We present our ongoing work building a large Raspberry Pi cluster. One Raspberry Pi can be purchased cheaply and has a low power consumption. Despite of the lack in computing power we see several interesting use-cases for our cluster. One of these is “Bobo” which brings a company like Google, Amazon or alike inside a box that is designed sustainably using material that anyone can obtained from any store. As a result, the anyone can experiment with Bobo running a similar set of services like any other cloud computing service offering company.

1. PROUD TO INTRODUCE
Bobo!
A Raspberry Pi Cluster for all
Pekka Abrahamsson
Dean, professor
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

2. ORIGINAL MISSION – THE REQS
• Build from the scratch a Cloud Computing
Cluster with the following qualities as the
drivers
– Easily affordable
– Enough power for research, services, education
– Small sized (physically)
– Functional, appealing, innovative rack design
– Open Source based software
– Scientifically documented
– Mobile
– Energy cheap, self-sustainable (in terms of energy)
– 0 carbon footprint
– Always Connected to the Internet

3. GETTING STARTED

4. COOL DESIGN

5. MISSION COMPLETED?

6. MISSION COMPLETED?

7. ORIGINAL MISSION

8. THE PUZZLE

10. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
FUTURE OF COMPUTING
• Friendly
• Functional
• Solid
• Economical
• Natural
• Modular
• Accessible
• Removable
• Self-buildable
• Modifyible
• Maintainable
• Transportable
• Zero-mile
production
• Artistic
• Personalizable
• Multi-use
• Timeless
• Recyclable
• Simple
• Sympathetic
• Easy
• Sustainable
• Fun

11. We went back to the
drawing board!

12. TARGET CHARACTERISTICS

13. A collective effort! More than 20 students and staff have been involved so far.

14. Technical specs

15. Bobo’s software
• Like Amazon, offers an infrastructure as a
Service, but
– Flexibility, Robustness, (enough) performance
– 100% controlled by you as it is completely
contained inside the cluster
– Each Raspberry with a minimal DEBIAN image,
which offers RAM availability and CPU performance
• Loads of self-developed software, all open-
sourced, naturally
– Choices of technologies .. bash scripting, python,
NFS, Django, PostgreSQL ..
– A monitor panel for keeping track of each computer
– A control panel for seamless logical subclustering
• Global Bobo Cloud for students’ experimental
projects, data, innovations and scripts

16. Energy use?
• Bobo is energy cheap?!
• ”Slim Bobo” with 40 Raspberries measure the
power consumption of 0.8A = 180 Watts

17. Bobo’s use cases
• While one Bobo costs less than a MacBook Pro,
there are several lucrative opportunities for the use
of Bobo in business and in education

18. It’s not over yet!
• Come up with a great idea on what to do with Bobo and win
one for yourself! .. tinyurl.com/win-a-bobo
• Or, do you want to develop software for Bobo, be part of the
team, just drop a line at bobo.unibz@gmail.com

19. A final note!
Bobo makes
also a great
service tray!

20. SUMMARY
• A startup experiment follows the scientific method which begins with a
clear hypothesis that makes predictions about what is supposed to
happen.
• The startup experimentation is guided by the startup’s vision.
• The goal of every startup experiment is to discover how to build a
sustainable business around that vision.
• The value hypothesis tests whether a product value to customers once
they are using it.
• The growth hypothesis tests how new customers will discover a product
• A Lean startup experiment is also a first product.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news at
tinyurl.com/bobo-is-cool
bobo.unibz@gmail.com
tinyurl.com/win-a-bobo
msson, P., Helmer, S., Phaphoom, N., Nicolodi, L., Preda, N., Miori, L., Angriman, M., Rikkilä, J., Wang, X., Hamily, K.
goloni, S. (2013). Affordable and Energy-Efficient Cloud Computing Clusters: The Bolzano Raspberry Pi Cloud Cluste
ment, CloudCom 2013 - UNICO Workshop: UsiNg and building Cloud Testbeds Workshop, Uk, England.