Building Service Platforms using OpenStack and CEPH: A University Cloud at Humboldt University

Abstract

For providing Infrastructure as a Service to the institutes, OpenStack was selected as a platform at the Computer and Media Service of Humboldt University. CEPH was chosen as the storage backend within this platform. The paper describes the project and first results. An overview to OpenStack is given and the results of initial CEPH performance tests are shown. The technical setup is depicted. Moving from traditional data center management to IaaS involves organizational changes as well as changes to service and business models. The first findings of this process are discussed and an outlook is provided.