Just another WordPress weblog
Live Version
I learned a lot this semester. I’ll list some examples below.
I worked on a variety of projects this semester. Information about each can be found elsewhere (and in other posts, of course).
Earlier in the semester, Ryan and I held two presentations on MediaWiki. They can be found on the wiki.
At the beginning of March, I had conversations with a few COSI members on possible research projects I could work on in my “free time”. What resulted from the conversations as a whole was the idea of a “Broad Spectrum Comparison of Virtualization Technologies” and the concept of “Broad Spectrum Virtualization Benchmarking”, a term latter shortened to “BSVB”
The goal was simple: Compare a variety of virtualization solutions using a variety of metrics across a diverse set of hardware and software configurations. The reason for wanting to preform BSVB was that many virtualization benchmarks are preformed on a limited set of configurations and the results assumed to be valid for all possible configurations, which is a rather unscientific approach (it completely lacks rigor). The main issue with my plan was that, in order to test just a few different configuration options for each category (hardware, domain0 operating system, domainU operating system, virtualization technology), the test set would have to be preformed on several hundred configurations, which is likely one of the reasons broad comparisons are currently uncommon*.
Because the number of tests was completely unreasonable to do by hand, the idea of a virtualization benchmarking suite was formed. One goal of the project became to make the suite modular enough that if anyone else had something they felt was important to test, they could add it without much difficulty. Another goal was that the tests be repeatable; that some exportable format exist to pass on the information necessary to re-run the tests. The benchmarking suite was named “Benchvm” in an effort to come up with an easy to type and remember name.
To achieve both goals, benchvm was designed to be completely modular. See the draft of The Woes of the Art of Virtualization Benchmarking for more information on the issues associated with virtualization benchmarking and the proposed solution: benchvm. Hopefully, once fully implemented, benchvm would be able to be used by anyone** doing virtualization benchmarking to provide a mechanism for the tests to be run in an identical way across a variety of systems with the added bonus of making the tests completely repeatable.
Currently, an effort to implement benchvm, as outlined in the paper, is underway. The goal is to have a working beta ready to preform tests comparing Xen and KVM with the goal of presenting benchvm and the preliminary set of results at XenSummit and KvmForum this year. The benchmarking side of things includes not only students and faculty at Clarkson, but a variety of other researchers (more information on this as plans become clearer).
* - By “uncommon”, I mean “unheard of”.
** - Of course, to be truly scientific, one comparison that would need to be preformed would be comparison two initial sets of tests, run with and without using benchvm, to ensure that benchvm itself has no impact on results.
Earlier this semester, Todd championed the creation of a virtualization mailing list for discussion of virtualization topics within, and outside of, Clarkson. Currently, there are members from a variety of virtualization backgrounds (Xen, Kvm, and VMware to name a few). For more information on the list (or for information on how to join the list), see the docs page on mailing lists.
Well, with Phase 1 of the Google Android Developer Challenge coming to a close last weekend, the team put in one last final push on our Digital Lifelines project and submitted it. According to the contest’s FAQ, we should hear back around May 5th.
While we haven’t made our apk (compiled Android program file) or source code publicly available, we do plan to release the program under GPL v3. If anyone is interested in getting a copy before the public release, contact any of the project members.
Here is a mini status report for each COSI-related project I’ve been working on lately:
Project: Andriod
Other Members: Jeanna, Max, Katelynn, Ryan L, Pat, Justin, Jeff, Ethan
Summary: Contest entry for the Google Android Developer Challenge.
Status: In Development
Report: We’ve been making headway and having meetings 1-2 times a week A lot of progress is being made, but there is still a long way to go before the new extended deadline of April 14.
Project: Animal/Blade Center/Righteous Management
Summary: Maintenance of the production machines
Status: Stable (mostly)
Report: Everything seems to be running well except for animal (which has some I/O speed issues). Once that’s taken care of (see “Cacti”), the next project will be to clean up some of the scripts.
Project: Cacti
Other Members: Cyrus
Summary: Set up cacti to graph things around the labs, specifically for Animal’s IO issues, the sever room temperature, and switches.
Status: In Development
Report: Cacti successfully installed and running. Built-in monitoring options work file, but custom stuff is still in the tweaking phase. Cyrus got the I/O module up and running, but the Temperature module and switches are still a work in progress.
Project: Docs
Other Members: Ryan L
Summary: COSI’s Documentation Server
Status: Stable
Report: The wiki is still being maintained and added to. We’ve been looking into systems to encourage contribution of status reports and documentation, but haven’t decided on anything yet.
Project: Gateway Server (Crux)
Other Members: Cyrus, Pat
Summary: Turning Crux into a gateway server for authentication
Status: On hold
Report: With my other projects, I haven’t had the time to make much headway. This would be a great opportunity for someone with only limited experience to get involved (it’s a really straight forward project), if someone is motivated and has some time. Otherwise, Cyrus and/or Pat and I will probably take care of it in the next few weeks.
Project: LDAP Server
Summary: Setting up an LDAP server for authentication
Status: Lead Changed
Report: Jake has taken over and gotten an LDAP server up and running. We are in the process of moving things over to it.
Project: Open Source Contribution - PHP
Summary: Contribute to the PHP community
Status: New Project
Report: I realized that PHP is one of the things I use on regular basis (for personal use and for business use), so I decided it’d be a good opportunity to contribute to an open source project. I’m still getting oriented (lurking on the mailing lists, reading bug reports, etc.), but hopefully when other things are taken care of, I’ll have some more time to contribute in a more significant way.
Project: The Project in 340
Status: Just started.
Report: Everything seems to be going well.
Well, I’ve been pretty busy with the Google Android Developer Challenge (which I’ll probably make a post about in the next few days), but I’ve done a bit of COSI-related work, and I thought I’d make a note before I forgot.
I’m still trying to decide what I’d be most interested in working on this semester. At the moment, it looks like it’s going to be trying to get Animal’s disk issues sorted out as well as working on the Android Project (of course) and trying to contribute to PHP (at the moment, I’m just following the mailing lists and bug tracker, but hopefully I’ll eventually take a more active role). Other things I’ve considered, but don’t know if I will have time for, include contributing to the AoE community and resurrecting COSI-OSI.
Powered by WordPress