One of the many definitions of "cloud" is that of an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) system, in which IT infrastructure is deployed in a provider's data center as virtual machines. With IaaS clouds' growing popularity, tools and technologies are emerging that can transform an organization's existing infrastructure into a private or hybrid cloud. OpenNebula is an open source, virtual infrastructure manager that deploys virtualized services on both a local pool of resources and external IaaS clouds. Haizea, a resource lease manager, can act as a scheduling back end for OpenNebula, providing features not found in other cloud software or virtualization-based data center management software.

The emerging cloud-computing paradigm is rapidly gaining momentum as an alternative to traditional IT (information technology). However, contemporary cloud-computing offerings are primarily targeted for Web 2.0-style applications. Only recently have they begun to address the requirements of enterprise solutions, such as support for infrastructure service-level agreements. To address the challenges and deficiencies in the current state of the art, we propose a modular, extensible cloud architecture with intrinsic support for business service management and the federation of clouds. The goal is to facilitate an open, service-based online economy in which resources and services are transparently provisioned and managed across clouds on an ondemand basis at competitive costs with high-quality service. The Reservoir project is motivated by the vision of implementing an architecture that would enable providers of cloud infrastructure to dynamically partner with each other to create a seemingly infinite pool of IT resources while fully preserving their individual autonomy in making technological and business management decisions. To this end, Reservoir could leverage and extend the advantages of virtualization and embed autonomous management in the infrastructure. At the same time, the Reservoir approach aims to achieve a very ambitious goal: creating a foundation for next-generation enterprise-grade cloud computing

In this installment of Trend Wars, we discuss cloud computing and OpenNebula with Ignacio M. Llorente and Rubén S. Montero, who are the principal investigator and the chief architect, respectively, of the open source OpenNebula project.

As a key component in a modern datacenter, the cloud operating system is responsible for managing the physical and virtual infrastructure, orchestrating and commanding service provisioning and deployment, and providing federation capabilities for accessing and deploying virtual resources in remote cloud infrastructures.