Visuaalne IT-infrastruktuuri haldamine
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Date
2013
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Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
IT-infrastruktuur hõlmab IT-süsteemi ressursse: füüsilised arvutid, virtuaalmasinad ja nende vahelised ühendused, samuti tarkvara, protsessorid, mälu, kettaruum ja võrguliidesed. IT-süsteemi haldamiseks on vajalik tarkvara, mis võimaldaks ressursside olekut jälgida ning läbi viia ressurssidega seotud tegevusi. Jälgida saab näiteks mälu kasutust, kettaruumi kasutust, protsessori koormust või süsteemi veateateid. Ressurssidega seotud tegevused on näiteks mälu või kettaruumi jaotamine, virtuaalmasina käivitamine või peatamine, virtuaalmasina üleviimine ühest asukohast teise jms. Samuti on oluline haldamise võimalus kaugarvutist üle võrgu. Tüüpiline stsenaarium on privaatpilv teadusasutustes, kus hulk arvuteid vajavad koostöö koordineerimist.
Eeskätt keskendub töö eelkirjeldatud tarkvara graafilise kasutajaliidese (GUI) kavandamisele. Oluline on sealjuures tarkvara lihtsus, intuitiivsus ja efektiivsus. Süsteemiadministraatoritel on paljusid süsteemihalduse tegevusi harjumuspärasem teha käsurea kaudu. Seetõttu tuleb arvestada, et kõiki tegevusi ei pruugi olla mõtet GUI-sse sisse ehitada. Uuringutes on välja toodud, et GUI-d peetakse süsteemihalduse valdkonnas vähem usaldusväärseks ning vähem efektiivseks. Küll aga pakub GUI võimaluse IT-süsteemi paremaks visualiseerimiseks. Näiteks saab kasutatud kettaruumi kuvada mitte ainult andmeühikutes tekstina, vaid ka graafilise ribana selliselt, et suuremale andmemahule vastab suurem osa ribast. Nii on info paremini hoomatav.
Üks töö osa on olemasolevate lahenduste uurimine. Virtuaalmasinate halduslahendusi pakuvad näiteks VMware, Citrix, Cloudkick, OpenNode jt. Üks juhendajatest, Ilja Livenson, on OpenNode’i arendaja. Lisaks funktsionaalsetele nõuetele võiksid lahendused vastata ka nõuetele, mis puudutavad turvalisust, skaleeritavust, tõrkekindlust ning standardite sobivust. Standardite puhul on oluline, et need oleks avatud ja laialt levinud. Samuti peaks lahendus olema kasutatav mobiiltelefonides, ka siis, kui tegemist on veebipõhise liidesega.
Töö praktiline osa toimub OpenNode’i projektis. OpenNode on avatud lähtekoodiga tarkvara virtualiseeritud serverite haldamiseks. See koosneb kesksest haldusserverist (OpenNode Management Server) ning veebipõhisest halduskonsoolist (OpenNode Management Console). Halduskonsoolil on seni puudu olnud paindlik graafilise visualiseerimise võimalus. Töö raames luuakse komponent nimega VM-map (VM-kaart), mille eesmärk on muu hulgas kuvada füüsilisi masinaid koos nendes olevate virtuaalmasinatega, näidata masinate kohta vajadustele vastavat infot ning luua uusi võimalusi haldustegevuste läbiviimiseks. Näiteks on süsteemi graafilises vaates võimalik ühe hiireliigutusega tõsta virtuaalmasin ühest füüsilisest masinast teise.
IT-infrastructure is comprised of the resources of an IT-system: physical and virtual machines (VMs), network connections, software, processors, memory, storage space and network interfaces. In order to manage IT-infrastructure, special software is needed to monitor and perform actions on these resources. Actions related to resources are, for example, allocating storage, starting and stopping VMs, migrating VMs, etc. It is also important to be able to do management tasks from one remote computer. A typical scenario is a private cloud dedicated to running simulations for scientific research where many computers in a network need to be managed. This thesis looks at how to create an intuitive and efficient graphical user interface (GUI) for this type of software. Some features that system administrators typically use from the command line may not be worth implementing in the GUI. Studies have shown that system administrators tend to consider the GUI as less reliable and less efficient, but still better for the visualization of infrastructure. For example, used disk space can be represented as a graphical bar instead of text for better comprehensibility. A part of the thesis analyses existing management software: VMware, Citrix, Cloudkick and OpenNode. One of the supervisors, Ilja Livenson, is a developer of OpenNode. In addition to functional requirements, the software should meet requirements for security, scalability, fault tolerance and standards compliance. The standards should preferably be open and commonly used. Also, the solutions should work on mobile devices. The practical part of the thesis is done for the open-source server virtualization project called OpenNode. OpenNode consists of a central management server and a frontend for it called OpenNode Management Console (ONC). The frontend has so far lacked a flexible infrastucture visualization component. As part of the thesis, a component called VM-map is implemented, which is used to view physical machines and the VMs within them, to see information about them and to perform actions such as VM resizing and migration.
IT-infrastructure is comprised of the resources of an IT-system: physical and virtual machines (VMs), network connections, software, processors, memory, storage space and network interfaces. In order to manage IT-infrastructure, special software is needed to monitor and perform actions on these resources. Actions related to resources are, for example, allocating storage, starting and stopping VMs, migrating VMs, etc. It is also important to be able to do management tasks from one remote computer. A typical scenario is a private cloud dedicated to running simulations for scientific research where many computers in a network need to be managed. This thesis looks at how to create an intuitive and efficient graphical user interface (GUI) for this type of software. Some features that system administrators typically use from the command line may not be worth implementing in the GUI. Studies have shown that system administrators tend to consider the GUI as less reliable and less efficient, but still better for the visualization of infrastructure. For example, used disk space can be represented as a graphical bar instead of text for better comprehensibility. A part of the thesis analyses existing management software: VMware, Citrix, Cloudkick and OpenNode. One of the supervisors, Ilja Livenson, is a developer of OpenNode. In addition to functional requirements, the software should meet requirements for security, scalability, fault tolerance and standards compliance. The standards should preferably be open and commonly used. Also, the solutions should work on mobile devices. The practical part of the thesis is done for the open-source server virtualization project called OpenNode. OpenNode consists of a central management server and a frontend for it called OpenNode Management Console (ONC). The frontend has so far lacked a flexible infrastucture visualization component. As part of the thesis, a component called VM-map is implemented, which is used to view physical machines and the VMs within them, to see information about them and to perform actions such as VM resizing and migration.