This is a talk I gave to the Edinburgh Linux User Group about the Noteable Service we [my work] runs for academic organisations

2. Remember This?
This is where I joined EdLUG
This was the days of Rob McCron, Keith Farvis, Kenny MacDonald,
Teeth, Faye Gibbins, etc

3. Who is Ian?

4. Who is Ian?

5. Who is Ian?

6. What is EDINA?
“EDINA is a world-class centre for digital expertise,
based at the University of Edinburgh.”

7. What is EDINA?
“EDINA is a world-class centre for digital expertise,
based at the University of Edinburgh.”
EDINA is a National Data Centre, and provides
services primarily to Higher & Further Education.

8. What is EDINA?
“EDINA is a world-class centre for digital expertise,
based at the University of Edinburgh.”
EDINA is a National Data Centre, and provides
services primarily to Higher & Further Education.
EDINA is a business.

10. What is Noteable?
Noteable is an LTI Tool Provider which uses Jupyterhub
to spawn a selection Docker containers, each of which
contains a single Notebook server, inside a Kubernetes
Cluster running on University of Edinburgh Enterprise
VM infrastructure, along with associated tools for
authentication, data persistence, course management,
managing load, choosing kernels, and [eventually]
billing.

11. What is Noteable?
Noteable is an LTI Tool Provider which uses Jupyterhub
to spawn a selection Docker containers, each of which
contains a single Notebook server, inside a Kubernetes
Cluster running on University of Edinburgh Enterprise
VM infrastructure, along with associated tools for
authentication, data persistence, course management,
managing load, choosing kernels, and [eventually]
billing.

18. View and Enter
Stuff part

19. View and Enter
Stuff part
N
o
t
e
b
o
o
k
S
e
r
v
e
r
(HTTPS)
Doing and Organising
Things Place

20. View and Enter
Stuff part
N
o
t
e
b
o
o
k
S
e
r
v
e
r
(HTTPS)
Doing and Organising
Things Place
J
u
l
i
a
R
P
y
t
h
o
n
Kernels
Language Expert bit
(ZeroMQ)

21. l
i
b
s
View and Enter
Stuff part
N
o
t
e
b
o
o
k
S
e
r
v
e
r
(HTTPS)
Doing and Organising
Things Place
J
u
l
i
a
R
P
y
t
h
o
n
Kernels
Language Expert bit
(ZeroMQ)

25. Ho
w
big
is
Not
eab
le
In
2017/
18,
Edinb
urgh
Univer
sity
had
Undergraduates 25,951
Taught Postgraduates 9,781
Research Postgraduates 5,580
Total 41,312
(Figures from UofE Annual Report,
2017/18)

26. Ho
w
big
coul
d
Not
abl
e
be?
Open University in England 94,900 6,590 101,490
University of Manchester 27,895 12,590 40,490
University College London 18,610 19,295 37,905
University College London 22,440 12,395 34,835
University of Leeds 24,345 8,955 33,300
Manchester Metropolitan University 26,780 6,235 33,010
University of Nottingham 24,065 8,450 32,515
University of Edinburgh 21,640 10,265 31,910
Coventry University 25,705 5,985 31,690
Cardiff University 23,085 8,510 31,595
(Figures from Higher Education Statistics Agency, for 2016/17)
In 2016–17, there were 2.32 million students studying at UK higher education
institutions. [UUK]

27. What
does
Note
able
need
to
man
age
Multiple
Customers
Usersacross
customers
Multiple
Notebooks
PersistentStorage

31. (OAuth)

32. Server
Host OS
Hypervisor
A A’ B B’
GuestOS
GuestOS
GuestOS
GuestOS
Bin/
libs
Do
Bin/libs Bin/libsA A’ A’ B B’ B’ B’
VMs vs
Containers Containers are isolated, but
share
binaries and libraries
Containers use the host OS for
actual processing.Bin/
libs
Bin/
libs
Bin/
libs

37. W
Puppe
t
Gitla
b
Registr
y
Ranche
r
NFS API UI Databas
e
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W W
W
W
C
WW
C
C

45. Deployment is fun