Beyond Virtual Data Centers: Toward an Open Resource Control Architecture

This paper summarizes recent research on networked vir- tual computing in the NICL lab at Duke. Over the past few years, we have constructed a service-oriented substrate for networked sharing and adaptive middleware environments based on a virtual on-demand computing. The goal of the project is to develop protocols and tools that can link to- gether virtual computing clusters at different sites, and in- corporate other kinds of resources (network tunnels, storage, and high-end computing resources) into a unified resource control plane for virtual computing. A key focus is to do this in a way that integrates well with existing middleware systems, to enable dynamic control of advanced virtual com- puting environments. Our approach is based on foundational abstractions for leas- ing resources and factoring control over leased resources across the infrastructure providers, application controllers, and brokering intermediaries, interacting through common leasing protocols in an Open Resource Control Architecture (Orca). The paper outlines the use of our resource leasing prototype (called Shirako) in several systems: as a foun- dation for manageable grid computing systems (based on Globus), in an interactive Web-based laboratory for auto- nomic services research (called Automat), and as a basis for virtualized cluster computing environments.