# Cloud Computing with OpenStack, AWS, and the FreeBSD AWS AMI - A Short Overview



## neogeo (Nov 28, 2015)

Though it diverges topically towards a primarily Linux-oriented architecture -- topically, as towards the origins of the _Xen Project, _the _Xen Hypervisor_, and concepts of _software defined networking_ (SDN) with the Xen framework, as Xen being a project developed originally in the Linux developers ecosystem -- I thought it might be appropriate to share some albeit "Broad scoped" observations about cloud computing with _OpenStack_. Perhaps it could serve to provide any manner of an informative perspective, with regards to a broader concept of the State of the Art in _cloud computing._

Broadly: OpenStack is adopted by a number of commercially sponsored service frameworks, including IBM Bluemix (Bluemix), Digital Ocean (DO), and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Not a closed-source framework, OpenStack is documented, extensively, with a series of in-depth _technical manuals_. Furthermore, books may be found about OpenStack from commercial book services such as _Amazon.com_ and _Safari Books Online_. No doubt, a quick review of academic literature would also serve to present a variety of content with regards to OpenStack applications -- such as with a quick search of Citeseer, in a topical query: _OpenStack virtualization_.

Personally, I'm writing this article around a time of having begun to apply the FreeBSD 10 AMI (upstream) in an application -- as the AMI is constructed about -- onto the AWS _Elastic Compute Cloud_ (EC2). In albeit a "Long way around," the application of the AMI is in a project that I've begun for a purpose of developing a "Self hosted' instance of the WordPress.org content management software. Having begun a simple web log at WordPress.com, it seems to me that the ideal WordPress hosting arrangement would involve a certain quality of "DIY Development." As an application onto the AWS _Cloud _network, this project -- of course -- involves a certain application of the OpenStack architecture as implemented at AWS. More narrowly, I'll be applying a t2.micro instance with EBS filesystem onto the Amazon.com AWS S3 service, as well as a database onto the AWS RDS service -- all of these services being available in the AWS _free_ tier. The AWS management layer, of course, presents an interface not very much like a shell command console, but there is an API for AWS orchestration -- an API as represented formally of the AWS SDK in any single implementation onto a single programming language (AWS SDK for Ruby, Java, others) -- and even a _plugin_ for the Eclipse IDE, principally as an application of the AWS SDK.

Personally, I estimate -- that as _between_ the discretely logical design of the AWS _service mix_ and the very straightforward design of the FreeBSD _kernel_, broader FreeBSD _base system_, and FreeBSD _ports_ framework -- that it serves as a great opportunity for studying more about _how cloud computing is being done_, in real-world applications specifically at AWS. Not as though to develop too much of a "High level" view of the conceptual content of the AWS cloud, however: The set of possible applications of FreeBSD, in this context, may not be limited to the set of singular applications of the FreeBSD AMI. Not only is there a veritable wealth of possibility of applications of FreeBSD in a context of AWS Software Defined Networking (SDN) and component-oriented data/computing services, but -- more specifically in regards to OpenStack _upstream_, perhaps there could even be a possibility of applying _Bhyve _as a hypervisor in an OpenStack _service mix_.

I would  not want to pepper the page with to many of buzzwords. That there are a number of books about broad concepts of Service Oriented Architecture, personally I tend to wish to read more about the details of individual modeling specifications, such as of the MOF framework developed at the Object Management Group (OMG), candidly with my not being too much a fan of so much of a perhaps fairly _breezy _coverage about any single conceptual scheme with regards to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts. MOF itself is a _meta-metamodel_, principally applied in the UML, SysML, BPMN, ODM, SPEM, and other formal _metamodels_ -- as all developed of the OMG standards tracks applied about concepts of a sense of an Object Modeling Architecture (OMA), a sense of a Model Driven Architecture (MDA), and other buzzword-heavy concepts. That it represents principally a logical model, but it might not seem to a very detailed framework, outside of any single applications. So far as UML may be applied for illustrating the architecture of any single cloud computing framework, perhaps it may ultimately be of some use as with regards to systems administration tooling, in a context of cloud computing.

OpenStack itself is being applied at  IBM Bluemix (Bluemix), Digital Ocean (DO), and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Personally, I would not want to seem as if to "Crash the party," socially, as with regards to the ecosystems respectively of FreeBSD development, Linux Development, and OpenStack development. That it may seem to be a long stretch from that, to the Samsung Tizen framework, I believe it may find a manner of a logical "Arc", however, as in a manner of a correlation with regards to DevOps tooling, if not as to develop a FreeBSD "fork" of so many components of the Samsung Tizen framework as of the OS kernel, OS baseline system, and OS packages/ports components -- albeit, a project probably not as trivial to complete, as simple as it may be to denote such a simple idea, in writing.

In a context of Samsung developer projects, there's also Samsung KNOX, incidentally -- perhaps more towards a topic for the HardenedBSD forums, however. KNOX is not expressly an open-source framework, in itself, though it applies a Linux kernel in the Android platform, in an _enterprise _context.

Understanding that a FreeBSD fork could be developed of any single originally Linux-based framework. not to belabor a topic of _Turing Completeness_, it seems to me that there is a wide area of opportunity in FreeBSD development _on the cloud._


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