CETIC

Research in Cloud Computing for Belgian SMEs.

Corentine Biron, Stéphane Mouton — 2010-08-27T15:45:57Z

Cloud Computing has certainly flustered one of 2009's most important buzzes on the Internet in the field of IT. Through research projects in which it takes part, CETIC has already grasped the concept of Cloud Computing long before it reached its current popularity. The first approach towards Cloud Computing made by CETIC was concerning Cloud infrastructure management. CETIC is now focusing on the architecture of applications that run on the Cloud to help Walloon companies gaining benefits from Cloud Computing.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud Computing is a recent trend in the IT industry who's goal is to move data and computer processing from PC desktops and laptops to larger "data centers" filled with servers. The term “Cloud Computing” is used both for naming applications delivered as a service over the Internet and to describe the infrastructure, in other words the hardware and the system softwares of data centers, which provide these services. The availability of high speed (wireless) network connections, the decrease of storage costs together with new improved software to build Cloud infrastructure (such as virtualization) or to develop applications in cloud architectures (application frameworks) have led the development of Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing allows companies to deal with peaks of IT resource needs, reduce costs and investment and try out new services at low cost. In addition, the concentration of investments in data centers allow to deploy more energy-efficient equipment.

Why is CETIC involved in Cloud Computing?

Interest of CETIC for Cloud Computing began well before this evolution of IT was named. Grid Computing is a major research topic of CETIC in distributed systems. One of the goals of Grid Computing is to allocate computing resources (storage and computing power) according to users needs abstracting them of the origin of thoses resources, as it happens for electrical energy (hence the name, referring to the power grid). However this allocation is based on static, fixed, pools of available resources. Gradually the need to dynamically use external resources appeared, as well as how to achieve this goal. The European project BEinGRID, aimed at experimenting Grid technologies in the industry, is an illustration of this evolution. When the project, whose CETIC greatly contributed, began, only Grid technologies were considered. Technical evolution of Grid tools and business constraints of cost reduction and investment optimization led to put Cloud Computing at the center of the project in its end.

Cloud Computing as infrastructure management: IaaS

CETIC identifed this evolution of Grid Computing to Cloud in other research projects in which the Centre participated and adapted its research efforts accordingly. In particular, two separate research themes emerge within Cloud Computing: Cloud Virtual Infrastructure Management and development of distributed applications in a Cloud environment. Advances in virtualization software have opened the door to new ways of managing IT infrastructures. Once a virtual machine can be efficiently run on a "real" physical server, can be stopped, saved in a file and then relaunched in its previous state, it became possible to manage pools of servers in datacenters. Vendors of virtualization software began to offer virtual machine management tools while Research adapted Grid Infrastructure management software (provisioning, migration of virtual machines based on resource allocation policies, ...) to Cloud Computing. The purpose of these tools is to provide users with on demand IT infrastructure, also called IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). CETIC filed research proposals on this topic and participates in the European FP7 RESERVOIR project on virtualized infrastructure management. At the time of project creation, the term Cloud Computing was not coined and the project name evokes the idea of being able to draw from a pool of virtualized computing resources on demand. One of the objective of the project is to allocate resources according to strategies: performance strategy (if possible, each virtual machine runs on a separate physical server), energy saving (virtual machines are grouped on the same servers allowing to power off idel ones), etc.. In the project, CETIC tests, evaluates and contributes to developement of infrastructure management tools on its own datacenter. CETIC is also making RESERVOIR results available to companies through trainings. Finally CETIC deployed virtualization on its IT infrastructure and will manage its next test and developement environment, about to be acquired, as a private Cloud Computing infrastructure.

Impact of cloud computing in applications architecture: PaaS SaaSS

When a cloud computing infrastructure is set up, an efficient way to use distributed resources (processing power and storage capacity) still has to be found. Part of this problem comes from the Grid Computing area ; and CETIC uses its experience in Grid to address it. For instance, the application framework concept, that organizes the software and prevent developers from managing themselves load and data distribution, comes from the Grid world, and its adaptation to Cloud Computing is a major interest for the research community. CETIC focuses its Cloud computing research fields around the tools and processes that provide developers with a PaaS environment (or Platform as a Service), which increases usability and productivity. Research community becomes more and more interested into PaaS concept. From now on, CETIC deals with process distribution frameworks, such as Hadoop. This software has been primarily chosen by our Semantic and Search Engine team, as it is used to manage indexing process distribution of the Nutch search engine in a distributed environment. Non or semi-relational databases, able to handle huge amount of data in a Cloud infrastructure, are part of the research topics of CETIC as well. Finally, CETIC analyses how to develop and release softwares on the Cloud for SaaS (Software as a Service). Specific issues to be addressed in Cloud computing area are security, accounting and graphic user interfaces (GUI).

At the begining, CETIC became interested in Cloud computing as it was the extension of Grid computing, in terms of infrastucture management ; which consolidated our experience in that domain. The objectives of the centre are now to continue its investigations in PaaS and SaaS, so that we help Walloon businesses to make benefit of Cloud computing.

Stéphane MOUTON

IT-Tude.com - Grid and Cloud Computing for Business

Bérengère Fally — 2009-12-15T10:11:04Z

IT-Tude.com connects emerging ICT research with business solutions, and offers your organization the opportunity to use this new and dynamic online platform for your own outreach.

CETIC is coordinating IT-Tude.com and is in this context helping the Belgian SMEs with Grid and Cloud technologies' developments which can benefit them.

IT-Tude.com covers the newest and most promising technology and services: Cloud and Grid Computing, Virtualization, Software as a Service (SaaS) and more. IT-Tude.com delivers:

• use-cases to relate to your business needs, especially for the SME

• neutral and dependable analysis to better advise you

• technology expertise to fulfill your IT side of operations

• emerging services and technologies to highlight future research

• and most of all: the link and online visibility that lets your organization jump onboard

As you submit content related to your organization's research or business focus, we offer you online visibility that can be updated as you see fit. It's this participation that makes IT-Tude.com distinct from the rest: we connect the content with those involved, providing further service in expanding your network while maintaining the site rich with content, both from our end and yours.

IT-Tude.com is brought to you by Atos Origin, CETIC, EPCC (University of Edinburgh) and the National Technical University of Athens, and was developed from the BEinGRID project.

We look forward to connecting your organization.

You can reach us at connect@it-tude.com

CETIC wins the 2nd LANTRONIX Annual Wireless Design Contest in San Jose (CA)

Damien HUBAUX — 2009-04-20T12:11:03Z

CETIC wins first prise in the 2nd Annual Wireless Design Contest with its SAND (Smart Adaptable Network Device) topping more than 200 contestants. Considered the most innovative entry of the contest organised by the american company LANTRONIX, The SAND proposes an intelligent embedded solution for fast, custom prototyping. CETIC was present at the LANTRONIX's booth during the « Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley » on April 4th in San Jose, California to show the winning device and to collect the $6.000,00 US prise money.

More information about CETIC : www.cetic.be

More information about LANTRONIX : www.lantronix.com (The Wireless Design Contest)

60. Security Micro-Assessment

Christophe PONSARD — 2009-03-28T17:48:15Z

The security micro evaluation is used to evaluate security maturity and help companies to prioritize security investments needed to cover security. This very light assessment can be repeated on a regular basis (every 6/8 month) and clearly underline the improvement and maturity evolution. Practically

Service

Do you want to quickly analyse the current status of security in your organization? Do you want to identify your strengths and weaknesses? Do you want to improve your security practices with a quick ROI?

We provide a lightweight global assessment of security practices in terms of security organization and security practices

As a result we highlight the current strengths and weaknesses and identify practical improvement solutions. This micro-assessment can also be used to analyze some practices in much more details.

40. Software Development Effort Estimation

Christophe PONSARD — 2009-03-28T17:38:22Z

Producing accurate estimation of software development effort is a challenge with a high impact on the project organization and schedule. Currently, it still often relies on past experience.

Expertise

CETIC has developed an expertise in this area based on the COSMIC 3.0, one one of the largely used methods of sizing software estimation. COSMIC 3.0 is based on objective criteria and rules allowing repetitiveness of measures. The method is applicable early in the software lifecycle, already at specifications level and it is completely independent of software development technologies and methods.

Services

The following effort estimation services are provided:
Functional size, effort and cost estimation for sizing internal development or as part of a invitation to tender process
Training IT companies in software functional size and development effort estimation

Success stories

Successful effort estimation a wide-scale web application for a European commission administration and a modular application to be used jointly by five Belgian federal and regional parliaments

10. Requirements Engineering

Christophe PONSARD — 2009-03-28T17:31:04Z

In the context of a software system, Requirements engineering (RE) is the process of discovering its purpose by identifying stakeholders and their needs, by documenting these in a form that can be analysed, communicated, and subsequently implemented. RE plays a critical and fundamental role within the software development process. Several studies have shown that it is one of the most critical success factors for on-schedule and within budget delivery of software projects. In today's global development environment, it remains more important than ever to “get the requirements right”.

Expertise

CETIC has developed a strong expertise in RE covering the whole spectrum of methods and application contexts, from lightweight methods combining structured templates and graphical (UML-based) notations to rigorous models that enable a model-engineering approach with deep verification and validation at requirements time. CETIC expertise especially relies on the use of goal-oriented methodologies developed at UCL and for which CETIC is actively maintaining and developing tool support (FAUST project).

Services

CETIC is actively helping enterprises in field related to requirements engineering by:
Improving RE practices through the audit of current RE process, the delivery of specific training, the development of company-tuned templates and coaching on concrete projects.
Assessing the quality requirements documents, identifying areas of problems (ambiguities, incompleteness, inconsistencies, etc.) and defining acceptance plan.
Conducting requirements analysis and producing precise requirements documents in a specific context, typically as part of an invitation to tender process.
Helping in the selection of an adequate solution based on functional and non-functional requirements, possibly also as part of evaluation of tenders.
Formal modelling at early stage and specific verification and validation activities, possibly as support for certification.

Success story

In 2008, CETIC has performed a complete analysis of a complex access control system for seven Belgian parliaments at regional and federal levels. This mission covered a full requirements analysis based on goals and UML use cases, high level and detailed architectural design and comparative technology analysis.

30. Code quality assessment

Christophe PONSARD — 2009-03-28T17:28:58Z

While process quality is an enabling condition for delivery quality products, measuring product quality is required. A number of key characteristics to check at code level are maintainability and evolvability.

Expertise

CETIC had adapted a metrics-based approach and integrated tools for performing precise code level measurements. The approach allows to generate clear reports allowing project managers or developers to easy interpret the results relying on pertinent diagrams. These help in the decision making process and suggest improvements that can be quickly undertaken.

Typical question that can be answered are the following:
What is the quality of this code?
Is it worth maintaining or should (a part of) it be redeveloped?
Is this component trustful?
Does this third-party application respect our standard quality requirements?
What part of this code requires in-depth testing?

Service

Code analysis is proposed in a variety of contexts such as:
Continuous code assessment during project development to assess delivery maturity
Internal assessment of code subject to evolution or legacy code
External quality assessment of the delivery quality in a client-provider relationship
Validation of maturity of open-source components (see also CELLAVI)

The direct customer benefits are the reduction of development time through a continuous evaluation of quality, the reduction of maintenance costs by strategic decision making about bad parts, improved confidence in the code quality and a supported decision process.

The code analysis relies on third party parsers and currently integrates support for Java, Delphi, C, C++ and C#.

Success Stories

Many code audit analysis have been carried out, especially in a public sector context for the French Community Parliament (evaluation of open-source components, assessment of newly developed components) and software editors (e.g. in CRM domain).

Support in the selecting and implementing Grid middleware / SOA

Damien HUBAUX, Michael Van de Borne — 2009-03-27T16:08:25Z

CETIC, by its participation in various projects of the 6th and 7th Framework Program in Grid and Cloud computing (HPC4U, CoreGRID, GridTrust, AssessGrid, BEinGRID, RESERVOIR) has acquired an extensive and up-to-date expertise in distributed and virtualized processing technologies related to service-oriented architectures.

This service typically includes, in whole or in part, assistance to undertake the following activities:
State of the art and definition of strategic choices and technology,
Drafting of specifications,
Monitoring of the tender,
Preparation and execution of a benchmark,
Development of Proof of Concept (PoC),
Hosting on PoC infrastructure in CETIC,
Workload performance measurements of the target infrastructure,
Deployment of the solution,
...

SaaS feasibility audit

Damien HUBAUX, Michael Van de Borne — 2009-03-27T16:08:05Z

Market interest into Software as a Service business model is a strong trend that affects all software vendors. For them, the challenge is to reach new markets, but also to retain customers who would impose in the future this model to their suppliers.

This service aims to help a software vendor in its thinking about the technical and economic feasibility of offering all or part of its bundled software in SaaS mode. Our approach is based on a questionnaire that helps identifying critical points that should be taken into consideration in order to base the decision on objective, documented and verified criteria. We propose to proceed in 3 phases and treat primarily the technological aspects in order to determine:

The necessary changes to applications under the SaaS mode;
The constraints of operating in terms of tools and computing capabilities and storage;
The definition of the SLAs that the vendor wishes to offer its customers.

These elements will determine, in the second phase, the total cost of investment in applications, the recurrent costs of maintenance and rental costs of the infrastructure to power. These steps will allow, in a third phase, to explore business models that could ensure financial feasibility of the SaaS project via an analysis of profitability of the project.

Indexing Digital Content

Damien HUBAUX, Joseph Roumier — 2009-03-27T16:01:34Z

CETIC offers services for content indexing and knowledge extraction from unstructured data. This expertise allows to propose tailored search engines, automated processes for websites migration and Web Intelligence tools. Searching for a technology partner in these domains? Feel free to contact us!

Semantic extraction from unstructured data

CETIC is able to automatically extract content from Web pages, using reverse engineering techniques, while preserving the meaning of data. Hence, web based data migration is simplified, and tracking Web content like press releases, product catalogues, news, etc. gets easier.

CETIC can act as a technology partner during a migration process, or to implement tailored dashboards.

Creating tailored search engines

CETIC is able to develop tailored search tools.

Customisation allows for more comprehensive and fresh pages databases, to handle specific file types, as well as to implement semantic search capabilities.

CETIC has a strong expertise in all the steps involved in search engine development:
crawling, i.e. discovering and collecting web pages or files
indexing, i.e. transforming information into a searchable structure
defining and implementing search user interfaces

Applications

focused search engines
intranet search engines
search engines for product catalogues
general-purpose public search engines (several million pages)