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…