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The process of requesting resources within the QA testbed infrastructure is managed via the Help Desk and maintained by WP9 Task 2. The Help Desk service, based on JIRA, allows the GÉANT QA testbed request system to request Virtual Machines that have a specified capacity. In particular, the Help Desk service enables the following actions:

  • Creating a Virtual Machine with well-defined capacity and features.
  • Running the VM in the requested time frame.
  • Suspending the VM outside a requested time frame.
  • Closing or deleting a VM.
  • Creating a snapshot of a VM in a specific state.
  • Loading/reloading a VM with a new instance of an operating system (Ubuntu or CentOS).
  • Loading/reloading a VM from a specific snapshot.
  • Re-assigning resources to a VM, if such resources are available.

Info
titleImportant

The Help Desk provides facilities for managing the VM environment at the level of virtual machines. All the aspects related to the maintenance of the particular operating system running on the assigned Virtual Machine are handled by an appointed member of a specific development team, who is given operating system root level privileges.

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When you create an issue to request a VM, you specify the requested OS type, capacity, usage time frame and other important features. In particular:  

  • GN3 development team (e.g. perfSONAR|AutoBAHN|cNIS|I-SHARe)
  • Processor assignment (2GHz, 2x2GHz)
  • RAM memory assignment (2GB RAM, 4GB RAM)
  • HDD space (up to 50GB)
  • OS type (Ubuntu  | CentOS)
  • Time frame  to be booked (from-to or unlimited in case of fixed VMs dedicated to a development team)
  • domain name (e.g. autobahn-1)
  • User to be assigned OS root privileges

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Accessing QA Testbed virtual machine

  Once a VM is created and assigned to the requestor, the VM is available via SSH. Developers are required to login by using SSH keys. In fact, login with passwords for SSH is disabled by default.

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QA Testbed Resources and Limitations

  The QA Testbed delivers virtual machines hosting Linux operating systems (Ubuntu, CentOS), dedicated to GN development teams as demo or testing instances. The QA Testbed hosts VMs assigned permanently to development teams as well as up to 50 Virtual Machines running in parallel and assigned to development teams on a resource-booking basis. Such limitations are due to hardware constraints and a number of assigned public IP addresses.

QA Testbed Procedures

  The procedure for requesting virtual machine resources (with CentOS or Ubuntu OS) in the QA testbed is managed through Help Desk. The GÉANT QA testbed JIRA allows you to request the actions described below. The resource can be requested as a fixed VM (assigned permanently to a development team) or as a temporary VM (assigned for a particular time window). As far as the number of fixed VMs is concerned, initially development teams are assigned to the VMs according to the figures given at the time the requirements were specified. The QA testbed calendar shows the confirmed bookings of VMs that are already running, and can be used to check if resources might be available (approximate number of available resources = overall capacity of the QA testbed - resources assigned to already running VMs at a given date). However, the calendar does not guarantee that there are free resources, as there might be requests that are already being processed. The issue creation timestamp determines the order in which tickets are dealt with and resources assigned to VMs. 

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  1. Create a new issue in the GEANT QA testbed requesting system,
  2. Provide the required information:
    • GN development team, responsible for the VM ( e.g. perfSONAR | GTS | NMaaS )
    • VM type (fixed VM | testing VM). Fixed VM is assigned permanently to a team, whereas Testing VM is assigned within set timeframe.
    • Processor clock assignment (2GHz, 2x2GHz)
    • RAM memory assignment (2GB RAM, 4GB RAM)
    • HDD space (up to 50GB)
    • OS type (Ubuntu | CentOS)
    • Time frame to be booked (start date - end date or unlimited in case of a VM dedicated to a development team)
    • Domain name (e.g. autobahn-1)
    • User responsible for OS-level administration, who is assigned OS root privileges. A member of GN3 development team, responsible for the VM.
    • Summary of activities to be carried out on this machine (integration/system testing, performance testing etc.)

Info
titleImportant
  • Once the VM is created, the issue status changes to “CREATED”.
  • Once the time window begins, the issue status changes to “RUNNING”.
  • When the time window comes to an end, the issue status changes to “SUSPENDED” and the VM is stopped. If the VM is no longer needed, it is turned off and its status changed accordingly.

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Please bear in mind that the operating system with all applications and other dependencies will be replaced with the snapshot you requested.

 
Changing the resource assignment for a particular VM

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