Cloud Computing with OpenStack, AWS, and the FreeBSD AWS AMI - A Short Overview

Though it diverges topically towards a primarily Linux-oriented architecture -- topically, as towards the origins of the Xen Project, the Xen Hypervisor, and concepts of software defined networking (SDN) with the Xen framework, as Xen being a project developed originally in the Linux developers ecosystem -- I thought it might be appropriate to share some albeit "Broad scoped" observations about cloud computing with OpenStack. Perhaps it could serve to provide any manner of an informative perspective, with regards to a broader concept of the State of the Art in cloud computing.

Broadly: OpenStack is adopted by a number of commercially sponsored service frameworks, including IBM Bluemix (Bluemix), Digital Ocean (DO), and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Not a closed-source framework, OpenStack is documented, extensively, with a series of in-depth technical manuals. Furthermore, books may be found about OpenStack from commercial book services such as Amazon.com and Safari Books Online. No doubt, a quick review of academic literature would also serve to present a variety of content with regards to OpenStack applications -- such as with a quick search of Citeseer, in a topical query: OpenStack virtualization.

Personally, I'm writing this article around a time of having begun to apply the FreeBSD 10 AMI (upstream) in an application -- as the AMI is constructed about -- onto the AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). In albeit a "Long way around," the application of the AMI is in a project that I've begun for a purpose of developing a "Self hosted' instance of the WordPress.org content management software. Having begun a simple web log at WordPress.com, it seems to me that the ideal WordPress hosting arrangement would involve a certain quality of "DIY Development." As an application onto the AWS Cloud network, this project -- of course -- involves a certain application of the OpenStack architecture as implemented at AWS. More narrowly, I'll be applying a t2.micro instance with EBS filesystem onto the Amazon.com AWS S3 service, as well as a database onto the AWS RDS service -- all of these services being available in the AWS free tier. The AWS management layer, of course, presents an interface not very much like a shell command console, but there is an API for AWS orchestration -- an API as represented formally of the AWS SDK in any single implementation onto a single programming language (AWS SDK for Ruby, Java, others) -- and even a plugin for the Eclipse IDE, principally as an application of the AWS SDK.

Personally, I estimate -- that as between the discretely logical design of the AWS service mix and the very straightforward design of the FreeBSD kernel, broader FreeBSD base system, and FreeBSD ports framework -- that it serves as a great opportunity for studying more about how cloud computing is being done, in real-world applications specifically at AWS. Not as though to develop too much of a "High level" view of the conceptual content of the AWS cloud, however: The set of possible applications of FreeBSD, in this context, may not be limited to the set of singular applications of the FreeBSD AMI. Not only is there a veritable wealth of possibility of applications of FreeBSD in a context of AWS Software Defined Networking (SDN) and component-oriented data/computing services, but -- more specifically in regards to OpenStack upstream, perhaps there could even be a possibility of applying Bhyve as a hypervisor in an OpenStack service mix.

I would not want to pepper the page with to many of buzzwords. That there are a number of books about broad concepts of Service Oriented Architecture, personally I tend to wish to read more about the details of individual modeling specifications, such as of the MOF framework developed at the Object Management Group (OMG), candidly with my not being too much a fan of so much of a perhaps fairly breezy coverage about any single conceptual scheme with regards to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts. MOF itself is a meta-metamodel, principally applied in the UML, SysML, BPMN, ODM, SPEM, and other formal metamodels -- as all developed of the OMG standards tracks applied about concepts of a sense of an Object Modeling Architecture (OMA), a sense of a Model Driven Architecture (MDA), and other buzzword-heavy concepts. That it represents principally a logical model, but it might not seem to a very detailed framework, outside of any single applications. So far as UML may be applied for illustrating the architecture of any single cloud computing framework, perhaps it may ultimately be of some use as with regards to systems administration tooling, in a context of cloud computing.

OpenStack itself is being applied at IBM Bluemix (Bluemix), Digital Ocean (DO), and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Personally, I would not want to seem as if to "Crash the party," socially, as with regards to the ecosystems respectively of FreeBSD development, Linux Development, and OpenStack development. That it may seem to be a long stretch from that, to the Samsung Tizen framework, I believe it may find a manner of a logical "Arc", however, as in a manner of a correlation with regards to DevOps tooling, if not as to develop a FreeBSD "fork" of so many components of the Samsung Tizen framework as of the OS kernel, OS baseline system, and OS packages/ports components -- albeit, a project probably not as trivial to complete, as simple as it may be to denote such a simple idea, in writing.

In a context of Samsung developer projects, there's also Samsung KNOX, incidentally -- perhaps more towards a topic for the HardenedBSD forums, however. KNOX is not expressly an open-source framework, in itself, though it applies a Linux kernel in the Android platform, in an enterprise context.

Understanding that a FreeBSD fork could be developed of any single originally Linux-based framework. not to belabor a topic of Turing Completeness, it seems to me that there is a wide area of opportunity in FreeBSD development on the cloud.
 
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