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Release 0-5-20091121

Student Name: david wendt jr
Mentor Name: Steffen Möller
Title: On-demand Cloud Computing with Amazon EC2 and Eucalyptus Integration
Abstract: In many academic fields, as well as commercial industries, people use clusters to distribute tasks among multiple machines. Many times this is done by packaging a whole operating system disk image and running it in a VM. This project intends to make it easier for Debian to distribute prepared disk images like they distribute CD images now, for the users to recreate or customize these templates with Debian packages and for administrators to host such clusters with Debian.
Public info:

This project will involve:

  1. Packaging Eucalyptus into Debian
  2. By extension, packaging related apps into Debian, such as Ubuntu's vmbuilder and (a free software replacement for) ec2-tools
  3. Find some replacement for ec2-tools, or write one myself from the available documentation.
  4. Create some process using vmbuilder by which the Debian release team can release offical AMIs like Ubuntu
  5. Shipping on time. Every project should have this in mind!

One of the major hurdles to getting Eucalyptus 'fully supported' in Debian will probably be ec2-tools. It's a set of command-line tools released by Amazon -officially- for doing stuff to the official EC2 grid. Unofficially, you can talk to other Eucalyptus clouds by handing it a different cert. However... ec2-tools is encumbered by it's non-free license. The part that makes it non-free is a clause which specifically says you are only allowed to use the tools with Amazon EC2 and not with any other service. Essentially, I'd be breaking the law by being within spitting distance of it.

Other hurdles involve getting VMbuilder working in Debian, and making it so that Debian can release their own AMIs for Eucalyptus and EC2. Once this is all done we should be slightly ahead of Ubuntu - I say 'slightly' because we'll be using free-software management tools for it, instead of Ubuntu's recommendation to install ec2-tools from Amazon and then proceed to violate the license.
Additional info: http://dwgsoc09blog.blogspot.com/search/label/eucalyptus-integration