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vcloud suite

vCloud Suite equals a Software Defined Datacenter

Duncan Epping · Feb 7, 2013 ·

I was on the VMTN podcast this week with Frank Denneman and Rawlinson Rivera, hosted by John Troyer. One of the discussions we had was around the Software Defined Datacenter and the vCloud Suite. Often people make a direct connection between a Software Defined Datacenter and the vCloud Suite and I can understand why. I have heard some people comment that because some components are not fully integrated yet; the vCloud Suite does not allow you to build a full Software Defined Datacenter.

On the call I mentioned that a Software Defined Datacenter is not just about the vCloud Suite. Using the vCloud Suite does not magically provide you with a Software Defined Datacenter. I guess the same could be said for a cloud, using the vCloud Suite does not magically provide you with a cloud.

What a lot of people tend to forgot is that a cloud or an SDDC is not about the infrastructure or the individual components. (Lets from now on use SDDC instead of the full name or the word cloud) An SDDC is about how you are providing services to your customers. In this case, customers could be external / internal customers of course. An SDDC is about software defined services, about flexibility and agility. What does that mean? There are two points of view, the consumer of the platform and the platform administrator. Lets explain from both views what is means, or at least what I think it means…

  1. The consumer of the platform
    The consumer should be able to select a specific service level for their workload, or select a specific service for their workload. When they they select a service or service level the platform should sort things out for them fully automated, whether it is DR / Backup / Resources / Storage Tiering / Security… it should be automatically applied to the workload when either of those software defined service characteristics are selected and applied.
  2. The platform administrator
    The platform administrator should be able to define services and policies which can be consumed. These services or policies could be as simple as “enabling vSphere Replication” on a virtual machine, or as complex as deploying a 3 tier vApp including a full application stack and security services using vCloud Automation Center in combination with Application Director and vCloud Networking and Security.

In some cases that means you will need to deploy the full vCloud Suite and potentially more, in other cases it might mean you will deploy less but use 3rd party solutions to provide a fully automated solution stack and experience to your consumers . In the end it is about having the ability to define and offer services in a specific way and enabling your customers to consume these in a specific way.

Although the SDDC could be architected and build using the vCloud Suite, using the vCloud Suite does not automagically provide you with an SDDC. An SDDC is about your operating model and service offering, not about the components you are using.

Feel free to chip in,

vCloud Suite Poster

Duncan Epping · Jan 31, 2013 ·

One of the last things I worked on while I was part of Technical Marketing was a poster and a white paper. The paper is still being processed but the poster has been released this week. Many thanks to Alan Renouf who did a lot of work on this one.

Now that it is done it looks so incredibly simple. I can tell you though that it took quite a lot of iterations before we got to this diagram and I am very happy about the result. Once again, thanks to everyone who helped to get this one out of the door…

vCloud Suite Poster

If you are at Partner Exchange 2013 (PEX) make sure you pick up a poster to take back to your office, if you are not at PEX then please click here to get the PDF version.

Also, don’t forget to visit http://vmware.com/go/Posters for more fantastic VMware posters available to download.

Upgrade vCloud Director 1.5 on vSphere 5.1 to vCD 5.1.1?

Duncan Epping · Jan 7, 2013 ·

One of my colleagues, Matthew Meyer, posted a list of cool videos he produced. These videos show how to upgrade vCloud Director 1.5 on vSphere 5.0 to vCloud Director 5.1.1 running on vSphere 5.1.  Nice right?! Thanks Matt for creating these, awesome work. (I normally don’t use the “read more” option, but as there are 8 videos in total I will only show two on the front page. Hit “Continue Reading” if you want to see the rest!)

VMware vCenter Server 5.0 to 5.1 Upgrade

VMware vCenter Single Sign-On Installation

[Read more…] about Upgrade vCloud Director 1.5 on vSphere 5.1 to vCD 5.1.1?

vCloud Suite 5.1 available

Duncan Epping · Sep 11, 2012 ·

No I didn’t set my alarm clock like Eric Sloof, just to be one of the first to post it… hence the reason this is “late”. But I got some more lined up for you though in the upcoming days. Now that the vCloud Suite 5.1 is available. Make sure to start your download engines and prep to upgrade. Before you start downloading, make sure to hit the launch page. I created a nice short URL for it

VMware NOW – Get the Latest Info on VMware Product Launches:
http://vmwa.re/vcloudnow

Download links:

  • ESXi 5.1.0 Installable
  • vCenter Server 5.1.0 and modules
  • VMware vCloud Director 5.1.0
  • VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1.0
  • VMware vCenter Infrastructure Navigator 1.2.0
  • VMware vCenter Operations Management 5.0.3
  • VMware vCenter Configuration Manager 5.5.1
  • vSphere Data Protection 5.1.0 
  • vSphere Replication 5.1.0
  • vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.0 
  • vCloud Networking and Security 5.1.0
  • vSphere PowerCLI 5.1
  • vSphere CLI 5.1
  • vCenter Orchestrator Appliance 5.1.0
  • vSphere Management Assistant 5.1

What’s new docs:

  • What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1
  • What’s new in VMware vCenter 5.1
  • What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Networking
  • What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Platform
  • What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Storage
  • What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.1 – Performance
  • Introduction to VMware vSphere Replication
  • Introduction to VMware vSphere Data Protection
  • What’s new in VMware vSphere Storage Appliance
  • What’s new in vCloud Director 5.1

 

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About the author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist in the Office of CTO of the Cloud Platform BU at VMware. He is a VCDX (# 007), the author of the "vSAN Deep Dive", the “vSphere Clustering Technical Deep Dive” series, and the host of the "Unexplored Territory" podcast.

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