2015 Innovation in the Cloud Conference Sessions

The following sessions were presented at our 2015 Innovation in the Cloud Conference, which took place on October 9, 2015.

Containers All the Way Down: From Immutable Infrastructure to Immutable Metal

We'll demo how Digital Rebar uses immutable infrastructure in Docker Compose to build a server provisioning infrastructure in minutes. Then we'll bring up a desktop scale data center in that environment to install HA Kubernetes. We'll discuss the value and speed of this approach in toward iterating devops faster from dev to test, pilot and production.

Speaker: Rob Hirschfeld

Rob Hirschfeld is CEO of RackN, founder of the Digital Rebar hardware automation project and an OpenStack Board member.

Hyper: Make VMs Run like Containers with a Hypervisor-Agnostic Docker Engine

With the rise of Docker, the world is shifting its focus from "Machine" toward "App". As such, the cloud of tomorrow will be very different than today.

While the future is exciting, what holds us back is the lack of isolation in container. Without the necessary security, it is impossible to build a public multi-tenant CaaS platform, as everyone has to share the single host's kernel (no matter physical or virtual).

Hyper is a Hypervisor-agnostic Docker Runtime. Its goal is to Make VMs run like Containers, by combining the best from both:

• the speed of Containers, with
• the isolation of real VMs

With Hyper, we believe the future of Container-as-a-Service is just around the corner.

Video is now available of this session

Speaker: Thibault Bronchain

Thibault is a ‎Developer Ambassador at HyperHQ Inc. in Beijing City, China

Look Ma, no OS! An Introduction to Unikernels

Unikernels present the next iteration on application packaging, deployment, and runtime after Linux containers. With the majority of our work taking place in a virtualized environment the need to support a vast array of hardware, software, and users in a single (though highly specialized) operating system is waning. In addition, the costs, complexity, and stability associated with our existing Linux based production environments leave much to be desired.

This presentation will attempt to answer the following questions:

• What is a unikernel and what types are there?
• How is a unikernel architecture different than a traditional Linux one?
• What benefits does a unikernel architecture provide?
• How can unikernels help solve our current problems?
• What unikernel projects exist in the wild?
• What would a unikernel application architecture look like?

Slides are now available for this session.

Speaker: Matt Bajor

Matt Bajor is an Infrastructure Automation Engineer at Rally Software in Boulder, CO. He works primarily on build and test automation for Rally's SaaS microservice architecture and primary SaaS product. When he is not working with Jenkins or Docker, he can be found either in the whitewater rivers of Colorado or perhaps enjoying some fine Belgian Quads in downtown Denver.

The Bare-Metal Hypervisor as a Platform for Innovation

For many tasks, the choice between a Type 1 (bare metal) or Type 2 (hosted) hypervisor is a matter of task-based performance or even personal taste.

However, there is a growing breed of solutions which specifically leverage the architecture of a bare metal hypervisor to address new concepts. These tasks range from embedded applications to new types of cloud-hosted software appliances. All leverage the lightweight nature and securability of a Type 1 hypervisor, and most are fostered by the Xen Project ecosystem.

We will review a number real efforts underway including:

• Xen Automotive: crafting an embedded automotive infotainment system
• Realtime virtualization: facilitating realtime processing
• ARM-based hypervisor: new applications, from servers to cell phones, on the ARM architecture
• Unikernel systems: creating highly-dense farms of ultra-small & secure cloud appliances

Slides are now available for this session.

Speaker: Russell Pavlicek

Currently employed by Citrix as the Evangelist for Xen Project, Russell has spent two decades evangelizing Open Source. Since his introduction to Linux in 1995, he has relentlessly promoted the concept of Open Source to anyone who would listen.

He has over 150 pieces published, including columns for Infoworld and Processor magazines and one book. He has spoken at over 75 Open Source conferences, including most of the biggest Linux conferences in North America. A former panelist on The Linux Show weekly webcast, he also has many years of experience employing Open Source software in solutions for clients.

Xen and the Art of Graphics Virtualization

Talk about the multiple different ways of doing graphics virtualization (API forwarding, Direct pass-thru, full GPU Virt) and the advantages and disadvantages of each architecture. Then go into a more detailed discussion of the XenGT effort to do full GPU virtualization in the Xen environment.

Speaker: Raghuveer Reddy

Raghu is a Program Manager in the Intel Open Source Technology Center involved in virtualization efforts with a concentration on enabling advanced hardware features in open source virtualization environments. His current focus is on Graphics Virtualization and Network Function Virtualization areas.

Xen and the Art of OpenStack Maintenance

Deploying OpenStack can be a tricky and time-consuming process. It requires the careful, systematic implementation of over a dozen services in an integrated manner, and can be exceptionally difficult to configure correctly. To quote Shark Tank, "There's got to be a better way!" Come see what SUSE has done to make deploying your Xen-based OpenStack cloud a much simpler, less time-consuming process. We will walk through the process, and deploy our own working cloud in just a few short minutes.

Speaker: Rick Ashford

Rick Ashford has been a Senior Systems Engineer at SUSE since 2008. He was worked across a wide technologies, but currently spends large quantities of time playing in the OpenStack sandbox. He currently lives in the Austin, TX area with his wife and four children. If he ever experiences the concept of "free time" again, he imagines he would like to spend more time with his guitars and in his woodshop.

Xen Project 4.6: A Quick Peek into the New Release

Xen Project, the Open Source hypervisor which powers some of the largest clouds in the industry, is expecting a new release within days of this conference. We will spend a few minutes reviewing some of the newest capabilities of this release, and some of the key work that is already underway for the next release.

Slides are now available for this session.

Speaker: Russell Pavlicek

Russ is the evangelist for the Xen Project.

InterSign: Using the OSv Unikernel for Security Analysis of JVM Languages

This session was cancelled due a family emergency of the speaker.