Consolidating user?s resource provisioning capabilities in cloud federations

Unlike Grid computing, Cloud computing promises to be more flexible, usable, available and simple. Besides, it is expected that it will cover much more computational needs than the ones required to carry out distributed calculations. However, the diversity of cloud providers, the lack of standardised APIs and brokering tools prevent the massive portability of legacy applications to cloud environments. In this presentation, a new framework to effectively schedule distributed calculations in cloud federations will be presented. The system profits from the experience in large and collaborative Grid federations to provide several basic features that differentiates it from other approaches, such as the decentralisation, middleware independence, dynamic brokering, on-demand provisioning of specific virtual images, compatibility with legacy applications, efficient accomplishment of short tasks, etc. In this sense, the mechanisms that allow users to consolidate their own resource provisioning in cloud federations are the focus of this work. To demonstrate the suitability of the new approach, a common application to model radiation beams has been scheduled into the EGI FedCloud.