VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘vdcos’

I wish this post was a definitive answer to all the confusion about VMware’s new product names. Instead it’s a conversation I had on Twitter this morning that both a. establishes my misunderstanding and b. sets the precedent for how I will refer to VMware VDC-OS and vSphere moving forward. After reviewing the tweets below feel free to shed some light for me on the VMware terminology that, at least to me, is as “clear as mud”.

rbrambley: VMware use of vSphere replaces the “VI” in VI 3.5 Enterp suite of products. U can have a vSphere client but not a vSphere server. Yes?!!

mikedipetrillo: @rbrambley Actually you have a vCenter client – not a vSphere client. It’s probably time for me to write up what everything is.

rbrambley: @mikedipetrillo If not mistaken, recent vids show “vSphere Client” in windows title bar. Does that mean “ESX” will be replaced by “vSphere”?

rbrambley: @mikedipetrillo write up would be great but lose the “substrate” talk. Speak to me relating the current products and their substitutes

mikedipetrillo: @rbrambley vSphere encompasses all products. ESX is still ESX. Virtual Center is vCenter. I’ll send you a secret decoder ring.

mikedipetrillo: @rbrambley Yup. That’s exactly what I need to write up. Here’s what it is today – here’s what it is tomorrow.

rbrambley: @mikedipetrillo I would appreciate that VMware decoder ring!

tom_howarth: @rbrambley vSphere is the new name for VMware Infrastructure, VDC-OS is the new name for ESX

rbrambley: @tom_howarth More than ESX. VDC-OS incl ESX, vCenter, View, Appspeed, & all. Think vSphere is a subset group of VDC-OS. VDC-OS is substrate

rbrambley: Hey Paul, pick VMware’s preferred definition of “substrate” 4 us! I’m going w/ aquarium material on tank bottom. http://tinyurl.com/aq47qp

tom_howarth: @rbrambley I think it is the other way round

langonej: @rbrambley Having had my fair share of fish tanks, that’s exactly the image, “subtrate” conjures for me.

rbrambley: @langonej In a way it makes sense. VDC-OS is rocks. vSphere is the treasure chest and bell diver. The bubbles are the virtual appliances!

As expected, several news releases from VMware can be found this morning to coincide with the first day of the VMworld Europe 2009 Conference under way in Cannes, France. The initial reports I have seen of Paul Maritz’s opening Keynote session (mostly via live blogs and Twitter) indicate that most, if not all, of the content in these press releases was presented to the thousands of VMworld Europe attendees. I plan to watch the recorded Keynote when it becomes available on Vmworld.com.

Here is my early take on what has been announced.

• VMware has confirmed that the VDC-OS initiative will ship in 2009 and foster the adoption of internal, private cloud infrastructure. VMware envisions this shift in infrastructure to include the desktop with technologies that provide the vClient initiative. I am hoping to hear a clearer message about the VDC-OS / vSphere / ESX naming of initiatives / technology layers / products, but news provided today does not seem to offer any additional clarity.
• VMware has a bare metal desktop hypervisor and it’s name is CVP. Working with VMware View, CVP will allow users to work offline and be managed centrally by VDI administrators.
• VMware and Neverfail have developed a high availability solution for VirtualCenter (VC) in the form of an active / passive host based cluster named VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat. This solution appears to be primarily designed for VC to fail over to a standby server on the LAN, but apparently a WAN configuration is also available. Previously, virtual administrators would have to rely on MSCS Clustering solutions to provide high availability for physical instances of VC.
• The introduction of VMware vShield Zones in ESX Clusters will allow for a more efficient mix of virtual machines without compromising security. VI design in the past has presented challenges when considering how to isolate VMs in the DMZ from VMs in production for example, and this has lead to the creation of additional ESX hosts and Clusters to insure isolation and prevent system compromise. Now with the vShield Zones virtual appliance, different security policies can be created and enforced even as guests migrate between ESX hosts thus allowing the consolidation of ESX hosts and VMs.
• Fujitsu Siemens Computers and VMware have announced Flexframe for SAP which allows companies to virtualize SAP. Flexframe is a solution that provides guaranteed resources for the best end user experience under dynamically changing conditions.

In the rest of this post I am providing a link to all the announcements along with some key quotes from each press release. For full details read the original announcements in their entirety. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended the VMworld 2008 EMC Keynote session at 11:00 am today (Weds), but my battery was almost drained so I took manual notes. This post is a translation of those notes.

Chad Sakac, Senior Director and Mr. VMware at EMC, hosted this session titled Designing the Next Generation Data Center. The session was about how storage and networking vendors must work together to build upon the new features available in the new VDC-OS suite of technologies. Specifically, this session zeroed in on the vStorage group of features. Chad explained that EMC, Cisco, and VMware have been working together for a while and he would demo the results of this collaboration for us. Along with Chad onstage was Ed Bugnion, Cisco VP/CTO Virtualization, and Scott Davis, VMware Chief Architect.

Chad began by providing some opinion on how he felt vendors need to evolve their storage products for the next generation data center and the VMware VDC-OS. Some of the points he made were: Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Maritz spoke during the opening General Session of Partner Day Monday morning and provided a better understanding about Vmware’s vCloud initiative and the concept of evolving it’s current VI 3.5 products into the VDC-OS of the future announced Sunday night. Paul is scheduled to expand on this vision in greater detail during Tuesday’s VMworld 2008 kick off Key Note Session, but here is a high level outline of my understanding of Paul’s talk.

VMware’s vision for the Next 10 years is focused on 3 key initiatives: Read the rest of this entry »

Holy vMoley, I was just blown away by the 3:30 pm Partner Day session titled Sneak Peak Into Future Virtual Infrastructure. I thought I was ready. I researched the new VMware VDC-OS and vCloud announcement last night and I saw the list of new features. I even read the new feature posts by Duncan at Yellow-bricks.com and Scott over at blog.scottlowe.org, but I had no idea. This concept is such a game changer that it is almost hard to believe. The features by themselves don’t do proper justice to the technical possibilities they create together.

What’s even more amazing is that you can see and understand how VMware got to here. There is not a “black magic” technology we are being asked to accept on faith. VMware has taken most of the pieces of their individual virtualization products, enhanced and improved them, and put them all behind the vCenter (the new VirtualCenter) GUI. Once again let me point you to yellow-bricks.com for Duncan’s post with details about the new vCenter.

To top it all off VMware has now added their own versions of technologies that third party solutions provide today to enhance VI. For example, features like de-duplication, chargeback, performance and capacity analysis, security monitoring, and configuration control are all native VMware VDC-OS features.
Honestly, it seems like most all of “wish list” features I’ve ever heard somebody talk about have now been provided.

VMware has promised all of this in 2009. vWOW!

I”ll blog more about the pieces and technologies that provide these features later this week as I attend the different sessions during VMworld.

The conference has not even started yet but the big news is out. VMware has announced a new data center operating system concept, VDC OS, that will leverage exciting new features in future versions of VMware’s infrastructure products to deliver dynamic resource pools of applications and infrastructure known as a vCloud. With pieces of the vCloud expected to be available starting in 2009, VMware’s announcement seems to be more of a vision right now then a complete solution. This week at VMworld 2008 will obviously provide more details, but for now here are some links and quotes from various sources already available on the web tonight. Read the rest of this entry »