For a company like Canonical, which is best known for the Ubuntu distribution of the Linux operating system, the Cloud represents an important and unusual challenge. Its natural community consists of both applications developers and operating system kernel specialists, but with the Cloud it now has to be particularly aware of what platforms and technology stacks that community’s customers are likely to want to use.
What is more, as Mark Baker, Canonical’s Server Product Manager acknowledged, it has to make these judgements with the knowledge that most of the those customers will have little or no interest in the details of Linux technology.
Baker’s role, therefore, is to make sure Ubuntu is running on any server architecture that can contribute to the Cloud , be it public, private, hybrid or personal Cloud , or any other interpretation of the concept yet to be invented by creative vendor marketing departments. That process does involve second-guessing what approaches to Cloud computing are likely to become popular.
For example, Baker sees strong potential in the area of personal Cloud s. Here, individual users would have template of `their’ Cloud environment on an authenticated device such as a USB memory stick.
The Canonical plan is that this will exploit its new Ensemble technology to give users a process to pull together and mashup the applications, services, data-sources and the rest that represent their personal or working environment, from wherever is appropriate. So while some information – for example local or national service guides – can come from public Cloud resources, personal or business data might well be sourced from secure private Cloud s.
With the right authentication processes in place such an approach would open up a huge market for the `kiosk’ model, from systems in shops, pubs and even street corners, through to a new generation of quasi-dumb terminals on office desks and in hotel rooms. Depending on the level of security integrated into each individual’s personal environment they could end up carrying a key to their online `world’ that only they can utilise.
Access control is therefore an important area for development and Baker indicated that Canonical is currently building an Access Management add-on for the Ubuntu Server. Baker says:
The Cloud also brings with it a need to define the economics of service delivery. From Baker’s point of view that means tracking the changing balance between server power and density, reducing the power consumed while increasing the density of resources provided for a given floor area or rack space. In addition, it involves defining what needs to be commoditised for which type of user, he adds:
Part of that process as it develops and grows is therefore selecting the right ground on which those platforms will be built, which for Canonical means identifying the right server and processor architectures that represent the future. One of the core developments here is seen as the coming of the microserver, low power, low cost, physically small servers that utilise relatively simple processors, but which can be densely packed into racks.
This makes them an ideal candidate for the increasingly large datacentres under continual development by both the major and niche Cloud service providers. Here, low cost commoditised servers, running a low cost, low power operating environment, are a natural fit.
According to Baker, most of the major service providers are already running Ubuntu, and one of the company’s key development objectives is to reduce the power required to run an instance of the operating system. The current favourite processor for the growing microserver role comes from ARM, and its growing popularity – coupled with a surge in the microserver marketplace – has prompted Canonical to develop a version of Ubuntu Server optimised for that platform.
Though the ARM processor is already well established as the platform for many smartphones – and is expected to grow in popularity as this corner of Cloud delivery services expands – Canonical has no plans to go down that particular route with Ubuntu, preferring to leave that market in the hands of other Linux players, such as Google’s Android system.
Instead, Baker indicated it is looking to target the convergence role, particularly with tools such as Ensemble and the Access Management developments. Canonical is obviously heavily committed to the standard x86 and x64 architecture processors offered by Intel and AMD, so as a by-product it also runs on Intel’s contender in the microserver space, Atom.
There is not, however, an optimised version as yet under development for this processor. This might come soon, however, particularly as Intel has dropped hints about using Atom as the building block of future many-core processors, including the possibility of hybrid devices combining one or two Xeon processors and multiple Atoms in the same processor. It is also keeping a close eye on the potential of Tilera, which recently launched a 100-core device earlier this year.
This already runs Ubuntu and there is a strong relationship between the two companies. Once again, however, this is not an optimised version of the system and Canonical is waiting to see how demand for the processor builds.
