VM /ETC

Shortly after VMworld  I posted about my experience using vCloud Express. One of the things that I expected to see but found missing from the solution was the ability to perform virtual machine (VM) uploads and downloads between my own vSphere infrastructure and the hosted VMware environment. To be able to move my workloads (running on VMware VMs) from my private data center to the cloud or visa versa was an expectation I had based on the federated and private cloud discussions I’ve listened to over the past year. I expected to be able to at least manually export or import an OVF, but unfortunately did not find that capability while testing.

Before continuing allow me the liberty to reference a common expression - Can’t see the forest for the trees:

“An expression used of someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole”

VMware has created the opposite scenario described in this expression with their concept of the Cloud. That is, VMware has allowed us to visualize what the forest will be before we have the trees. Of course, they had to. Was anyone besides Amazon talking Cloud before that, and if they were, was anyone even considering allowing companies to create their own internal clouds? I’d have to say VMware put the concept in my head. All I can say for sure is that I know I wasn’t listening to Cloud discussions before VMworld 2008.

Getting back to my vCloud Express testing and expectations, I was finally looking at the trees instead of the forest. I have since found some interesting information about how these trees are growing (if you will). To complete my reference, some of the details about VM transfer between private and public clouds are revealed by a VMware project has been privately referred to as Project Redwood.

First of all, I recently discovered the SearchCloudComputing.com post by Alex Barrett titled  VMware to tout ‘Redwood’ cloud computing project. This post was actually published before VMworld 2009 and featured a session about “… specific technologies behind the cloud, and what customers should expect for their datacenters and from cloud provider environments”. Barrett provides a little background on Redwood:

“The Redwood code-name surfaced in June when VMware released the schedule builder for the VMworld 2009 show in San Francisco next month. The agenda listed session TA4102 “Introduction to Redwood” with VMware director of cloud computing and virtual appliances William Shelton … ”

[omitted]

“VMware has since renamed the session “Unveiling New Cloud Technologies,” but the session description is the same.”

Barrett’s link to TA4102 is actually to a VMworld 2009 preview post from virtualfuture.info since the VMworld 2009 session had not happened yet. You can now get the TA4102 Unveiling New Cloud Technologies .PDF or listen to the session from VMworld.com. The session (which I did not attend) contained content specifically about transferring VMs as vApps and OVFs. The following 2 slides were taken from the downloadable .PDF.

I find it exciting now that the “trees” of the vSphere Cloud are beginning to come into clearer focus. We’ve heard about vApps and OVFs in the context of their specific functions and value to virtual infrastructure before, but now we are beginning to see them as the pieces (trees) to total VMware Private Cloud solution. When combined with the common architecture of the vSphere plug-in and the vSphere Client, it almost seems to simplify the technology needed to transfer VMs back and forth.

Going back to Barrett’s post again, another example of how more already familiar vSphere “trees” seem to suddenly reveal themselves:

“In particular, Redwood uses Lab Manager’s network fencing technology to quarantine virtual environments “so there’s no bleed-through,” the source said, and VMware Orchestrator for automating the configuring and provisioning of a VMware cloud workload.”

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