2015 Innovation in the Cloud Conference Sessions

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?

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.

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: Don Dugger

Don is an Engineer in the Intel Open Source Technology Center involved in virtualization efforts with a concentration on enabling advanced hardware features in open source virtualization environments.

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.