SI2-SSE: Peer-to-Peer Overlay Virtual Network for Cloud Computing Research

现代云计算系统使用虚拟机技术为用户提供前所未有的灵活性，使企业和个人能够在地理上分布的多个基础设施中按需经济高效地按需部署计算和存储容量。虽然为云计算部署虚拟机的能力得到了广泛支持，但研究人员在构建原型和部署跨多个云提供商的实验研究系统方面面临着越来越多的挑战。特别是，在当今的互联网环境(其中节点通常受到防火墙和网络地址翻译器的限制)中在分布式虚拟机之间提供端到端网络连接需要在仅提供连接所需的代码的开发、测试和维护方面投入大量时间。该项目通过开发开放源码的科学软件元素来解决云计算中的这些连接挑战，该元素允许云的研究人员和用户按需无缝地为分布式虚拟机创建虚拟网络。为此，该项目创建了支持标准互联网协议(IP)的软件定义的虚拟网络，并使用虚拟网络数据包在虚拟机之间的对等(P2P)链路上的隧道传输，以实现可扩展和弹性的消息传递。除了核心的IP-over-P2P虚拟网络外，该软件还提供了一个配置、管理和监控框架，使用户能够轻松部署用于云间研究实验的用户定义的覆盖。该项目开发的开源软件使云计算系统和应用的研究达到了最先进的水平。作为对研发活动的补充，该项目提供培训模块、教程、软件包和预配置的虚拟机映像，允许非专家用户在私有云、商业云和公共云上部署自己的虚拟网络。由于云计算技术日益普及，对经济和社会的重要性与日俱增，该项目的更广泛影响可以惠及广大互联网用户，他们可以从跨多个提供商无缝互联云虚拟机的能力中受益。特别是，利用在线社交网络技术，虚拟网络软件使个人和小团体能够轻松地创建连接个人计算机和多个云资源的社交虚拟专用网络。

Modern cloud computing systems use virtual machine technologies to deliver unprecedented flexibility to users, enabling businesses and individuals to cost-effectively deploy computing and storage capacity on-demand, at scale, across multiple infrastructures distributed geographically. While the ability to deploy virtual machines for cloud computing is widely supported, researchers face increasing challenges in prototyping and deploying experimental research systems that span across multiple cloud providers. In particular, providing end-to-end network connectivity among distributed virtual machines in today's Internet environment (where nodes are often constrained by firewalls and network address translators) requires significant investment of time in development, testing and maintenance of code needed solely to provide connectivity. This project addresses these connectivity challenges in cloud computing by developing an open-source scientific software element that allows researchers and users of clouds to seamlessly create virtual networks on demand for distributed virtual machines. To this end, the project creates software-defined virtual networks that support the standard Internet Protocol (IP) and use tunneling of virtual network packets over Peer-to-Peer (P2P) links among virtual machines for scalable and resilient messaging. In addition to the core IP-over-P2P virtual networking, the software provides a framework for configuration, management and monitoring that enables easy deployment of user-defined overlays for inter-cloud research experiments. The open-source software developed in this project enables advances in the state-of-the-art of research of cloud computing systems and applications. Complementary to research and development activities, this project delivers educational modules, tutorials, software packages, and pre-configured virtual machine images that allow non-expert users to deploy their own virtual networks over private, commercial and public clouds. Because cloud computing technologies are increasingly pervasive and of growing importance to the economy and society, the broader impacts of this project can reach Internet users at large who benefit from the ability to seamlessly interconnect cloud virtual machines across multiple providers. In particular, leveraging online social networking technologies, the virtual network software software enables individuals and small groups to easily create social virtual private networks connecting personal computers and multiple cloud resources.