[one-users] Building the first Cloud

[Valentin Bud]

Hello Community,

 I am about to embark in the journey of building the first Private Cloud. At
first it will be tested by the staff and
afterwards it will be deployed in production. I have read until now quite
some documentation about Cloud Computing
and I've successfully installed OpenNebula 3.0b2 from source.

 I have looked for information regarding Cloud Architecture and Design and
found out that literature on this subject
is quite scarce. Anyway I have found some presentations from CERN and the
OpenNebula blog post about the CERN Cloud, and
pieces start to fall into place. Great piece of technology this Cloud
Computing paradigm.

 I want to deploy a Private Cloud to automate the deployment of an
application we use for our customers. The application (a database)
uses the hard disk quite a lot to index large amounts of data. So I thought
I would deploy OpenNebula using the LVM storage driver. This way I can
balance the load
among the servers. Maybe in the future when the Cloud will be used at its
full potential and the needs will grow I will switch to NFS
on some decent hardware that can support the intensive read/write
operations. Another argument why I choose LVM is the possibility to
grow the volume and so the filesystem inside the VM in case of need. I need
to test if its possible to do this without shutting down the
database service.

 I don't want to waste your time Gentlemen but being my first try on
building a Cloud I thought I come here and post what I want to do
and receive some feedback from you. I do have some questions though. First
and foremost I come from the BSD world and I can't
say I'm a Linux advanced user and have a favorite distro. So which operating
systems in terms of features (security, networking, ease of administration,
etc) should I choose
to use for this Cloud. I usually choose the one I know best but as I have
mentioned I don't have a Linux operating system I know best.
I am thinking of using CentOS because KVM, which lies at the core of the
Cloud I want to build is actively developed and maintained by RedHat. I
assume
it works best on the operating system these guys develop.

 What other things should I research, what gotchas, what hints do you have
for a Cloud newbie? I want to build Clouds, I really like the concept and
the vision Cloud Computing brings in our times. For this I have to study and
gain experience, I know that. Any kind of thoughts you have
I appreciate them.

Thank you,
v
-- 
network warrior
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