a raspberry pi cloud
DESCRIPTION
The Raspberry Pi is a small, low-cost ARM-based PC. Instead of using big, heavyweight, x86 servers, could you build an infrastructure cloud using lots and lots of Raspberry Pis? This lightning talk explores the possibility.TRANSCRIPT
Raspberry Pi Cloud:a thought experiment
Richard DownerTwitter: @FrontierTown
GitHub: richardcloudsoft & rdownerPrincipal Engineer @ Cloudsoft Corporation
This presentation is my own work and may not represent the views of my employer
What is a Raspberry Pi?
“The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.”(http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs)
In more detail
• ARM-based SoC with plenty of I/O• 700 MHz ARM11 core• 256 / 512 MB RAM
• Low cost - $25 / $35
The thought experiment
• Could you build a cloud using a cluster of Raspberry Pis, instead of virtualized PCs?
• Is the performance comparable?• Is the cost comparable?• Is it technically possible?
Performance
• Amazon EC2 offers “t1.micro” instances
• Conclusion: slightly inferior
EC2 t1.micro Raspberry Pi
Processor – normal Undisclosed 700 MHz single core
Processor – spiked 2 ECU single core(ECU approx equivalent to 2x 1GHz 2007 era Xeon)
700 MHz single core
Memory 0.615 GB 0.5 GB
Costs
• Model B Raspberry Pi is $35• Scientific researcher built a 32-core cluster
using Raspberry Pis for $1967.21
Costs
• Dell PowerEdge R520 for $2759– List price – discounts almost certainly available
• Intel® Xeon® E5-2440 – 6-cores @ 2.4GHz• 16GB memory, 500GB hard drive• Compared to the Raspberry Pi cluster:– Same RAM– Equivalent to a 16GB SD card in each Pi– 6x 2.4 GHz = 14.4, versus 32x 0.7 GHz= 22.4
Technical issues
• There’s no virtualization, no hypervisor, no PXE boot – just an SD-card based bootloader
• How could we provision the user’s required image automatically?
Technical issues
• A “bootstrap” OS• Starts on Pi reboot• Erases all data on the user partition• Clones the OS image from network storage• Re-boots into the user’s OS
Summary
• Performance – comparable with an EC2 t1.micro
• Cost – 32-core cluster comparable with a heavy-duty PC
• Technical – some issues but it is feasible
Conclusion
• It’s not a completely ridiculous idea!• But this is only a thought experiment…• Not considered:– Physical rack mounting– Network switch port demands– Thermal requirements– Power consumption and distribution– Reliability and lifetime of a Raspberry Pi
References
• Raspberry Pi official website: http://www.raspberrypi.org/
• US boffin builds 32-way Raspberry Pi cluster: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/20/32_way_raspebrry_pi_cluster/
• Dell PowerEdge R520http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/poweredge-r520/fs
• Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2440: http://ark.intel.com/products/64612/
Addendum
• The University of Glasgow’sRaspberry Pi Project: http://raspberrypicloud.wordpress.com/
(thanks to Matthew Broadbent for bringing this project to my attention)