Open Source Amazon EC2? [closed]

Question

Are there any open source applications that provide a set of features similar to that of Amazon EC2 or Rackspace Cloud? Basically, I want a tool that I can install on one or more servers that works with a virtual machine monitor like Xen and lets me create, destroy, and clone virtual machines on the fly using some sort of API.

Answer 1

Similar to what other posters have mentioned, I would recommend Eucalyptus. It can use either Xen or KVM to manage virtual machines through the same Query API that Amazon EC2 provides. It also provides an S3-compatible service for storing files in buckets named Walrus. In case you need proof that you can run it over Xen, here's from the config file for Eucalyptus:

# The hypervisor that the Node Controller will interact with in order
# to manage virtual machines.  Currently, supported values are 'kvm'
# and 'xen'.
HYPERVISOR="xen"

Answer 2

In addition to Eucalyptus, mentioned in other answers, you might also wish to take a look at OpenStack. It's the other major open Amazon AWS-like cloud stack. It's backed by NASA, RackSpace, Citrix, Intel, AMD and Dell, amongst many others.

(Declaration of interests: I am presently providing technical consultancy to Citrix; however, I am answering this question in a private capacity.)

Answer 3

Canonical is the company making Ubuntu. They also Make UEC (Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud) witch is build around Eucalyptus. The architecture of Eucalyptus was design for maximum compatibility with EC2 (Elastic Cloud Computing).

UEC is open source and very easy to use. I personaly put my first cloud together using UEC (9.4).

Answer 4

It might be worth looking into using Eucalyptus with ubuntu, I believe that it might even be what amazon are using for their ubuntu based cloud services.