Parallel session: cloud services

Parallel session D:
Cloud services
Chair: Ian Shepherd

Please switch your mobile phones to silent
19:30
No fire alarms scheduled. In the event of an
alarm, please follow directions of NCC staff
Dinner (now full)
Entrance via Goldsmith Street
16:30 -
17:30
Birds of a feather sessions
15:20 -
16:00 Lightning talks

Office365 in a
smaller institution
Kevin Hill and Matthew Collins
LeedsTrinity University

Introduction
12/04/2017 Office 365 in a Smaller Institution
Kevin Hill
› IT Infrastructure Specialist – Core Software Systems
› Responsible for Office 365 deployment & management
Matthew Collins
› IT Infrastructure Specialist – Networks
› Responsible for projects integrating Office 365

LeedsTrinity University
› Celebrated 50th Anniversary in 2016
› One of the UK's top universities for employability
› Pioneered the inclusion of professional work placements
with every degree
› Small University with 3700 Students and 400 Staff
› IT Department is only 15 people
Introduction

Agenda
»Where were we?
»What did we do?
»Where are we now?
»Where are we going?
»What have we learned?
»Summary and Questions

Where were we?
Challenges
»Coming out of a managed service with a 3rd Party
»New Learning andTeaching Strategy
› Emphasises active enquiry and collaboration
› Flexible provision and choice in managing learning
› Make full use of technology in teaching and learning
»Increasing demands on storage space
»Improve Staff and Student communication and engagement

Where were we?
Limitations
»Crumbly on premise Exchange 2010 environment
»Small ‘home folder’ quota file storage provision
»SharePoint 2010 based intranet
»Legacy telephone system

What did we do?

Where are we now?

Where are we going?

The Good Stuff…
› Free!
› Level the playing field with larger institutions
› Platform For Possibilities
› Builds on existing familiar experiences
› Microsoft’s feature releases are now ‘cloud first’
What have we learned?

The Good Stuff…
› New services & features launched regularly
› Less on premise infrastructure
› Better business continuity
› Microsoft & Community Support
› ADFS authentication platform

The Bad Stuff…
› No traditional backup
› OneDrive access methods / clients
› Still requires onsite servers

The Ugly Stuff…
–No change control
–Licencing controls
–Adverts for paid services

Summary
»Move to Office 365 can be swift
»Office 365 and Skype for Business presents lots of
opportunities, especially if it fits strategically
»There are challenges – Do the research!
»Deployment and user adoption strategy is critical

Questions
Any Questions?
Kevin Hill: k.hill@leedstrinity.ac.uk
Matthew Collins: m.collins@leedstrinity.ac.uk

All aboard the Cloud Express
Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute via the Janet network

The Importance of Networking
in the Cloud
Federico Guerrini
Microsoft EMEA Technical Lead, Azure Networking & Security
12/04/2017 All Aboard the Cloud Express

What’s the challenge?

What’s the challenge?
“You cannot have a first
class cloud without a first
class network”
Yousef Khalidi, Microsoft Corporate Vice
President, Ignite 2016
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Workloads in the cloud if network
issues resolved
25%
42%
Workloads in the cloud if
network issues resolved
Workloads in the
cloud today
+17pts
+68%

What’s the solution?
• 38 Azure Regions
• 100+ Data Centres
• Global and sovereign offerings
• Ongoing commitment to local and industry compliance
• Top 3 Networks Worldwide
• 37 ExpressRoute locations – More than any cloud

What’s the solution?
Secure site-to-site
VPN connectivity
• SMB, Enterprises
• Connect to Azure compute
ExpressRoute private
connectivity
• SMB & Enterprises
• Mission critical workloads
• Backup/DR, media, HPC
• Connect to Azure & CRM
services
Internet Connectivity
• Consumers
• Access over public IP
• DNS resolution
• Connect from anywhere
Secure point-to-site
connectivity
• Developers
• POC Efforts
• Small scale deployments
• Connect from anywhere

ExpressRoute: Dedicated Connectivity
ExpressRoute Location
Microsoft-
owned
Customer
buys these
links
Whole link covered by
customer-controlled business
agreements

What is the Value Proposition?
• ER = 10Gbps bandwidth
• Connects directly to your WAN
• Dynamic routing between your network and Microsoft over industry standard protocols (BGP).
• Built-in redundancy in every peering location for higher reliability.
• 99.95% Connection uptime SLA.
• QoS and support for multiple classes of service for special applications, such as Skype for Business.

Technical Overview

ER deployment models
ER partner hands off a LAYER 2 service
to the end customer
ER partner hands off a
LAYER 3 service to the
end customer

How is this implemented in the point to point model?

Point-to-Point Ethernet connection
Customer Microsoft
Customer-owned
routers
Microsoft network
infrastructure
Routers and connectivity
provided by the ER
partner

Point-to-Point connection BGP Sessions
BGP
BGP
Customer establishes BGP sessions
Customer is responsible for
addressing, routing and NAT
requirements

Point-to-Point connection Implementation responsibilities
BGP
BGP
Implemented by the
customer
Implemented by the ER
provider
Implemented by
Microsoft

Point-to-Point connection price structure
Customer Microsoft
BGP
BGP
1 BILL
Implemented by the
customer Implemented by the ER
provider
Implemented by
Microsoft

jisc.ac.uk
Thank you
Federico Guerrini
MS EMEAAzure Networking & Security
federico.guerrini@microsoft.com
azure.microsoft.com

The Janet dimension
Ian Shepherd
Product manager, Janet Connectivity
12/04/2017All Aboard the Cloud Express

Why ExpressRoute via Janet?
»Frederico has kindly covered “Why ExpressRoute?”
»So why “via Janet?”
› You already have a Janet connection
› It’s already fast and reliable
› We already have a fast, reliable connection straight into
the Azure network
› It’s a no-brainer, It’s what Janet is for
› Don’t take my word for it………..

Significant demand from Jisc members
»Higher Education
»Further Education
»LocalAuthorities
»Learning Grids
»Museums and Galleries
»Research Institutes
»NHS
»Commercials
»And More…..

Demand for What?

Staffordshire University
»Staffs is a leading UK modern university
»16,000 students, 85% / 15% under/postgrads, 1,400 staff
»Areas of focus:
Business, Leadership and Economics Computing and DigitalTechnologies
Creative Arts and Engineering Health and Social Care
Law, Policing and Forensics Life Sciences and Education
»2 year degrees, distance learning, PhD, MBA
»Strong industry and international partnerships
»Over 150, 3rd party and in-house applications & services!
»Cloud-first strategy

»Major project to move to Azure using ExpressRoute
»Huge, pioneering commitment
»Jisc became involved approximately 12 months ago
»Connected Staffs to ExpressRoute service at 2 Gbit/s
»Project has gone well (despite some hiccups)
»90% of applications and services in the cloud
› Finance, HR,VLE, Databases…….
»Little or no disruption and overall good performance
»Important lessons learned

»Cloud is not a panacea – It won’t fix problems, it just moves them
»It’s a good opportunity to review systems & services
»Migrate what you can, keep what you can’t, kill the zombies
»Most issues have been with application migration rather than
networking issues (VM builds, DB architectures etc.)
»Internal network must be up to scratch as well as the WAN
»Have a back-out plan, test it if possible

»Cloud is not a panacea – It won’t fix problems, it just moves them
»It’s a good opportunity to review systems & services
»Migrate what you can, keep what you can’t, kill the zombies
»Most issues have been with application migration rather than
networking issues (VM builds, DB architectures etc.)
»Internal network must be up to scratch as well as the WAN
»Have a back-out plan, test it if possible
»Don’t migrate your entire student records system the
weekend before Networkshop!

Jisc’s ExpressRoute Connection Service

Where does Janet fit in?
ExpressRoute Location

Member-Janet-Microsoft
Member Janet Microsoft
Public Internet
Private
Peering
Janet
Connection

With Janet but without ExpressRoute
Azure
Consumers
Azure
Resources
Public Internet
Azure traffic does not touch the public Internet.
Private
Peering
Janet
Connection

With Janet and ExpressRoute
Public Internet
Azure traffic is separated from non-Azure traffic
and tunnelled straight to the Azure infrastructure
Netpath L2VPN
Azure
Consumers
Azure
Resources
Trunked Janet
Connection
Private
Peering
Private
Connection
O365 etc.

Plumbing
Janet Core 100%
Janet Regions 90%
Member Edge ?
Member Firewall etc. ?
Must be able to support the
required protocols appropriate to
their function.
VLAN trunking
L2 VPN
802.1Q-in-Q
BGP

Plan B
Public Internet
Azure traffic is carried across its own dedicated access
circuit and tunnelled straight to the Azure infrastructure
Netpath L2VPN
Azure
Consumers
Azure
Resources
Separate
Janet
Connections
Private
Peering
Private
Connection
O365 etc.

Service Status
» Pilot Service carrying live member traffic
»Currently 2 x 10 Gbit/s between Janet and Azure
» Investment approved for 2 x 100 Gbit/s and more
»Approved projects in place for:
›Full volume production
›Additional cloud services providers
›Professional Services package

jisc.ac.uk
ThankYou
Ian Shepherd
Product Manager, Janet Connectivity
ian.shepherd@jisc.ac.uk

RCUK CloudWorking
Group outcomes
Philip Kershaw, STFC

RCUK Cloud
WG
Logo credit: vecteezy.com
RCUK Cloud Working Group:
supporting the research community in the application of cloud
computing technologies
Networkshop45
Nottingham, Wednesday 12th April 2017
Philip Kershaw
Technical Manager, Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, RAL Space, STFC;
Chair, RCUK Cloud Working Group
RCUK Cloud WG

RCUK Cloud
WG
Overview
• [What is Cloud?]
• Origins of WG
• November Workshop
• Legal, policy, regulatory issues
• Technical Integration
• Next steps

RCUK Cloud
WG
Cloud 101: need to understand
in order to exploit
5 essential
characteristics
On-demand self-
service
Broad network
access
Resource pooling
Rapid elasticity
Measured service
3 service models
IaaS
(Infrastructure as
a Service)
PaaS (Platform as
a Service)
SaaS (Software as
a Service)
4 deployment
models
Private cloud
Community cloud
Public cloud
Hybrid cloud
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool
of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management
effort or service provider interaction.” – NIST SP800-145

RCUK Cloud
WG
• Cloud Computing for Research and Innovation - Report Aug 2015,
with input from members of research community and contributions from
industry
– http://bit.ly/pdgcloud
• Where are we with adoption of cloud?
– identifies the major technical and policy issues that are seen to be preventing
widespread take up of cloud services
• What needs to be done?
– Four high level recommendations
• How do we get there – 5 year roadmap
– to investigate these issues and provide closer integration of public and private
sector resources to improve the capability of the UK research community.
RCUK Cloud Working Group Origins

RCUK Cloud
WG
Realising the potential of
cloud computing for research applications
1. Community building
– Cloud Computing Working Group (in place since 2015) to provide a clear community focus for
cloud computing
2. Technical integration
– of the UK National e-Infrastructure resources to promote workload mobility and to reduce
technical barriers to entry.
3. Training and Support
– Equip the research community with the right skills and support to fully exploit UK National e-
Infrastructure cloud resources.
4. Legal, Policy and Regulatory Issues
– Policy changes needed within RCUK to grow the adoption of cloud computing
– Policy actions that RCUK can initiate externally on behalf of the UK cloud computing community.

RCUK Cloud
WG
Research Councils UK National e-Infrastructure Group
RCUK Cloud Working Group
Cloud Special Interest Group
RCUK Cloud WG and the Cloud SIG
Task
ForceTask
ForceTask
Force
Research Community,
cloud providers
National e-Infrastructure Project
Directors Group
e-Infrastructure
Security Access
Management WG
European and wider
international initiativesLiaise with
Build relationships with
Reports to
Reports to
Track and collaborate with
Initiated by WG and SIG
Challenges
and Ideas
RCUK Cloud Working Group terms of
reference: http://bit.ly/1NxG5R4
Cloud SIG terms of reference: http://bit.ly/1GuQyxi

RCUK Cloud
WG
RCUK Cloud WG Membership
• David Colling, Imperial College
• Tim Cutts, Sanger Institute
• David Fergusson, University of Edinburgh
• Martin Hamilton, Jisc (Chair of SIG)
• Adam Huffman, Francis Crick Institute
• Philip Kershaw, CEDA, STFC (Chair)
• Steven Newhouse, EMBL-EBI & ELIXIR
• David Salmon, Jisc
• Simon Thompson, Birmingham University
• Jeremy Yates, UCL (Secretary)

RCUK Cloud
WG
Community building: workshops
• Imperial College, December 2015
– ~40 attendees
– Invited presentations
• Crick Institute in November 2016
– ~120 attendees
– Combination of invited speakers and talks solicited from the
community
• Talks from the big 3 hyper-scale providers
• Community and private cloud, OpenStack
• Legal, policy and regulatory issues
• Lightning talks from the community
• Breakout/Interactive session
– Outcomes
• Desire for collaboration around task forces e.g. HTC and HPC
compute (need to co-ordinate with HPC-SIG)
• Cost and performance issues on-prem. compared with public
cloud
Photos courtesy of Martin Hamilton, Jisc

RCUK Cloud
WG
Community building: website
• https://cloud.ac.uk/
• Minutes from working group public
• Reports on and presentations from workshops:
– https://cloud.ac.uk/2017/03/20/cloud-workshop/
– https://cloud.ac.uk/workshops/nov2016/
• A resource to report back on our findings
– Technical suitability of workloads for cloud e.g. HPC and
parallel file systems
– Legal, regulatory, policy issues, costs

RCUK Cloud
WG
Legal, Policy and Regulatory Issues
• The goal is to bottom out real and perceived issues around
the use of public cloud and to provide guidance to the
research community.
– Build on work that has already done
– Recognise that this is a changing and evolving area
• Strawman prepared January 2016
• Questionnaire to obtain feedback from the research
community (Martin Hamilton)
– https://bit.ly/cloudlegal2016
• Session at November 2016 Workshop at the Crick, input
from:
– EMBL-EBI – experience from recent public cloud procurement
– QMUL Cloud Legal Project
• Briefing note from the WG to provide guidelines currently in
preparation
44%
30%
26%
Was legal advice sought?
No
Yes
Not sure
Response Organisations
Review is still ongoing 10
OK to use public cloud 5
Not OK to use public cloud 1
Occasional OK but restrictions around data, security
and budget 1
We have many use cases, hard to find general answer 1
N/A – did not need permission for this particular use
case 1
Inconclusive result 1

RCUK Cloud
WG
Technical Integration
• What are the opportunities, challenges, barriers?
– Managing and tracking costs
– Matching research workloads (e.g. HPC) with public cloud architectures
– Matching more traditional data access with cloud native e.g POSIX, parallel file systems and object
stores
– Hybrid public/private – ability to move data and compute easily between providers
• How can we inform ourselves? -
– Interaction and communication within the community to track developments e.g. OpenStack
Scientific WG, contact with representatives from public cloud providers
– Dedicated pilots or ‘task forces’ organised through the WG to target particular areas of interest . . .

RCUK Cloud
WG
Technical Integration – current activities
• Portability between cloud platforms
– Particle Physics Cloud Pilot
– Workshop on use Terraform and Ansible (in planning)
• Use of parallel file systems with on-prem cloud:
– https://cloud.ac.uk/reports/spectrumscale/
– Workshop on use of FUSE file system in the summer (in planning)
• Bulk data movement – co-ordinating with work in the NeI Project Directors Group

RCUK Cloud
WG
Particle Physics Cloud Pilot
(an example task force)
• Goal:
– Explore strategies for making code deployments interoperable between providers and so avoid
vendor lock-in
• To investigate:
– Ability to port given workloads between different public cloud providers with minimal changes
– Challenges related to workload needs and cloud topology
– Focus on compute aspects rather bulk data movement
– Focus on functionality rather than performance
• Domain-specific use case: workloads for Particle Physics CMS and ATLAS experiments
– Work carried out be Andrew Lahiff, Scientific Computing Dept., STFC
– Started mid-2016

RCUK Cloud
WG
Particle Physics Cloud Pilot:
technical approach
• Uses container-based solution from the ground up as a means of abstraction for
portability
– Docker + Kubernetes
• Kubernetes
– Supports abstraction e.g. underlying storage with StorageClasses
– Powerful for automated deployment and scaling
• On hyper-scale providers: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform
– Possible with thanks to the providers for donated free credits
• Target workloads
– CMS Monte Carlo simulation - compute intensive
– LHCb Monte Carlo just completed, ATLAS jobs planned
– Next steps: focus on io intensive workload

RCUK Cloud
WG
summary by provider
• Google Compute Platform
– Supports Kubernetes out-of-the-box
– Supports auto-scaling in response to demand
– Web portal Kubernetes interface – very easy to get up and running
– Fairly extensive exploration of functionality
• Azure
– Out-of-the-box since close 2016 with web portal interface
– Supports other container orchestration technologies e.g. DCOS
– Current work
• integration of Azure Kubernetes cluster with ATLAS Big PanDA workload management system
• Use of Azure Blob storage with DynaFed storage caching system
– Scope for further extensive testing over the coming months
• AWS
– No Kubernetes out-of-the-box but 3rd party solutions like StackPoint (https://stackpoint.io/ ) can be used
to overlay Kubernetes cluster across a given cloud provider tenancy
– Very limited testing in this pilot to date

RCUK Cloud
WG
federation across Google and Azure
Courtesy of Andrew Lahiff, STFC

RCUK Cloud
WG
Next steps
• Technical Integration
– Particle Physics Cloud Pilot: in i/o intensive workloads, close and report findings
– HTC and cloud (depending on interest from the community): David Colling (Imperial) and David Salmon (Jisc)
– HPC and cloud: discussions underway with HPC-SIG, tracking HPC on public cloud work e.g. NERC NCAS
and Azure
• Workshops – training and dissemination
– Lustre on cloud (planned): Simon Thompson, Birmingham
– Using Terraform and Ansible to make workloads portable (planned): Steven Newhouse
• Legal, policy and regulatory issues, costs
– Provide briefing note to provide guidelines to community: David Salmon
– Track cost models of public providers
• Community: engage with Boston Open Research Cloud initiative
– https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4Y7flFgUgf9dElkaFkwbUhKblU
– Attending first meeting in May following OpenStack Summit

RCUK Cloud
WG
Further information
• Working Group website: https://cloud.ac.uk/
• NIST SP800-145 Cloud definition: http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-145
• RCUK Cloud Working Group terms of reference: http://bit.ly/1NxG5R4
• Cloud SIG terms of reference: http://bit.ly/1GuQyxi
• Cloud Computing for Research and Innovation - Report Aug 2015: http://bit.ly/pdgcloud
• Legal, policy and regulatory issues: https://bit.ly/cloudlegal2016 (further input welcome  )
• POSIX, Parallel file systems and cloud: https://cloud.ac.uk/reports/spectrumscale/
• Boston Open Research Cloud initiative
– https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4Y7flFgUgf9dElkaFkwbUhKblU
• philip.kershaw@stfc.ac.uk, @PhilipJKershaw

jisc.ac.uk
Contact
Philip Kershaw
philip.kershaw@stfc.ac.uk
12/04/2017 Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Thank you
12/04/2017Title of presentation (Insert > Header & Footer > Slide > Footer > Apply to all)

Parallel session: cloud services

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