=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=On the Use of Cloud Technologies to Provide Remote Laboratories as a Service
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-945/paper12.pdf
|volume=Vol-945
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ltec/RamaC00RRT12
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==On the Use of Cloud Technologies to Provide Remote Laboratories as a Service==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-945/paper12.pdf
1st International Workshop on Cloud Education Environments (WCLOUD 2012)
On the use of cloud technologies to provide remote laboratories as a service
D. Sánchez, A. C. Caminero, R. Hernández, R. Pastor, S. Ros, A. Robles-Gómez, Ll.
Tobarra
Dep. de Sistemas de Comunicación y Control
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia,
UNED Madrid, Spain
{dsanchez, accaminero, roberto, sros, rpastor, arobles,
llanos}@scc.uned.es
Abstract— Cloud computing is a new paradigm that “computer guided”, since users had to fit their applications to
provides many features with regard to the efficient meet the features of the computer.
management of computing infrastructures. Thanks to it, The cloud allows systems to dynamically provide the
scalable computing infrastructures can be developed, and computing resources their users need, reducing expenses,
lower power consumption can be achieved this being called energy consumption and improving on their scalability [4],
green computing. [5]. Hence, if users want to run some applications in a
Distance education is a solution to the constant necessities cloud, it is the computer which has to “fit” into the needs of
of knowledge our society requires. In order to acquire the users. In the example above, Virtual Machines (VM) can
practical competences in engineering education, the use of be instantiated dynamically to meet the requirements of the
remote laboratories becomes a necessity more than just an
option in the case of distance learning.
users. The cloud system can thereof be considered as a “user
RELATED framework has been developed to permit guided” system, since it is the computing resource that is
structured development of remote laboratories. It presents a adapted to the users’ needs. Furthermore, an appropriate
structured methodology of remote/virtual labs development cloud infrastructure manager (such as OpenNebula [6] or
and also provides common facilities as user management, Eucalyptus [7]) can provide on demand instantiation,
booking, or basic visualization. monitoring, and live migration of VMs. Consequently, fault
In the case that a high number of laboratories and tolerance and scalability are provided.
students use RELATED, handling such amount of Another important point to keep in mind is the power
information becomes a major issue for the proper consumption of the computers [5]. According to [8],
functionality of RELATED. This paper proposes the use of datacenters now drive more in carbon emissions than both
cloud technologies to enhance RELATED and to tackle these Argentina and the Netherlands. Thus, cloud infrastructures
issues, and describes the cloud- based architecture under should be managed trying to reduce the power consumption
development at UNED. of the computers, along with keeping efficient utilization of
machines – this being called green computing.
Keywords-virtual remote laboratories; cloud; scalability;
The evolution of education and the increase in the
knowledge necessities our society requires have created
I. I NTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION significant changes with regard to the way how the learning
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on- process takes place. Nowadays, there is a constant need to
demand network access to a shared pool of configurable improve, to keep our knowledge up-to-date or to obtain
computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, knowledge on new topics – this being specially true in the
applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned case of technical studies, where technology is constantly
and released with minimal management effort or service evolving. Distance education is a solution to this problem,
provider interaction [1]. This new paradigm provides many since it allows students to obtain practical knowledge
benefits, among others [2] [3], lower cost of ownership, more without the space and time constraints of classical face-to-
efficient use of technical staff, cloud computing saves time, face education thus allowing them to fit their studies into
money and shortens production cycle, organizations can their possibly tight schedules.
store more data than on private computer systems, or cloud In our case, the National Distance Education of Spain
computing offers much more flexibility than past computing (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, UNED), is
methods. the largest university in Spain, with more than 200,000
The cloud represents a shift from the previous computing students. We provide totally distant education, so the use the
architectures in which computers had static software use of remote laboratories to obtain practical knowledge on
features, thus making users of such resources “fit” into those technical topics becomes a necessity more than just an
features. For example, if a shared computer has a Linux option. For this, RELATED framework [9] has been
operating system installed along with some programs and developed to permit structural development of remote
libraries, users willing to run their applications on it had to laboratories. It presents a structured methodology of
make sure that their applications could run on such system. remote/virtual labs development and also provides common
Hence, the use of computing systems could be considered as facilities as user management, booking, or basic
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1st International Workshop on Cloud Education Environments (WCLOUD 2012)
visualization. In the case that a high number of laboratories
and students use RELATED, handling such amount of Current applied for
electomagnetic field
information and such workload becomes a major issue for Position setpoint
the proper functionality of RELATED. Besides, the use of measured from MAGLEV
Ball position
cloud computing allows the adaptation of the RELATED Position
setpoint sent to levitator
infrastructures in order to fit it to the current or forecasted PIV
workload, thus allowing us to reduce expenses in terms of Controller parameter for ball position
PIV
power consumption. Controller parameter for ball position
This paper proposes the use of cloud technologies to PIV Controller parameter for ball position
enhance RELATED and to tackle these issues. The structure PIV
Controller parameter for ball position
of this paper is as follows. Section II briefs the RELATED PI
framework, Section III presents the extensions harnessing Controller parameter for current
PI Controller parameter for current
Section IV presents conclusions and future work. PIV Feedforward Controller: Ball
position
II. RELATED FUNDAMENTALS
RELATED framework [9], [10] proposes a structured Figure 1. XML example
methodology of remote/virtual labs development and, also,
provides common facilities as user management, booking,
basic visualization (trend graphs and direct interaction using
interactive variables), data logging and experimental
session’s control. A RLAB (Remote LABoratory) system is
defined using a formal specification (which is LEDML,
based on XML).
The RELATED structure is based on the module
paradigm that leads to a structured development strategy.
This way, laboratories are developed in a more rational way,
reducing development times and optimizing human
resources. With RELATED there is no need to start from
scratch in the process of remote laboratory development.
The main component in RELATED is an experiment,
which is defined on the laboratory XML specification.
Experiments are composed of modules and views.
Modules are developed by the lab designer in order to Figure 2. RLAB Publish Application
provide local access to laboratory equipment. These
modules, which are run-able entities, are started by the tag defines the laboratory variables that can be
RELATED facilities in order to get/set data from/to the modified in the RELATED Experiment Control Panel.
laboratory equipment. This data will be sent over the Internet Once the XML file is ready, the last step is the publishing
to the RELATED client too. of the laboratory. For doing that a RLAB Publish
The other basic entity of a RELATED laboratory Application is provided. This application parses the XML
(RLAB) is the view. A view provides a Graphical User file then uploads to RELATED Server the files needed for
Interface (GUI) to the final user. These views use data from running the lab, and then, the application keeps running on
modules to update the experiment visualization. It is possible the lab machine to provide access to lab equipment. Figure 2
the updating of the modules values from the view entity. shows the publish application.
Java is used to develop modules and views. In the case of
views there are several utilities that simplify the
programming process. Easy Java Simulations (EJS) [11] is a
free authoring tool that helps non-programmers to create
interactive simulations and GUI in Java. GLG Toolkit [12] is
another option to simplify the development of the view
modules.
Once every module is developed, the next step is to
prepare the XML file that is the definition of the laboratory.
There are tags for experiments, views and modules. Inside a
tag there should be an tag that
specifies the coded entity of the module.
Figure 1 show an example of the XML laboratory
definition where it can be seen how a module is defined. The Figure 3 Experiment Control Panel
58
1st International Workshop on Cloud Education Environments (WCLOUD 2012)
The Experiment Control Panel is the place where most of • Data base: Keeps information on the labs, and their
the activity of the remote lab takes place. To get this panel is available time slots.
neccesary to login in the RELATED Server, select one of the • RLab control web server: Works as a reference server,
experiments available for the user and then, login into the grants access to the labs based on permissions (as described
experiment. in [9]).
Not all of the experiments registered on the RELATED • Load balancer: Balances the incoming connections
Server are available to every user. When the student logs into from users between the servers available at each moment.
the experiment, he/she reserves a time slot, this slot time is An example of load balancer could be Nginx [14].
assigned to avoid multiples concurrent users and can be set • Monitor: Performs the monitoring of the servers. It
using the booking system provided for RELATED so a start checks several parameters such as their CPU or memory
and a finish date is assigned to the running experiment and usage. An example of monitor could be Ganglia [15].
the user. The experiment control panel shows a clock to • Virtual Infrastructure Manager (VIM): Performs the
indicate to the student the time remaining to do the deployment of virtual machines (VMs) running the web
experiment. server. It adapts the infrastructure (by means of deploying
Also RELATED log into the server all the events done VMs in a public cloud provider such as Amazon Elastic
during the experimental session this way, a concrete Compute Cloud, EC2 [16]) in order to meet the current
experimental session can be perfectly reproduced in future. workload. An example of VIM is OpenNebula [6].
This is specially useful in a learning environment in which In order to provide scalability, a sharding architecture
the experimental sessions must be evaluated. As a [15] can be implemented for the database, in which it can be
counterpart, all these facilities lead to high server loads. split into a number of databases. Each database would hold a
In a environment with lots of laboratories and lots of subset of the data (the shards), where shards can be
students, could be difficult to manage such high quantity of replicated to provide fault-tolerance and scalability. Besides,
information so cloud technology could be used to enhance concerning the load balancer, load monitor and the VIM,
RELATED, optimizing university resources. other machines could be set to back them up in the case of
failures. Even more, data in our local premises can be de-
III. R EMOTE LABORATORIES AS A SERVICE duplicated [18] so that no data are lost in the case of local
UNED is working on harnessing cloud technology to failures.
manage its technological infrastructure, so that fault- On the other hand, in order to provide efficient quality of
tolerance, scalability, and low power consumption are service (QoS), a load forecasting technique could be
achieved. In order to provide the before mentioned benefits, implemented, similarly to [13]. This way, resources could be
a cloud based architecture is under development at UNED. allocated based on the expected workload we plan to receive
Similarly to [13], a cloud based architecture can be so that the system is adapted to it. This way, the system
implemented to improve on the scalability of RELATED. could be made of as less machines as possible (thus saving
This architecture will rely on cloud and virtualization power), but at the same time it could be providing efficient
principles to provide efficient and scalable use of service to its users – thus providing green computing.
RELATED.
This architecture is presented in Figure 4, and has the IV. C ONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
following components: Thanks to cloud computing, a number of benefits
• RLab component servers: One for each laboratory. can be obtained with regard to the management of
Provides access to the lab it is connected to (as described in computing infrastructures, such as lower power
[9]). consumption and improved system utilization. This paper
Figure 4. Proposed Architecture
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1st International Workshop on Cloud Education Environments (WCLOUD 2012)
presents the efforts carried out at UNED, the largest [10] R. Pastor, D. Sánchez, N. Aliane, R. Hernndez, A. Robles- Gómez,
university of Spain, aimed at extending a remote laboratories A. Caminero, S. Ros, G. Díaz, and M. Castro, “Practical
experiences on building structured remote and virtual laboratories
technology with cloud principles. This remote laboratory from the student’s point of view,” in Proc. of the ASEE/IEEE
technology (called RELATED), has been in use in our Frontiers In Education Conference (FIE), Seattle, USA, 2012.
university for several years with satisfactory results. The [11] Francisco Esquembre, Easy Java Simulations: a software tool to
current paper explains the developments being made in create scientific simulations in Java, Computer Physics
our university in order to extend RELATED with cloud Communications, Volume 156, Issue 2, 1 January 2004, Pages 199-
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT City, USA, 2011.
The authors would like to acknowledge European Union [14] Nginx, Web page at http://wiki.nginx.org, Date of last access:
October 25, 2012.
Leonardo Project 142788-2008-BG-LEONARDO-LMP, and
Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the Project [15] M. L. Massie, B. N. Chun, and D. E. Culler, “The Ganglia distributed
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AU T H O R I N F O RM AT I O N
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