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VirtualCenter

VMware Cloud strategy

Duncan Epping · Sep 26, 2008 ·

Lately I’ve been reading all these blog and news articles that deal about the key message of VMworld: Cloud Computing. A lot of the journalists and blog writers didn’t pay attention during the Keynotes because they keep coming back to the fact that a lot of companies want to keep control of their data. Companies don’t want to have all their data floating around in a “cloud”.

So what’s Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is Internet based development and use of computer technology. The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing where IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. (source wikipedia)

So this is where people get confused, in the first sentence it says “Internet”. So this must mean that my data isn’t secure and out of my hands… And VMware thinks everyone will be doing this in the future?
A bit further down the same wikipedia page it states:

The majority of cloud computing infrastructure currently consists of reliable services delivered through next-generation data centers that are built on compute and storage virtualization technologies. The services are accessible anywhere in the world, with The Cloud appearing as a single point of access for all the computing needs of consumers. Commercial offerings need to meet the quality of service requirements of customers and typically offer service level agreements. Open standards and open source software are also critical to the growth of cloud computing.

So the services(and data) are accessible anywhere in the world, with a single point of access. It doesn’t state that your services are out in the open. There is a thing called “internal” cloud and you can find a great explanation on the internal cloud on VINF.NET. Keep in mind that they wrote this article before VMware announced the vCloud initiative.

Although the word cloud was used a lot of times during the keynote I don’t think that’s what the keynote was actually about. The keynote was about new VMware technology.

These new technologies seem to revolve around one thing, delivering your services with a certain SLA. And to be able to do this, one has to have a heavily optimized and automated environment, preferably virtualized. That is what the keynote was actually about in my opinion, the integration of all these new and existing products into the Virtual DataCenter OS to enable SLA-driven effective usage of resources for an optimal user experience.

Virtual Infrastructure Management Assistant aka VIMA

Duncan Epping · Sep 18, 2008 ·

I was just catching up and read this blog from Scott about managing ESXin a COS-less environment. The most interesting part of this blog is the following:

The subject of deployment is a key issue when we think about losing the Service Console. One approach to handling these issues is deploying physical machines; another would be to deploy virtual machines to handle these tasks. Partners could wrap up the agents that would typically be deployed in the Service Console as a virtual appliance, but then users could end up with numerous virtual appliances. What if VMware were to provide a virtual infrastructure management appliance? That’s what VIMA (Virtual Infrastructure Management Assistant) is.

VIMA is a virtual appliance packaged as OVF and is distributed, maintained, and supported by VMware. This is downloaded and installed by the customer according to their management procedures. This will be a well-known deployment environment that partners can rely upon being present. This will be a 64-bit Linux distribution with VMware Tools, VI Perl Toolkit, the Remote CLI (now known as the VI CLI), and a JRE already present. VIMA can be patched for updates, and it allows you to manage one or more VMware ESX hosts directly or through VirtualCenter. VIMA can enable agents to authenticate themselves, and VIMA will rotate its passwords on the hosts. Additionally, sample code and documentation will be available for programming applications to work in VIMA.

Anyone interested in VIMA can e-mail vima_request@vmware.com and request access to pre-GA versions of VIMA. VIMA is expected for general release in the fourth quarter of this year. All VIMA releases will work with both ESX and ESXi

Read the full article for more info, but this is again an exciting addition to the portfolio. Having an virtual appliance which can contain agents and communicate with your vCenter Server and your ESX(i) host is a real benefit. You can keep the number of agents down to a minimum with the same flexibility and usability.

Another day…

Duncan Epping · Sep 17, 2008 ·

And more cool stuff announced. I know I have to stay objective and try not to sound like a cheerleader… but man did you see the latest announcements? It’s hard not to get excited, it’s hard not to be enthusiastic, the hell with it I’m not even gonna try it.

And why not one might ask? Well because VMware just announced the fact that vCenter Server will be released as a linux virtual appliance in the future and the vCenter client will be cross platform available. So all you linux minded or mac minded sysadmins out there, keep an eye out for the beta program. This is also a great reason for me to ditch XP on my laptop and start installing Ubuntu, well as soon as it’s available that is! But is definitely one of the best announcements this week in my opinion. I’ve been asked this question, when will VC (client) be available for linux, very very often. Well I still can’t give an answer but it’s on the roadmap! Getting the MS requirement out of the Virtual Environment or should I say vCloud is important for a lot of customers and (most important) SysAdmins.

But that’s not it, the new “limitations” that Dr. Stephen Herrod announced today are overwhelming, 64 nodes in a cluster, 4096 processor cores and 64 TB of RAM. So my question is … what about the current 2TB limitation for LUN’s. Let’s hope that one will be gone soon… And let’s hope VMFS also get’s a make over, no that it’s not functioning at the moment but a VMFS resize option would be nice for instance. Well we will just have to wait and see I guess. But it would fit into the new vStorage initiative. Which, as Chad explained, is also an API where hardware vendors can take advantage off! Like for instance the vCenter SAN Snapshot integration that NetApp, Dell/EQL and EMC announced yesterday.

Well I can rewrite Scott’s entire blog but that just isn’t very useful… So click here and read one of the most extensive live blogs on the VMworld Day 2 Keynote. These were just some random thoughts, I’m going for a walk, just to clear up my mind… a lot of information in a short amount of time.

For those that didn’t go to VMworld…

Duncan Epping · Sep 16, 2008 ·

There are a couple of great articles out there which are definitely worth reading:

  • Colin McNamara – Cisco releases Nexus 1000v virtual switch for VMware
  • Scott Lowe – BC2621: Fault-Tolerant VMs in VI: Operations and Best Practices (live blogging)
  • Scott Lowe – TA2668: VMware ESX Architectural Directions (live blogging)
  • Rich Brambley – TA3807: VirtualCenter Directions (live blogging)

vCenter

Duncan Epping · Sep 15, 2008 ·

So there’s a new term floating around “vCenter”. So what is vCenter?

vCenter provides comprehensive management of applications and infrastructure in this flexible, fluid environment and integrates with leading systems management vendors for seamless, end to end datacenter management.

So as spectacular as this may sound, it just VirtualCenter renamed. Although not every section of the VMware website as been changed accordingly, this is what vCenter is.

So I just noticed a couple of more “hidden” announcements. These announcements all deal about management and automation. And if you do the math you can probably link some of them back to certain acquisitions that VMware did recently.

So here’s the list of new vCenter add-ons:

  • vCenter ConfigControl extends policy-based change and configuration management with automated enforcement across every aspect of the VDC-OS.
  • vCenter CapacityIQ continuously analyzes and plans capacity to ensure optimal sizing of virtual machines, resource pools and the entire datacenters.
  • vCenter Chargeback enables automated tracking of costs and chargeback to the business enabling IT to function as a utility with true visibility into operating costs.
  • vCenter Orchestrator enables the development of customized workflows that automate operational tasks through a simple drag and drop interface, without the need for scripting.
  • vCenter AppSpeed automatically ensures application performance levels. It monitors end user response time for applications, correlates these response times with different elements in the infrastructure, and triggers remedial actions to alleviate bottlenecks.

Combine these 5 with the ones that were already discovered but also in some way deal with management and automation: Host Profiles, Distributed vSwitches, Linked VC’s and vApp and you’ve probably got the ultimate Virtual Automated DataCenter… Only two question left. How is VMware going to top this? And how is the competition going to respond?

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About the Author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist and Distinguished Engineering Architect at Broadcom. Besides writing on Yellow-Bricks, Duncan is the co-author of the vSAN Deep Dive and the vSphere Clustering Deep Dive book series. Duncan is also the host of the Unexplored Territory Podcast.

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