Mark R. Hinkle

Over the last year I have been working on the CloudStack Open Source Cloud Computing project. This month we are getting ready to launch CloudStack 3.0 which really raises the bar for cloud computing platforms.  So what is CloudStack? It is an infrastructure-as-a-service(IaaS) platform that orchestrates virtualized servers into an elastic compute environment. The project was originally developed by Cloud.com and is now sponsored by Citrix since they acquired Cloud.com in July of 2011. The new dashboard from the CloudStack 3.0 beta CloudStack provides multiple methods for interacting with the CloudStack compute platform. Users can request resources through a rich menu-driven web interface. Operations personnel can use an enhanced version of the web interface or interact with CloudStack’s RESTful API or command line interface (CLI). The new 3.0 UI takes things up a not... (more)

Learning Automatic Configuration Management with Puppet

If you are going to operate a cloud at scale then you most certainly need to use some ways to automate the configuration and other tasks like provisioning when you spin up cloud infrastructure. One of my favorite open source projects for doing this is Puppet sponsored by Puppetlabs. Puppet is a client-server application that allows you define roles and configurations for infrastructure in puppet manifests then deploy those manifests across numerous servers simultaneously. In addition Puppet has another project, the Marionette Collective (MCollective), which allows you to automa... (more)

Is Linux Desktop-Ready Yet...or Not?

Mark R. Hinkle: "Linux is ready for the desktop" In my view, Linux on the desktop is a viable operating system. It offers many features that are more innovative than commercial solutions. Virtual consoles, secure remote access solutions, true multi-tasking, and the ability to use robust journaling file systems all come to mind. Despite these advanced features, I have also noticed some parallels between Linux and some earlier versions of Windows. Let’s term these similarities as “growing pains.” I do feel that there are many cases today where Linux is an inadequate solution, speci... (more)

Case Study: Biocomputing Solutions Using Linux Networx Cluster System

Tulane University is home to the Center for Computational Science (CCS), a unique facility designed to provide computational resources for research projects across many disciplines. The Center provides an infrastructure for investigators interested in computational science to exchange ideas, produce research, and establish new collaborations. The Challenge One of these collaborative efforts involves a team of researchers performing computational simulations of multi-scale models in biological systems. This research is funded through individual research grants from the National I... (more)

Linux.SYS-CON.com Exclusive: What Would UserLinux Look Like?

Last Monday at the Desktop Linux Consortium Conference at Boston University’s Tyngsboro, Massachusetts Campus there was a lot of talk about a “UserLinux” distribution. The topic was sparked by remarks by Bruce Perens who voiced a need for a distribution that was designed to meet community needs for a desktop operating system based on the Linux community favorite Debian distribution. I contacted Bruce who has been kind enough to interject some comments to my own text. They are marked [thus]. The thought of UserLinux sparked my thinking. The thing I like about Linux is that it’s ... (more)