You can find our recent technical report on ad-hoc cloud computing here. The abstract is reprinted below.
Abstract:
We consider how underused computing resources within an enterprise may be harnessed to improve utilization and create an elastic computing infrastructure. Most current cloud provision involves a data center model, in which clusters of machines are dedicated to running cloud infrastructure software. We propose an additional model, the ad hoc cloud, in which infrastructure software is distributed over resources harvested from machines already in existence within an enterprise. In contrast to the data center cloud model, resource levels are not established a priori, nor are resources dedicated exclusively to the cloud while in use. A participating machine is not dedicated to the cloud, but has some other primary purpose such as running interactive processes for a particular user. We outline the major implementation challenges and one approach to tackling them.
I recently gave a presentation to Masters students in the department on my research. It’s probably the longest talk I’ve done on my own work (~50 minutes), so it covers a number of areas: stating why it is I’m doing what I’m doing, the design issues in this area, and an overview of my implementation. You can find handouts of the slides below:
6-Up Slides
1-Up Slides