Cloud Computing is a rapidly growing branch of distributed computing. A vertical implementation of a cloud architecture could be used to replace a traditional computer lab within an educational setting. However, to do this the architecture requires a middleware that can communicate across nodes. This paper discusses a middleware developed in Python that uses sockets to communicate between compute nodes and the head node within such an architecture. Specifically, the middleware uses a socket connection between a client program installed on the head node and server programs installed on each compute node to poll the compute nodes for information. It then uses that information to carry out a load balancing algorithm that checks the available resources on each compute node and starts a virtual machine(VM) on the node with the most available resources. This paper will discuss in detail how these functions are accomplished.
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