Department of Computer Science
Researcher:
Dr. Cho-Li Wang, Associate Professor (clwang@cs.hku.hk)
Project Title:
Desktop Cloud: Future Generation of Cloud Computing
Project Description:
Desktop Cloud is a new paradigm in Cloud Computing. It utilizes Internet-wide distributed home desktops and workstations to form a virtualized resource-sharing platform. Users of Desktop Cloud connect to the WAVNet, a virtual networking infrastructure for Desktop Cloud, and make use of idle computing resources from some other users on the fly. The usage of P2P Desktop Cloud is as easy as connecting to a Virtual Private Network (VPN); users can gain access to potentially unlimited amount of resources for computation by simple clicks on the user interface.
Project Significance:
Users can join and leave any time they like. Just like P2P file sharing/streaming, the more the users joining the virtual network, the more the computation resource that can be provided. The state-of-art virtualization technology is adopted in our system, such that resource lease and utilization are carried out in the form of virtual machines, which shields the OS heterogeneity problem. Multiple users have secure and customized computation platforms on top of common hardware infrastructures without affecting each other. Users specify the desired resource metrics, and the underlying DHT overlay automatically locates and displays the querying results accordingly. The underlying WAVNet infrastructure provides fast communication between Internet hosts, which is much more efficient than traditional Virtual Private Network (VPN) techniques. When users join and leave, virtual machines are seamlessly and transparently relocated, such that idle resources can be shared for easing the workload of overloaded PCs.
