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Archive for the ‘gestaltit’ Category

The vSphere Enterprise Plus vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) has been heralded as, and I might add lives up to it’s reputation of, an administrator’s time saver and single point of virtual networking configuration and visibility across many ESX/ESXi 4 hosts. However, the vDS presents some administrative challenges unique from the traditional vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS) that admins are used to. Specifically, since the vCenter 4 Server actually maintains the vDS configuration, some extra design thinking needs to be built into a vSphere 4 environment where a vDS will be used. If vCenter 4 Server itself will be a virtual machine in the environment with a vDS, the design gets even more involved.

There are a few possible problems to consider. In this post I’ll first cover (with the help of a several others) general VM and vCenter vDS networking issues, but along the way I’ll explore thoughts about designing around a vDS for keeping vCenter as a VM.

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I am proud to announce a new podcast I will be hosting on a weekly basis – VIRTUMANIA!

VIRTUMANIA is an Infosmack Production that will try to focus on the operational and administrative viewpoints of all things virtualization, so expect a different guest list of bloggers, architects, administrators, and consultants with each recording.

VIRTUMANIA episodes will be announced as new posts here on VM /ETC. Be sure to subscribe to the VM /ETC RSS feed in your favorite RSS reader or download the show each week from the podcast’s RSS feed. Of course, you can subscribe to the VIRTUMANIA podcast on iTunes. Finally, download or listen to each episode from the embedded player on the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the first episode of VIRTUMANIA!

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 1 – Virtualbox, Type 2 Hypervisors, and Security Nipples.

Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with guests Sean Clark (@vseanclark) of SeanClark.us and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com. This week’s episode includes discussion about Sun Virtulabox, Teleportation, comparing all type 2 hypervisors, and Oracle’s master virtualization plan. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation for this Infosmack Production.

Listen Now:

Download

I can’t thank Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley enough for the patience, advice, and support necessary to get this podcast off the ground. For those that don’t already know, Greg and Marc host the already widely popular Infosmack podcast covering servers, storage, and virtualization news. Tapping into their insights and experiences while planning this podcast have been, and will continue to be invaluable to me. Special thanks to Marc for the Virtumania theme music and Greg for recording and post editing each episode.

What a week in Las Vegas at VMware Partner Exchange 2010! For all those that complained just 4 months ago that VMworld 2009 was disappointing because the announcements were few and far between, all I can say is, based on what I watched, experienced, and touched this week at PEX 2010, VMware should grab your attention again soon! Unfortunately, so much of what was discussed falls under the VMware Partner NDA that I’ll have to ask VM /ETC readers to wait for the technology to become public. We’ll have plenty to discuss when it does.

For now I’ll quickly wrap up my week and drop some hints about VMware’s future direction based on my understanding about what I saw during the PTAB meetings, the Keynotes, and the Hands On and Self Paced Labs. I’m also linking to some reactions from others to support my impressions.

The official VMware News Release for Partner Exchange can be found at this link:

VMware Partner Exchange 2010 Kicks Off With Record-breaking 2,600+ Attendees, 55 Sponsors and 45 Countries Represented

PTAB: Cloud Infrastructure and Virtual Desktops

I knew what was on the Partner Technical Advisory Board meeting agenda before I arrived, but I have to admit I was still pleasantly surprised. In short, the two day meeting was split by topics. We talked about virtual servers on Day 1 and virtual desktops on Day 2.

The server discussions included everything from possible future enhancements to the vStorage API to details about Project Redwood architecture. Discussions included a mix of vSphere roadmap possibilities and potential directions of VMware in the private and hosted cloud. VMware is serious about Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, and Software as a Service, and the slides presented to the PTAB committee revealed a considerable strategy to make it happen. I’ll just say it is a lot clearer to me where exactly Zimbra and SpringSource fit into VMware’s future plans.

Switching to the second day and to the topic of virtual desktops,

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Before the Alliance, Coalition, and Partnership start the Cloud Wars, everybody raise your Guinness and say “Brilliant!”

YouTube Guinness Brilliant Six Pack Commercial

It’s obvious now that Cloud Computing is no longer just a concept. Amazon EC2 has been around for a while, vCloud Express was announced late last year, Microsoft is moving full steam ahead with Azure, and new internal cloud infrastructure and storage solutions are appearing on the scene weekly. CTOs and IT Directors are starting to see legitimate solutions for offloading some or all of their development and production workload and infrastructure to alternatives in The Cloud.

Put yourself at the helm of one of the Original Equipment Manufacturer’s (OEMs) that have made their money selling server, switch and storage hardware in the private data center to date. Faced with the future possibility that companies will have an option to run applications and services on infrastructure they don’t buy, build, or maintain, what would be your strategy for generating reoccuring business in the future?

I bring it up because of all the cloud architecture announcements. EMC announced a coalition with Cisco and VMware, NetApp has a Secure Multi Tennancy alliance with Cisco and VMware, and HP has announced an Integrated Infrastructure partnership with Microsoft. The storage OEMs are the first out the gate with the snap together infrastrucure for the cloud, but I imagine other hardware partnerships are not too far behind. VMware and Cisco UCS may already be the first with Microsoft and HP? Microsoft and VMware conveniently can run on top if it all.

Before the Alliance, Coalition, and Partnership start the Cloud Wars, everybody raise your Guinness and say “Brilliant!”

It’s brilliant because Read the rest of this entry »

I was lucky enough to have been invited as a guest on this week’s Infosmack podcast. Infosmack, sponsored by StorageMonkeys.com, is a weekly storage, virtualization, and infrastructure podcast hosted by Greg Knieriemann and Marc Farley covering top weekly news and issues in the data center. Greg Schulz, author of the StorageIO Blog, was is also a guest with me on this week’s episode. I had a great time recording the call and I am really excited about the final result available now for download.

Already one of the subscriptions listed in my recent post about podcasts relevant to virtualization administrators, Infosmack Podcast Episode #34 – VMware vs Hyper-V discusses several topics on the minds of the virtualization community right now including:

• VMware’s purchase of Zimbra
• VMware Go for ESXi
• VMware and Microsoft Clouds
• HP’s partnership announcement with Microsoft and Hyper-V
• HP LeftHand’s announcement of a iSCSI SAN for Hyper-V
• Backup strategy for virtualized environments

Check out Episode #34 and offer your thoughts in the comments here or on the StorageMonkeys.com episode page linked above. Honestly, the title makes the podcast seem more controversial than it really is, but it’s good discussion none the less! The four of us really thought through virtual infrastructure and various vendor cloud scenarios based on recent announcements, acquisitions, and partnerships forming recently.

While you are listening Subscribe to the Infosmack Podcast for new episodes every Monday and join the StorageMonkeys.com community too. If you are an aspiring blogger use storagemonkeys.com for an instant audience. You have the option to be authenticated with your Facebook account if you don’t want to create a new one.

Be sure to look me up as rich brambley and add me as a StorageMonkey friend.

Greg Schulz has also posted is summary of the podcast. Check out his StorageIO.com post Infosmack Episode 34, VMware, Microsoft and More. Greg also includes several links for extra info on the topics we discussed.

VMware is purchasing Zimbra, a messaging and collaboration software company, from Yahoo!. Already one of the most popular virtual appliances available for download in VMware’s Virtual Appliance Marketplace, Zimbra will now be optimized for VMware vSphere and probably be offered as a standard service in VMware hosted cloud offerings such as vCloud Express. Eventually I would expect to see Zimbra imported and exported as a vApp for the federated, private vSphere cloud environment. As for now, Zimbra is running more than 55 million mailboxes for both SMB customers as well as in hosted environments that arguably have instantly become VMware customers.

There is no doubt that VMware will provide support, enable high availability, ensure live backup and DR site fail over, as well as  develop scale, automation, monitoring and management capabilities for virtualized Zimbra. The fact that VMware is acquiring a large percentage of SMB mail accounts could mean that virtualizing those servers (if they are not already) will provide the first shining, every day business application in the cloud examples.

VMware CTO Steve Herod explains on his personal blog that purchasing Zimbra is part of VMware’s strategy to simplify IT:

“VMware’s mission is to simplify IT, and every VMware product focuses on attacking the complexity and rigidity that has crept into this world. In many ways we see the excitement over cloud computing to be a longing for a simpler, more flexible way of doing computing. The VMware strategy is to help customers achieve cloud-like efficiency and operational improvements across the major IT infrastructure investment areas.”

Other reports I’ve read seem to suggest that Read the rest of this entry »

Over a year ago I was given a 4GB iPod Nano as a gift, but I never really used it for more than listening to music. In fact, it eventually came to rest docked in a small “boom box” in my kids’ room. I lost interest in the Nano partly because my Blackberry (with the addition of a mini SD card) was able to play everything the Nano could, partly because the 4 GB of space always seemed to reach capacity quickly, and partly because I got frustrated with iTunes. In the last few months I bought a 64 GB iPod Touch, decided to give iTunes a second chance (for the apps), and even found some software alternatives. I feel like I’m getting more out of my iPod than the first time around. I’m finding professional and career value in the iPod Touch in ways I did not expect. Subscribing to technical, storage and virtualization podcasts or uploading training materials in portable format to listen to while traveling is a huge benefit.

I explained my most recent personal evolution of media gadgets to point out that many devices are podcast capable, so even if you don’t have an iPod you probably can still subscribe with most any portable device. The point is any mp3 player could be used to broaden your virtualization and general technical knowledge. The trick is figuring out how to find, subscribe, and sync the content to your device with the least amount of effort.

For those looking for other software options, Read the rest of this entry »