In early February, CSTCloud’s YunKun software stack was successfully adopted in Kenya to establish the first GOSC China-Africa cloud federation testbed. As one of the Eastern African regional nodes supported by CSTCloud and the African Open Science Platform, this newly established testbed provides compound solutions to support the interoperability and interconnectivity of research e-infrastructures, thus boosting Open Science and SDGs research in Africa.

This Yunkun software stack is developed and maintained by the China Science and Technology Cloud (CSTCloud) to fulfill the objectives of the Global Open Science Cloud (GOSC) Initiative to connect worldwide research e-infrastructures and stakeholders for open science. As an open-source software stack, YunKun is designed for heterogeneous cloud platform integration to promote resource sharing across platforms. Peer-to-peer protocols and standards have been developed to ensure open, fair, and inclusive collaboration between different stakeholders. To facilitate a better understanding and smooth adoption of Yunkun locally, the CSTCloud team delivered a training workshop during the VizAfrica Summer School, together with the local organizer, the African Institute for Capacity Development (AICAD). During the two-day training, attendees grasped how to utilize the testbed's cloud computing services from IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS levels. Hands-on sessions included creating and managing virtual machines, object storage buckets, and utilizing various applications for research computations and storage operations. Trainees also gained proficiency in a range of open-source tools such as RAW Graphs for data visualization, Jupyter for Python interactive development, H2O.ai for AI model training, and Draw.io for diagramming, enhancing their efficiency in daily research tasks.

The successful establishment of the China-Africa cloud federation testbed represents a significant milestone in enabling cross-continental connectivity and on-demand resource allocation under the GOSC framework. As the GOSC implementation begins its journey in Africa, CSTCloud's YunKun will continue its commitment to open science, fostering collaboration and innovation across borders, ultimately driving cloud technology enabled open science on a global scale (Xueting LI, Yuepeng LI, Lili ZHANG). 

Available from: http://english.cnic.cas.cn/nws/events/202402/t20240221_657314.html