
platform, the CLC is responsible for exposing and managing the
underlying virtualized resources (servers, network, and storage).
Cluster Controller
The Cluster Controller (CC) generally executes on a machine
that has network connectivity to both the machines running the Node
Controller (NC) and to the machine running the CLC. CCs gather
information about a set of node machines and schedules virtual
machine (VM) execution on specific nodes. The CC also manages the
virtual machine networks and participates in the enforcement of
SLAs as directed by the CLC. All nodes associated with a single
CC must be in the same broadcast domain (Ethernet).
dynamic block volume
A dynamic block volume is similar to a raw block storage
device that can be used with VM instances. You can create, attach,
detach, describe, bundle, and delete volumes. You can also create
and delete snapshots of volumes and create new volumes from
snapshots
elastic IP
Public IP addresses that you can reserve and dynamically
associate with VM instances.
FastStart
FastStart is an interactive installer that automatically
deploys and configures a Eucalyptus cloud on your server.
After install completes (usually in less than 30 minutes) you
can immediately begin using your cloud with the default account,
user and password.
hybrid cloud
Hybrid clouds combine one or more public clouds and one or
more private clouds by technology that enables data and applications
to migrate between them. A classic hybrid cloud definition also means
using a shared API to enable hybrid operations.
Identity and Access Management
Identity and Access Management (IAM) enables you to securely control
access to services and resources for your users. Using IAM, you can create
and manage users and groups, and use permissions to allow and deny their
access to resources.
IAM
instance type
An instance type defines what hardware the instance has,
including the amount of memory, disk space, and CPU
power.
JavaScript Object Notation
JSON is an open-source, text-based message format used for information exchange.
JSON
kernel/ramdisk pair
A ramdisk contains drivers that direct the kernel to launch
appropriate system files when instantiating a virtual
machine.
Management Console
The Management Console is a web-based interface that allows cloud users to
provision and manage resources in a Eucalyptus cloud and on AWS; it also gives
Eucalyptus cloud account administrators powerful tools to manage users, groups, roles,
and policies.
Node Controller
The Node Controller (NC) executes on any machine that hosts VM
instances. The NC controls VM activities, including the execution,
inspection, and termination of VM instances. It also fetches and
maintains a local cache of instance images, and it queries and
controls the system software (host OS and the hypervisor) in
response to queries and control requests from the CC. The NC is also
responsible for the management of the virtual network
endpoint.
NC
storage abstraction
Refers to separating the API made available by a cloud to the end user
from the details and specifics of the underlying physical storage infrastructure.
For instance, Eucalyptus provides the EBS (Elastic Block Storage) abstraction,
which provides a unified way to access block storage independent of the underlying
physical storage system (e.g. Dell EqualLogic, NetApp, etc.)
Storage Controller
The Storage Controller (SC) provides functionality similar to
the Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and is capable of
interfacing with various storage systems (NFS, iSCSI, SAN devices,
etc.). Elastic block storage exports storage volumes that can be
attached by a VM and mounted or accessed as a raw block device. EBS
volumes persist past VM termination and are commonly used to store
persistent data. An EBS volume cannot be shared between VMs and can
only be accessed within the same availability zone in which the VM
is running. Users can create snapshots from EBS volumes. Snapshots
are stored in Walrus and made available across availability zones.
Eucalyptus with SAN support lets you use your enterprise-grade SAN
devices to host EBS storage within a Eucalyptus cloud.
User-Facing Services
Eucalyptus' User-Facing Services (UFS) are the services offered by Eucalyptus for
compute, storage, scaling, balancing, and more. These services reside at the front end
of the cloud, sometimes co-located with the database, depending on your
configuration.
virtual machine
A virtual machine (VM) is essentially an
operational private computer that contains an operating system,
applications, network accessibility, and disk drives.
virtual resources
A private cloud makes physical resources such as compute (CPU),
network and storage in the data center available to the end user using
virtualization technology, so that the user has complete control over
their resources. These resources, i.e., compute, network and storage
that are visible to the cloud user, are called virtual resources.
Walrus
Walrus allows users to store persistent data, organized as buckets and objects.
You can use Walrus to create, delete, and list buckets, or to put, get, and delete
objects, or to set access control policies. Walrus is interface compatible with Amazon’s
Simple Storage Service (S3), providing a mechanism for storing and accessing virtual
machine images and user data. Note that Walrus access is global to the entire Eucalyptus
cloud. This means that it can be accessed by end-users, whether the user is running a
client from outside the cloud or from a virtual machine instance running inside the
cloud.
zone
A zone is a group of resources that contains a Cluster Controller (CC) and a Storage
Controller (SC).
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