Collaborative Research: Managing Cloud Usage Allocation and Accounting for the NSF Community

Amazon Web Services、Microsoft Azure、Cornell Red Cloud和SDSC Storage Cloud等云计算平台已成为重要的研究计算资源。这些资源在研究和教育领域已经很受欢迎，因为它们具有即时（按需）访问、看似无限的可扩展性、易于配置以满足广泛不同的需求，以及能够为不太专业的用户提供更高级别的、易于使用的服务。然而，随着NSF社区对云资源的使用不断增长，资源分配、会计、报告和计费等挑战性问题也随之出现。该奖项开发了一个框架，可以简化研究人员和教育工作者的云使用，同时还可以让负责战略和预算规划和报告的人员进行分配、监控和管理。PI与亚马逊公司的合作伙伴，Eucalyptus Systems，Inc.和MathWorks，Inc.来自芝加哥大学的Globus Online团队和康奈尔大学的Red Cloud团队开发和评估了一个名为Globus Usage的原型服务，个人及其研究小组、学术机构、NSF项目和XSEDE可以利用该服务将一系列云服务集成到他们的研究计算环境中，并能够实现分配、会计、报告、和计费都来自一个基于Web的仪表板。

Cloud computing platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Cornell Red Cloud, and the SDSC Storage Cloud have emerged as important research computing resources. These resources are already popular in research and education due to their instant (on-demand) access, seemingly infinite scalability, ease of configuration for widely varying needs, and ability to offer higher-level, easier-to-use services to less-than-expert users. However, as usage of Cloud resources by the NSF community continues to grow, challenging issues of resource allocation, accounting, reporting and billing emerge. This award develops a framework that can simplify Cloud usage for researchers and educators while also enabling allocation, monitoring, and management by those responsible for strategic and budget planning and reporting. The PI's partner with Amazon, Inc., Eucalyptus Systems, Inc., and MathWorks, Inc., theGlobus Online team from the University of Chicago and the Red Cloud team from Cornell University to develop and evaluate a prototype service called Globus Usage that can be leveraged by individuals and their research groups, academic institutions, NSF projects, and XSEDE to integrate a range of cloud services into their research computing environments, with the ability to implement allocation, accounting, reporting, and billing all from a single Web-based dashboard.