Building Private Cloud for an Enterprise With Ubuntu- Final Year Project Report (CSC-404) 

Abstract

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources,
software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand,
like a public utility such as electricity. It is emerging as a platform for sharing
resources like infrastructure, software and various applications. The majority of
cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data
centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all
consumers' computing needs. Commercial offering of the cloud are expected to
meet quality of service guarantees for customer satisfaction and typically over
service level agreements. The deployment of cloud computing can be easily
observed while working on Internet, be it Google Docs or Google Apps
,YouTube Video sharing or Picasa Image sharing, Amazon's Shopping Cart or
eBay's PayPal, the examples are numerous.
The primary focus on this document is to provide a brief background on different
theoretical concepts of cloud computing and then elaborate on the practical
aspects concerning the design, installation and implementation of a private cloud
using open source solution. It is expected that organizations looking at the
possibilities for implementing cloud solutions would benefit from getting the
basics, and a view on the different aspects of cloud computing in this document.
The main part of this report is concentrating on the practical infrastructure related
questions and issues, supplied with practical guidelines and how-to-dos. The main
topic was the design of the server and network infrastructure, and the distribution
of the roles over the servers belonging to a private cloud. The management of the
instances and the related subjects are out of the scope of this document.
The conclusions drawn from the reported project are that the private cloud
solutions are more customizable, but have greater installation cost, and lower
flexibility. They are at an early stage, not much predictable, still too hard to
install, manage and maintain for an administrator without an advanced knowledge
and practical skills in different aspects of advanced of IT infrastructure solutions.
There is a steep learning curve for the whole organization, for both users and
administrators. Public clouds are more mature, well documented, rich with
features, and easy to use. But the effort required for running a private cloud is
having a downward tendency, and is expected to meet the level of effort required
for implementing solutions on a public cloud at some point in time. For
organizations not familiar with the technology used for private cloud
implementations, a better choice would be going for a public cloud
implementation, meanwhile learning and working with the technology, building
the operational skills while waiting for it to be more mature.