Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

sddc

Cool Tool: SDDC Discovery aka bringing back “Maps”

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You still recall the days where you had the awesome map view in the vCenter Client? That unfortunately was removed from the Web Client. A shame as it was very useful for troubleshooting and seeing relationships between components of their stack. Guess what?! We just released a fling where we show you a map of your VMware products and how they are connected. I think it is brilliant to have that fling made available, and it would even be better if we can get this in to our products at some point. If you want to test it out, go to the SDDC Discovery Tool fling page and download it, don’t forget to leave feedback!

Awesome tool if you ask me, very useful, and if I can do a feature request, I would love to see some sort of grouping for the hosts which belong to the same cluster. Maybe stack the hosts in a cluster object and allow to drill down to see them all. Just a thought.

Hyper-Converged is here, but what is next?

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Last week I was talking to a customer and they posed some interesting questions. What excites me in IT (why I work for VMware) and what is next for hyper-converged? I thought they were interesting questions and very relevant. I am guessing many customers have that same question (what is next for hyper-converged that is). They see this shiny thing out there called hyper-converged, but if I take those steps where does the journey end? I truly believe that those who went the hyper-converged route simply took the first steps on an SDDC journey.

Hyper-converged I think is a term which was hyped and over-used, just like “cloud” a couple of years ago. Lets breakdown what it truly is: hardware + software. Nothing really groundbreaking. It is different in terms of how it is delivered. Sure, it is a different architectural approach as you utilize a software based / server side scale-out storage solution which sits within the hypervisor (or on top for that matter). Still, that hypervisor is something you were already using (most likely), and I am sure that “hardware” isn’t new either. Than the storage aspect must be the big differentiator right? Wrong, the fundamental difference, in my opinion, is how you manage the environment and the way it is delivered and supported. But does it really need to stop there or is there more?

There definitely is much more if you ask me. That is one thing that has always surprised me. Many see hyper-converged as a complete solution, reality is though that in many cases essential parts are missing. Networking, security, automation/orchestration engines, logging/analytic engines, BC/DR (and orchestration of it) etc. Many different aspects and components which seem to be overlooked. Just look at networking, even including a switch is not something you see to often, and what about the configuration of a switch, or overlay networks, firewalls / load-balancers. It all appears not to be a part of hyper-converged systems. Funny thing is though, if you are going on a software defined journey, if you want an enterprise grade private cloud that allows you to scale in a secure but agile manner these components are a requirement, you cannot go without them. You cannot extend your private cloud to the public cloud without any type of security in place, and one would assume that you would like to orchestrate every thing from that same platform and have the same networking / security capabilities to your disposal both private and public.

That is why I was so excited about the VMworld US keynote. Cross Cloud Services on top of hyper-converged leveraging all the tools VMware provides today (vSphere, VSAN, NSX) will exactly allow you to do what I describe above. Whether that is to IBM, vCloud Air or any other of the mega clouds listed in the slide below is even besides the point. Extending your datacenter services in to public clouds is what we have been talking about for a while, this hybrid approach which could bring (dare I say) elasticity. This is a fundamental aspect of SDDC, of which a hyper-converged architecture is simply a key pillar.

Hyper-converged by itself does not make a private cloud. Hyper-converged does not deliver a full SDDC stack, it is a great step in to the right direction however. But before you take that (necessary) hyper-converged step ask yourself what is next on the journey to SDDC. Networking? Security? Automation/Orchestration? Logging? Monitoring? Analytics? Hybridity? Who can help you reach full potential, who can help you take those next steps? That’s what excites me, that is why I work for VMware. I believe we have a great opportunity here as we are the only company who holds all the pieces to the SDDC puzzle. And with regards to what is next? Deliver all of that in an easy to consume manner, that is what is next!

 

 

 

VMUGs next week in South Africa, sign up!

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Last year when I visited South Africa and presented at 3 events someone on twitter said: if I would have known I would have shown up. Already tweeted it a couple of times, but just in case people missed it, I figured I would also do a short post on the topic. I am presenting at 3 VMUGs in South Africa next week together with Scott Lowe and Joe Baguley. If you live near any of these three cities, make sure to sign up… Great way to meet like minded people, extend your network, and get to hear all about Software Defined Everything from Joe, The future of NSX from Scott and all about VSAN 6.2 from myself. (Note, Joe will not be able to present in Durban unfortunately)

Hope to see you guys next week, and euuh… Yes, I would love a Stellenbrau 😉

Requirements Driven Data Center

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I’ve been thinking about the term Software Defined Data Center for a while now. It is a great term “software defined” but it seems that many agree that things have been defined by software for a long time now. When talking about SDDC with customers it is typically referred to as the ability to abstract, pool and automate all aspects of an infrastructure. To me these are very important factors, but not the most important, well at least not for me as they don’t necessarily speak to the agility and flexibility a solution like this should bring. But what is an even more important aspect?

I’ve had some time to think about this lately and to me what is truly important is the ability to define requirements for a service and have the infrastructure cater to those needs. I know this sounds really fluffy, but ultimately the service doesn’t care what is running underneath, and typically the business owner and the application owners also don’t when all requirements can be met. Key is delivering a service with consistency and predictability. Even more important consistency and repeatability increase availability and predictability, and nothing is more important for the user experience.

When it comes to user experience and providing a positive one of course it is key to figure out first what you want and what you need first. Typically this information comes from your business partner and/or application owner. When you know what those requirements are then they can be translated to technical specifications and ultimately drive where the workloads end up. A good example of how this works or would look like is VMware Virtual Volumes. VVols is essentially requirements driven placement of workloads. Not just placement, but of course also all other aspects when it comes to satisfying requirements that determine user experience like QoS, availability, recoverability and whatever more is desired for your workload.

With Virtual Volumes placement of a VM (or VMDK) is based on how the policy is constructed and what is defined in it. The Storage Policy Based  Management engine gives you the flexibility to define policies anyway you like, of course it is limited to what your storage system is capable of delivering but from the vSphere platform point of view you can do what you like and make many different variations. If you specify that the object needs to thin provisioned, or has a specific IO profile, or needs to be deduplicated or… then those requirements are passed down to the storage system and the system makes its placement decisions based on that and will ensure that the demands can be met. Of course as stated earlier also requirements like QoS and availability are passed down. This could be things like latency, IOPS and how many copies of an object are needed (number of 9s resiliency). On top of that, when requirements change or when for whatever reason SLA is breached then in a requirements driven environment the infrastructure will assess and remediate to ensure requirements are met.

That is what a requirements driven solution should provide: agility, availability, consistency and predictability. Ultimately your full data center should be controlled through policies and defined by requirements. If you look at what VMware offers today, then it is fair to say that we are closing in on reaching this ideal fast.

It is all about choice

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The last couple of years we’ve seen a major shift in the market towards the software-defined datacenter. This has resulted in many new products, features and solutions being brought to market. What struck me though over the last couple of days is that many of the articles I have read in the past 6 months (and written as well) were about hardware and in many cases about the form factor or how it has changed. Also, there are the posts around hyper-converged vs traditional, or all flash storage solutions vs server side caching. Although we are moving towards a software-defined world, it seems that administrators / consultants / architects still very much live in the physical world. In many of these cases it even seems like there is a certain prejudice when it comes to the various types of products and the form factor they come in and whether that is 2U vs blade or software vs hardware is beside the point.

When I look at discussions being held around whether server side caching solutions is preferred over an all-flash arrays, which is just another form factor discussion if you ask me, the only right answer that comes to mind is “it depends”. It depends on what your business requirements are, what your budget is, if there are any constraints from an environmental perspective, hardware life cycle, what your staff’s expertise / knowledge is etc etc. It is impossible to to provide a single answer and solution to all the problems out there. What I realized is that what the software-defined movement actually brought us is choice, and in many of these cases the form factor is just a tiny aspect of the total story. It seems to be important though for many people, maybe still an inheritance from the “server hugger” days where hardware was still king? Those times are long gone though if you ask me.

In some cases a server side caching solutions will be the perfect fit, for instance when ultra low latency and use of existing storage infrastructure  is a requirement. In other cases bringing in an all-flash array may make more sense, or a hyper-converged appliance could be the perfect fit for that particular use case. What is more important though is how these components will enable you to optimize your operations, how these components will enable you to build that software-defined datacenter and help you meet the demands of the business. This is what you will need to ask yourself when looking at these various solutions, and if there is no clear answer… there is plenty of choice out there, stay open minded and go explore.