Categories
Cloud Computing

Netflix releases more “Monkeys” as open source – Eucalyptus Cloud will be pleased

As GigaOM reported, Netflix will publish more services similar to its Chaos Monkey and the Simian Army under the open source license on Github in the near future.

The Chaos Monkey

The Chaos Monkey is a service running on the Amazon Web Services which is looking for Auto Scaling Groups (ASG) and terminates instances (virtual machines) for each group randomly. The software is designed flexible enough that it works well on the platforms of other cloud providers. The service is fully configurable, but by default runs on ordinary weekdays from 09.00 until 15.00 o’clock. In most cases, Netflix has written their applications so that they continue to work when an instance has some problems. In special cases, this does not happen consciously, so that their own people have to resolve the problem in order to learn from it. The Chaos Monkey thus runs only a few hours a day so that the developers are not 100% rely on him.

Find more information about the Chaos Monkey and the Simian Army under Netflix: Der Chaos Monkey und die Simian Army – Das Vorbild für eine gute Cloud Systemarchitektur.

More services from Netflix Monkey portfolio

  • Denominator: A tool for managing multiple DNS provider.
  • Odin: An orchestration API that can be called by Jenkins and Asgard, the Netflix deployment tool. It is designed to help developers deploy more convenient.
  • Recipes: These are blueprints, which can be used to roll out several Netflix components together more easy.
  • Launcher:Rolls out the final blueprints by pressing a button.
  • Mehr Monkeys: Other Netflix Monkeys are to follow later this year, including the Conformity Monkey, the Latency Monkey and the Latency Howler Monkey. The Conformity Monkey ensures that all relevant instances are placed equivalent. The Latency Monkey simulates latencies and more errors. The Howler Monkey latency monitor whether a workload meets AWS possible limitations and reports it.

The Chaos Gorilla which randomly simulates the crash of an entire AWS Availability Zone and the Chaos Kong that simulative shoots an entire AWS region should also follow soon.

Comment

Although Netflix would offer its “Monkeys” across multiple clouds, so that e.g. also OpenStack users can refer to it. However, with the steady release of its HA test suite Netflix plays more and more in Eucalyptus hands.

Eucalyptus Cloud lets you build a private cloud based on the basic functions of the Amazon cloud infrastructure. What is at Amazon for example an AWS Availiablty Zone represents in Eucalyptus a “Cluster”. Thus the Netflix tools allow similar HA functionality testing in the private / hybrid cloud, like Netflix already uses it themselves in the Amazon public cloud. In addition, Eucalyptus will certainly integrate the Netflix tools in its own cloud solution in the midterm to have an own HA test in their portfolio.

The release of the Netflix tools under the open source license will strengthen, not least, the cooperation of Amazon Web Services and Eucalyptus but rather make Eucalyptus more attractive for Amazon as a takeover target.

By Rene Buest

Rene Buest is Gartner Analyst covering Infrastructure Services & Digital Operations. Prior to that he was Director of Technology Research at Arago, Senior Analyst and Cloud Practice Lead at Crisp Research, Principal Analyst at New Age Disruption and member of the worldwide Gigaom Research Analyst Network. Rene is considered as top cloud computing analyst in Germany and one of the worldwide top analysts in this area. In addition, he is one of the world’s top cloud computing influencers and belongs to the top 100 cloud computing experts on Twitter and Google+. Since the mid-90s he is focused on the strategic use of information technology in businesses and the IT impact on our society as well as disruptive technologies.

Rene Buest is the author of numerous professional technology articles. He regularly writes for well-known IT publications like Computerwoche, CIO Magazin, LANline as well as Silicon.de and is cited in German and international media – including New York Times, Forbes Magazin, Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Wirtschaftswoche, Computerwoche, CIO, Manager Magazin and Harvard Business Manager. Furthermore Rene Buest is speaker and participant of experts rounds. He is founder of CloudUser.de and writes about cloud computing, IT infrastructure, technologies, management and strategies. He holds a diploma in computer engineering from the Hochschule Bremen (Dipl.-Informatiker (FH)) as well as a M.Sc. in IT-Management and Information Systems from the FHDW Paderborn.

Leave a Reply