The unikernel approach should not be limited to cloud workloads. The cloud infrastructure itself must be built around the same principles. Our goal is to be able to unroll a private cloud on a hundred of servers within an hour. The resultant cloud infrastructure should not require any maintenance afterwards. The talk discusses the current progress of Cloudozer in making this vision a reality.

1. Rethinking Foundations
for
Zero-DevOps clouds
Maxim Kharchenko
CTO/Cloudozer
Jan 22, 2016

2. How hard is to setup a cloud?
“It took us almost a year”
“3 months just to setup networking”
“OpenStack does not work”
“Amazon did it”

3. Zero-DevOps cloud
 Our noble goal is to make setting up a cloud as
easy as plugging in Ethernet cables

 Zero-DevOps cloud has a programmer's
interface,
 NO separate interface for an administrator

 The key idea is to use unikernels for cloud
management

4. Zero-DevOps cloud
 [Diagram]

5. Pieces of the puzzle
1.An Erlang-based unikernel (LING)
2.Inter-domain communication w/o the host
kernel
3.Front- and backend drivers implemented in
Erlang
4.Fast packet capture using netmap
5.Unikernelised OpenFlow switch (LINCX)

6. Trivialised cloud infrastructure
 Our noble goal is to make the setup of a new
cloud infrastructure as easy as plugging in
Ethernet cables
 Today's talk discusses pieces of the trivialised
cloud puzzle:
 Erlang-based unikernels
 A unikernelised software switch
 Message passing w/o a kernel
 and more...

7. LING is an Erlang unikernel
 Runs directly on Xen
 Also POSIX, ARM and MIPS baremetal ports
 Optimised for fast startup
 A LING Xen domain starts in 30ms
 Highly compatible with Erlang/OTP from
Ericsson
 Still not a drop-in replacement
 Open source (github.com/cloudozer/ling)

8. Lets run LING
 It is as easy as:

 $ railing image
 $ sudo xl create -c domain_config


9. LING is as fast
 ESTONE test results:
LING Erlang/OTP
Time to
complete
2.612s 2.710s
ESTONES 180,000 171,500

10. LINCX – an OpenFlow switch
 LINCX runs on LING and uses all of Erlang
 Flow tables are (hot-loaded) modules
 OpenFlow rules compiled to Erlang
 Flow tables use pattern matching directly
 Cloudozer rewritten earlier version of the switch
and made it run 100x faster
 Programmable networking is essential for a
cloud
 Open source (github.com/FlowForwarding/lincx)

11. Netmap in LING
 Packet capture is a bottleneck of an OpenFlow
switch
 LING supports netmap-enabled interfaces that
bypass host networking stack
 LINCX with traditional drivers is limited to
<500kpps, netmap drivers reach 1.5-2mln pps


12. 10GbE switch in software
 Netmap-based packet capture makes the
Erlang runtime the bottleneck
 To pave the way for switching 10GbE in
software:
 Use native compilation of Erlang
 Make GC more deterministic
 Keep everything in L3 cache
 Codenamed 'Project L' (see below)

13. Message passing in LING
Container1
Process1 Process2
Container1
Process1
Container2
Process2
Always
worked
Adde
d
Container1
Process1
Box1
Container2
Process2
Box2
Not yet

14. Demo: inter-domain message passing

 %% domain 41
 {42,shell} ! {hi,self()}.

 %% domain 42
 flush().
 Shell got {hi,<41.5>}


(networking not involved)

15. Demo: message-passing works for Python
 Pystraw library (github.com/cloudozer/pystraw)

 %% domain 41
 {0,master} ! hello.

 # domain 0, Python shell
 MESSAGE hello TO master
 pystraw.send(41, shell, “hi”)


16. Self-replication in LING
 Management of VM images is the cornerstone
of the cloud
 LING can make a bootable Xen image from a
running instance

 ling_selfie:make()
 ling_selfie:share()

17. Demo: A native compiler for Erlang
 A part of the Project L
 Semantics of Erlang, syntax is different
 Type inference, no type annotations
 Compiles to LLVM
 Preliminary benchmark showed 8x speed
improvement vs standard Erlang (Black-
Scholes model calculations)

18. Cloudozer 101
 Founded in 2012
 Cloudozer mission: advancement of OS-less
technologies
 Registered in UK, primary place of business:
Kyiv, Ukraine
 Headcount: 6
 cloudozer.com - erlangonxen.org

19. Questions welcome
Thank you