My talk for the LATi ExpertExchange workshop on the future of cloud computing, covering topics including Docker and OpenStack, and the emergence of high performance public cloud infrastructures such as Azure RDMA.

1. What’s next? Emerging trends in cloud computing
Martin Hamilton
Photo CC BY-SA Flickr user Penalva 1What’s next? Emerging trends in cloud computing (LATi ExpertExchange September 2015)15/09/2015

2. Emerging trends in cloud computing
1. About Jisc
– Role and mission
– Exploiting the Janet network
2. Cloud as the new normal
– Lessons from cloud in research and education
– Impact on enterprise IT vs. small businesses
3. What’s next?
– Will Docker and OpenStack be our Rosetta Stone(s)?
– What does a unified computing model look like?

3. 1. About Jisc
15/09/2015 What’s next? Emerging trends in cloud computing (LATi ExpertExchange September 2015) 3

4. 1. About Jisc
› Registered charity championing the use of digital technologies in
research and education
› National deals and shared services for UK Universities and Colleges, e.g.
- Janet, world leading research network
- eduroam global wireless roaming
- Groundbreaking content deals with publishers
- Cloud brokerage with Amazon, Google, Microsoft
› Aiming to complement RCUK and Innovate UK / Catapults
- Open Educational Resources,OpenAccess and Open Data
- Just launched asset sharing initiative

5. 1. About Jisc
The Janet network:

6. 1. About Jisc
Janet peerings:

7. 1. About Jisc
Janet peerings:

8. 1. About Jisc
Janet Reach:
› £4M funding from BIS to work
towards a Janet which is "open and
accessible" to industry
› Provides industry access to university
e-infrastructure facilities to facilitate
further investment in science,
engineering and technology with the
active participation of business and
industry
› Modelled on Innovate UK
competition process
bit.ly/janetreach

9. 1. About Jisc
Janet Reach:
› £4M funding from BIS to work
towards a Janet which is "open and
accessible" to industry
› Provides industry access to university
e-infrastructure facilities to facilitate
further investment in science,
engineering and technology with the
active participation of business and
industry
› Modelled on Innovate UK
competition process
bit.ly/jischpc

10. 1. About Jisc
bit.ly/eroadmap

11. 2. Cloud as the new normal
15/09/2015 What’s next? Emerging trends in cloud computing (LATi ExpertExchange September 2015) 11

12. 2. Cloud as the new normal
Photo CC-BY-NC-ND Flickr user m0php
› New products and services
are increasingly being
created “cloud first”
› For small firms and sole
traders this can be a boon.
Say goodbye to:
– Servers under desks
– Elusive “consultants”
– Lost passwords
› Access to world class
infrastructure
– New skillset required + new
approach to costing IT

13. 2. Cloud as the new normal
FE/HE experience: Google Apps for Education
» The University of Westminster estimates that it saved £1m by moving to Google Apps for
Education for email and other online collaboration facilities. They also state that “an additional
benefit has been the reduced time spent in systems and user support with a minimal number of
calls for support for such a significant system”, and that moving to the cloud has “liberated staff and
students from the smaller storage limits of the previous in-house solution.”
http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/univofwestminster.pdf
» Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College have also migrated to Google Apps.They observe
that “each year, 20,000 new accounts are created providing 600 terabytes (around 150,000
DVDs worth) of storage in less than five minutes.” Subsequently to this article being written,
Google moved to offering free unlimited storage.
http://www.wlc.ac.uk/college/news/article.asp?newsID=4228

14. 2. Cloud as the new normal
FE/HE experience: Microsoft Office365
» The University of theWest of London moved its 14,000 students to Office365, and observes that
once a student graduates “they can maintain that Office365 account through the University for
life.We can continue to supply them with information about the University, help them find their
second job, their third job and so on.This isn’t just about collaboration while studying, it’s about
creating a life-long connection between the students and the University.”
http://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/university-of-west-london-case-study-office-365
» The University of Dundee migrated all of its 22,000 student accounts to Microsoft’s Office365 for
Education service over a week.They note that this was achieved with zero down time, and estimate
that Office365 “will save us at least £500,000 in infrastructure and staffing over five years.”
http://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/university-of-dundee-case-study-office-365

15. 2. Cloud as the new normal
Dogfooding:
› We moved
our own core
infrastructure
to AWS
› Estimate that
this saved
£100K p.a.
› Cloud first /
mobile first
for new stuff
[Image credit:
Mike Jones]

16. 2. Cloud as the new normal
› Amazon Web Services cost calculator

17. 2. Cloud as the new normal
Jisc’s Amazon cloud portal:
› Monthly invoicing - credit cards are no longer
required for payment
› Itemized billing - consolidated across
users/departments
› Billing inGBP, not dollars
› Setting of budget limits for individual user
accounts or departments
› The retrieval of service usage information within
own areas of responsibility
› Volume-discounts through aggregation across
multiple educational institutions

18. 3. What’s next?
15/09/2015 What’s next? Emerging trends in cloud computing (LATi ExpertExchange September 2015) 18

19. 3. What’s next?
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/07/09/azure-linux-rdma-hpc-available/
HPC in the cloud?

20. HPC in the cloud?
3. What’s next: HPC in the cloud?

21. HPC in the cloud?
3. What’s next? HPC in the cloud?

22. 3. What’s next?
“VM as a service”
e.g. AzureVM Depot

23. 3. What’s next?
“VM as a service”
e.g. AWS Marketplace

24. 3. What’s next?
http://science.energy.gov/~/media/ascr/pdf/program-
documents/docs/Magellan_Final_Report.pdf
Caveat emptor!

25. 3. What’s next?
http://science.energy.gov/~/media/ascr/pdf/program-
documents/docs/Magellan_Final_Report.pdf
Caveat emptor!

26. 3. What’s next?
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/11/07/ce
rns-openstack-cloud-to-reach-150000-cores-by-2015/
OpenStack – commoditization of the
cloud technology stack itself

27. 3. What’s next?
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/11/07/ce
rns-openstack-cloud-to-reach-150000-cores-by-2015/
http://www.datanami.com/2013/09/23/cern_turns_to_google_
for_datacenter_direction/
OpenStack – commoditization of the
cloud technology stack itself

28. 3. What’s next?
OpenStack ==
DIY cloud?

29. 3. What’s next
Virtual apps
with Docker
containers

30. 3. What’s next
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Docker
Virtual apps
with Docker
containers

31. 3. What’s next
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/high-performance-computing/b/general_hpc/archive/2014/11/04/containers-docker-virtual-machines-and-hpc
Virtual apps
with Docker
containers

32. 3. What’s next?
Open Container
Project – building
a standard around
Docker

33. 3. What’s next?
http://kubernetes.io http://techs.enovance.com/7104/multi-tenant-docker-with-openstack-heat

34. 3. What’s next? A unified model of computing?
This is one model. Other models are available 
› Run OpenStack on your in-house facility [Q: Still need one?]
– This creates your own private/community cloud
– Machine images can be programmatically converted to/from QCOW2
› Package your app with Docker and you can run it anywhere
– Embraced by public cloud providers, can run in-house too as open source
– Could be bare metal or on top of e.g. OpenStack [Q: Performance?]
› Lots of options for orchestration from general purpose uses
– Kubernetes scheduling particularly interesting from an HPC perspective
› Open questions from an e-Infrastructure perspective:
– Integrating identity management, authentication, authorization, accounting
– User driven (instant gratification) versus controlled environment
– Funding model for use of public and community clouds, potential for national deals
– Lots of new stuff to learn about! (for developer, sysadmin, …)
– That’s all fine for the compute, but what about the data?
Photo CC-BY Flickr
user codep8

35. 3. What’s next?
» What are the blockers and enablers for your business to use
advanced IT like cloud computing and HPC?
– Complete our joint survey with Innovate UK: bit.ly/advancedit
– You could win a prize!

36. That’s all folks…
36
Except where otherwise noted, this
work is licensed under CC-BY
Martin Hamilton
Futurist, Jisc, London
@martin_hamilton
martin.hamilton@jisc.ac.uk
What’s next? Emerging trends in cloud computing (LATi ExpertExchange September 2015)15/09/2015