Server Virtualization News—F5 Networks adds vSphere, vCenter integration: News in brief
In today's news in brief, F5's BIG-IP appliances add VMware's vSphere 4 and vCenter support, and more.
Chad Sakac—Live, from Cisco Live 2009
It’s been a busy 3 days, after 3 panels (one on what VMware/Cisco/EMC are doing for service providers, one for customers, and an open panel (VMware, Cisco, EMC, Oracle, Emerson, APC, NetApp and Panduit)– which was a gas around the “Next Gen Datacenter”. I got to poke the Oracle guy (in a nice friendly respectful way) around their VMware support policy.
Great team effort to support the event – both before and at the show itself. On top of the overall show team, there are a few folks worth calling out for a pat on the back:
1) Martin Glynn – pulled out the stops to provide overwhelming equipment for the show. In the Datacenter of the Future area, there were all the things that EMC does, including two V-Max arrays. We had the same in our booth, and also in the Intel booth. It was literally TONS of gear – and was everywhere. Martin – you were a big part of getting a lot of V-Max in front of a lot of people for real hands on.
2) Hariharan (Hari) Harikannan – was the man behind huge chunks of the VCE demo in Padmesree Warrior’s day 2 keynote. You wouldn’t believe the last minute gyrations and effort if I spelt them all out here, but anyone who has supported an event knows how that goes down :-)
If you’re interested to get a feel of the event, see what was on the expo floor, and the demo from the day 2 technical keynote – at least from one person’s perspective, read on!
A busy 3 days indeed….
Was cool to have John Chambers come by the EMC booth. I’m not sure if he remembers this, but our paths have crossed many times. I met him for the first time in 1999, when I was the point guy on the first carrier deployment of GSR 12000s and MPLS. In fact, who is kidding who - I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember :-)
I don’t hold it against him – he’s done a great job leading a great company, and has extended/reinvented the company several times on his watch – an amazing feat. This is him seeing the demo from the man who made big chunks of it, Hari. It was awesome to execute on this in Santa Clara with the VMware and Cisco teams – we have all the gear, technology and people all here in one place.
We did all sorts of online stuff – was great to meet James, HoHo and Omar in person...
Padmesree’s keynote today was great – and was great to see the demo we worked on together in Santa Clara was leveraged.
You can download this capture in high rez here (working to get it up to Blip, but will take a bit), and see Padme’s full keynote on the official event site here)
Before the event, I took a short part of the demo (mass provisioning using VMware, Cisco and EMC “template/profile oriented techniques”) and recorded a similar walkthrough, and you can see it here:
You can download a high-rez version here.
For a “sense” of the show floor, here are two quick walkthroughs of the expo – I LOVED VMware’s little “Private Cloud” cloud stickers on the floor. And YES, that is massive EMC presence in the Datacenter of the Future area, and a good crowd (when I shot these, it was late in the day – so good to be busy in spite of it being AFTER the last session of the day!) in the EMC booth.
This second one has some of the other fun stuff I saw ;-) I love my Rock Band – and my wife is a killer fake drummer :-)
Was also great to hang out with my team and chilling out a bit too….
There were a few things we could have done better. We had a similar structure to the event as we did for VMworld and EMC world – very focused on VMware, very focused on enterprise apps running on virtualized infrastructure models, and the best practices, tools and integration around storage, backup, and DR.
But, at this event, the most EMC popular booth stations and demos were the EMC resouce management and RSA ones. We were demonstrating:
- configuration management, compliance and remediation
- application discovery and dependency mapping
- network and virtual/physical root cause
- security events and information management
- data loss prevention techniques
One thing that gets hard as one’s capabilities broaden out is that you need to be different things to different people, and different audiences. At a show dominated by networking folks, they are FAR more interested in what EMC does on the above – which are squarely things they are thinking about. Heck they were so interested in those things, it was even more than things that are “semi-close” to their domain like FCoE discussions.
It made me realize – next time, need to make those more front and center (and at VMworld too – not to the same degree, but VMware folks straddle a couple worlds).
A little cooked tonight, and looking forward to a week back in the lab – have some really, really solid technical treats for the faithful!
VMware Tips—Invitation to the VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 4 Beta Exam
This morning I wake up to find an e-mail from the VMware Certification department, inviting me to take the VCP4 Beta Exam. This is pretty exciting, yet it disappoints me because it reminds me that I still have not received my VCDX Design Exam Beta results (going on 3 months now). However, I did talk to Tina at VMware on Tuesday and she sounded hopeful that these results will be available sometime in July.
It looks like the General Release exam will become available in August, based on the information provided in the e-mail from VMware;
Dear Rick,
VMware is proud to announce the availability of the VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 4 (VCP4) beta exam! We would like to invite you to participate in this beta. Your experience as a current VCP3 and vSphere beta product user will be valuable in helping us craft a high quality exam.
Detailed registration instructions are at the bottom of this email. First, please be sure to review the following important information.
1.) All content, items, displays and materials are the copyrighted intellectual property of VMware, Inc. To maintain and protect the value of the VMware Certified Professional program do NOT disclose the content to anyone.
2.) You will be required to respond to each item presented. You will not be able to return to items once you have completed them. You will also be able to provide constructive comments on each item and exhibit.
3.) You will not receive a score at the end of the beta exam. A score will be sent to you 6 to 8 weeks after you complete the exam. The purpose of a beta is to verify the validity and reliability of the items statistically. Not all items will survive post beta.
4.) If you successfully pass the exam and are currently a VCP3 in good standing, you will be awarded the VCP4 certification. If you do not pass the exam you may take the exam again when the new exam is available in August.
5.) There will be 240 minutes to complete the exam.
6.) The exam is available for registration by voucher only. The voucher will also be good for 70% off the regular exam price. Your voucher is provided below.
7.) Vouchers are good for one use and are not transferable.
8.) The beta exam will be available until July 17th, 2009.
9.) Questions can be sent to certification@vmware.com
10.) You may only take the beta exam ONE time. All violators will be ineligible for certification.
Well, that’s it. I will be registering sometime today and I will report back to you on how the exam looks. Wish me luck!
VMblog—FUJIFILM UK Focuses on DataCore's SANmelody for Storage Virtualization Cost Savings and Disaster Recovery
DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, today announced that together with DataCore's trained and accredited partner, Vcentral, it has installed SANmelody™ as the storage area network (SAN) virtual infrastructure at FUJIFILM UK. ...(read more)
Server Virtualization News—VMware VMotion between data centers could change disaster recovery
VMware and Cisco have demonstrated a live virtual server migration, or VMotion, over distance; users and analysts see the potential for disaster recovery, but with plenty of caveats.
Scott Lowe—Republished: Dispelling Some VMware over NFS Myths
Author’s Note: This content was first published over at Storage Monkeys, but it appears that it has since disappeared and is no longer available. For that reason, I’m republishing it here (with minor edits). Where applicable, I’ll also be republishing other old content from that site in the coming weeks. Thanks!
In this article, I’m going to tackle what will probably be a sensitive topic for some readers: VMware over NFS. All across the Internet, I run into article after article after article that sings the praises of NFS for VMware. Consider some of the following examples:
That first link looks to be mostly a reprint of this blog post by Nick Triantos. Now, Nick is a solid storage engineer; there is no question in my mind that he knows Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and NFS inside out. Nick is certainly someone who is more than qualified to speak to the validity of using NFS for VMware storage. But…
I am going to have to disagree with some of the statements that are being propagated about NFS for VMware storage. Is NFS for VMware environments a valid choice? Yes, absolutely. However, there are some myths about NFS for VMware storage that need to be addressed.
- Myth #1: All VMDKs are thin provisioned by default with NFS, and that saves significant amounts of storage space. That’s true—to a certain point. What I pointed out back in March of 2008, though, was that these VMDKs are only thin provisioned at the beginning. What does that mean? Perform a Storage VMotion operation to move those VMDKs from one NFS datastore to a different NFS datastore, and the VMDK will inflate to become a thick provisioned file. Clone another VM from the VM with the thin provisioned disks, and you’ll find that the cloned VM has thick VMDKs. That’s right—the only way to get those thin provisioned VMDKs is to create all your VMs from scratch. Is that what you really want to do? (Note: VMware vSphere now supports thin provisioned VMDKs on all storage platforms, and corrects the issues with thin provisioned VMDKs inflating due to a Storage VMotion or cloning operation, so this point is somewhat dated.)
- Myth #2: NFS uses Ethernet as the transport, so I can just add more network connections to scale the bandwidth. Well, not exactly. Yes, it is possible to add Ethernet links and get more bandwidth. However, you’ll have to deal with a whole list of issues: link aggregation/802.3ad, physical switch redundancy (which is further complicated when you want to use link aggregation/802.3ad), multiple IP addresses on the NFS server(s), multiple VMkernel ports on the VMware ESX servers, and multiple IP subnets. Let’s just say that scaling NFS bandwidth with VMware ESX isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. This article I wrote back in July of 2008 may help shed some light on the particulars that are involved when it comes to ESX and NIC utilization.
- Myth #3: Performance over NFS is better than Fibre Channel or iSCSI. Based on this technical report by NetApp—no doubt one of the biggest proponents of NFS for VMware storage—NFS performance trails Fibre Channel, although by less than 10%. So, performance is comparable in almost all cases, and the difference is small enough not to be noticeable. The numbers do not, however, indicate that NFS is better than Fibre Channel. You can read my views on this storage protocol comparison at my site. By the way, also check the comments; you’ll see that the results in the technical report were independently verified by VMware as well. Based on this information, someone could certainly say that NFS performance is perfectly reasonable, but one could not say that NFS performance is better than Fibre Channel.
Now, one might look at this article and say, “Scott, you hate NFS!” No, actually, I like using NFS for VMware Infrastructure implementations, and here’s why:
- Provisioning is a breeze. It’s dead simple to add NFS datastores.
- You can easily (depending upon the storage platform) increase or decrease the size of NFS datastores. Try decreasing the size of a VMFS datastore and see what happens!
- You don’t need to deal with the complexity of a Fibre Channel fabric, switches, WWNs, zones, ISLs, and all that. Now, there is some complexity involved (see Myth #2 above), but it’s generally easier than Fibre Channel. Unless you’re a Fibre Channel expert, of course…
So there are some tangible benefits to using NFS for VMware Infrastructure. But let’s be real about this, and not try to gloss over technical details. While NFS has some real advantages, it also has some real disadvantages, and organizations choosing a storage protocol need to understand both sides of the coin.
This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.
Republished: Dispelling Some VMware over NFS Myths
Similar Posts:- Only Thin Provisioned in the Beginning
- Proving VMware Over NFS
- Articles in Progress
- Storage Protocol Performance Whitepaper from NetApp
- Keeping Thin VMDKs Using NetApp SnapRestore
VMblog—VirtenSys Delivers Industry's First Solution to Virtualize Servers' Direct-Attached Storage and Disk Drives
VirtenSys, Ltd, the leader in delivering innovative PCI Express®-based I/O Virtualization (IOV) switches for data centers, today announced the industry’s first virtualization of storage controllers and disk drives in servers. With this achievement, VirtenSys becomes the first company to consolidate and optimize the most commonly deployed networking and storage connectivity in servers. VirtenSys IOV switches now support Ethernet, SAS/SATA and Fibre Channel, and provide servers with the best price/performance and lowest energy consumption for accessing not only the local area networks (LAN), but also the storage infrastructures, including direct-attached storage (DAS) and storage area networks (SAN). The company has already delivered pre-production units of its switches to leading server and storage customers. ...(read more)
VMblog—Diskeeper Corporation Offers Complimentary License for XP Mode on Windows 7
Diskeeper Corporation announced today that their End User Licence Agreement (EULA) has been updated to allow an additional complimentary license of Diskeeper 2009 for Microsoft’s elite and business customers of Windows 7’s XP mode. ...(read more)
Chad Sakac—Why FCoE? Why not just NAS and iSCSI?
Scott Lowe recently wrote a good post on FCoE, and his thoughts here. The comments of his readers are comments I’ve heard from others as well, so I posted a response in the comments, but I think Scott and I don’t have the same readership (and perhaps those that do may not read the comments)
This is an important dialog, IMHO, and I thought the my response was worth posting, as I’ve gotten loads of questions like this also.
If you’re interested in this thread – suggest reading Scott’s posts and the comments. If you want to see my take, read on….
(from my comment on Scott’s blog post)
Guys The “multi-hop” thing is a bit old news - I did a big post on this when the FCoE spec was done (June 3rd)
http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/06/fcoe-ratified.html
This covers it in gory detail.
The specific issue is that “pre standard” initiators and targets were missing something called FIP (FCoE initialization protocol). The gen 1 HBAs from Qlogic and Emulex were really more for early interop, plugfests, and development, and I believe (I know this for a fact for the Qlogic 8000 series - and I would fully expect the same from Emulex) are not software upgradable to the FC-BB-5 standard that includes FIP.
BTW - we caught flack at EMC for not natively supporting FCoE earlier on the array targets, but this was why - the standard simply wasn’t ready. It was ready for host-FCoE switch-FC switch-FC target. Now, it’s getting ready for array targets. Personally, that’s why I disagreed with the approach of taking the QLE8000 series card (with custom pre-FIP standard elements), putting into a FAS head, and calling that a solution. While that was going on (and making marketing noise - but frankly a move that doesn’t help the customer, because now they have a FAS head that needs a heavy hardware maintenance window to do a PCIe card upgrade), we were busy doing interop and working on the standard at the standard body (look at the meeting minutes - they are all public).
We’re now, of course, developing an ultraflex IO module for FCoE, which are hot-swappable.
But back to the larger question - why FCoE? People who know me, I’m a SUPER fan of NAS and iSCSI, and naturally am biased in that direction, but as I’ve worked with more and more customers, I have a growing understanding of the why.
NFS is great and iSCSI are great, but there’s no getting away from the fact that they depend on TCP retransmission mechanics (and in the case of NFS, potentially even higher in the protocol stack if you use it over UDP - though this is not supported in VMware environments today). because of the intrinsic model of the protocol stack, the higher you go, the longer the latencies in various operations. One example (and it’s only one) - this means always seconds, and normally many tens of seconds for state/loss of connection (assuming that the target fails over instantly, which is not the case of most NAS devices). Doing it in shorter timeframes would be BAD, as in this case the target is an IP, and for an IP address to be non-reachable for seconds - is NORMAL.
There’s also the question of the fact that anything dependent on TCP/IP also will have scenarioes that depend on ARPs, which can take time.
This isn’t a secret. Look at the Netapp TR-3428 (and upcoming TR-3749) and EMC H6337 docs which spell the timeouts for NFS datastores on FAS and Celerra platforms respectively - which are in many tens of seconds (refer to the latest – currently it adds up to 125 seconds), and for iSCSI – if you read the VMware guides, the recommendation is 60 seconds.
FCoE expects most transmission loss handling to be done at the Ethernet layer, via 802.1Qbb (STILL NOT A STANDARD!) for lossless congestion handling and legacy CRC mechanisms for line errors. This means milliseconds - and in fact in many cases microseconds of link state sensitivity.
Also, whereas we are seeing 30x performance increases for solid state disk on devices without filesystems, we see 4-6x in cases where they support a filesystem. That doesn’t mean filesystems (or NAS devices are bad), but highlights that one answer isn’t the answer all the time, for all workloads, all SLAs, and all use cases.
These ARE NOT showstoppers for many, many (most?) applications, and many, many use cases, but they are for some - and often, those are for applications with hyper-stringent SLAs - but we want to virtualize everything, ever application possible, right?
All FCoE adapters and switches can also be used for iSCSI and NAS, so don’t think of it as an either/or, but an “and”. It means that it is possible to whittle the use cases that can’t use an ethernet storage transport to near zero (it’s not zero, because there will always be mainframes and whatnot). The ultimate point on this (”this” being the point that it’s not an FC “HBA”, but rather a “NIC feature”) is that Intel has commited to supporting the final result of 802.1Qbb and then doing a software initiator - at that point, FCoE support will just be an attribute of every commodity NIC and switch on the market. Everyone in the FC HBA/switch market is rushing to it not because they want proprietary, but rather because were reaching the inflection point where if you’re not doing this, you’re going to be out of business (maybe not today, but at a relatively near “tomorrow”).
The FCoE idea important (again as a “NIC/switch feature”, because it means that convergence (wire once, use for LAN/NAS/iSCSI/FCoE) is then applicable to a broader market, which only accelerates the broader use of ethernet storage, which many people (me included) want to see come sooner rather than later.
There’s a far lesser IT value proposition of maintaining and integrating with exisitng tools and processes. I only say lesser because frankly, if there’s a better way, it can over time change a process.
Remember - this is coming from someone who:
a) loves NAS
b) loves iSCSI (came from iSCSI startup)
c) works for a storage company that is in the NAS, iSCSI, FC, and FCoE (and heck, COS and CAS as well) business - we just do what our customers tell us they need.
At least in my personal experience, our customers are asking for FCoE for those reasons.
Chad Sakac—VMware/EMC Summer Webcast Series
We’re doing these webcasts with the product folks on vSphere and EMC topics – a great opportunity to see/learn/ask/give feedback.
Every thursday – 11am EST.
Are there topics YOU want to see, demos you want to experience, or people you want to hear from? Post them!
Chris – you did a GREAT job on this video, man – I was laughing out loud!
VMblog—vSMP Foundation Supports HP ProLiant BL280c G6 Blade
ScaleMP, the leading provider of virtualization solutions for high-end computing, completed certification of vSMP Foundation for HP ProLiant BL280c G6 server blades offering the new Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 series. vSMP Foundation coupled with the HP ProLiant BL280c G6 server blade solution delivers excellent performance and energy savings to reduce overall datacenter spending in power constrained scale-out environments. ...(read more)
VMblog—Red Hat Announces Premier Cloud Provider Certification and Partner Program to Enable Wider Enterprise Cloud Adoption
Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the Premier Cloud Provider Certification and Partner Program, designed to simplify and expand the adoption of cloud computing by enterprise customers. The program enables industry leaders in cloud computing to become certified to offer Red Hat technology solutions. Premier Cloud Provider Partners will collaborate with Red Hat on technical support, security updates, hardware certification, sales and marketing and business models. As part of the announcement today, cloud computing pioneer Amazon Web Services will extend its technology relationship with Red Hat to become the first Red Hat Premier Cloud Provider Partner. ...(read more)
VMblog—Sun Microsystems Unveils VirtualBox 3.0 With Powerful New Server Virtualization Features
Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced a significant new version of Sun(TM) VirtualBox(TM), its high performance, cross-platform virtualization software. VirtualBox 3.0 is capable of creating and running multi-processor virtual machines that can handle heavyweight server-class workloads, and also delivers enhanced graphics support for desktop-class workloads, reinforcing VirtualBox's position as one of the world's most popular virtualization platforms. To download the freely available VirtualBox software, visit: http://www.sun.com/software/products/virtualbox/get.jsp. ...(read more)
VMblog—New Lenovo Servers Rack Up on Performance, Virtualization and Usability
Lenovo today announced its latest line of servers, the ThinkServer TD200 and TD200x tower servers as well as the RD210 and RD220 rack servers. The new servers offer small to mid-sized businesses the latest in performance with several choices of Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors and vastly expanded memory and storage. These ThinkServers are also equipped for virtualization and several power saving features to help customers cut their energy usage without sacrificing performance. ...(read more)
VMblog—InstallFree Rolls Out Electronic Medical Records (EMR) System at Pentucket Medical Using Application Virtualization and SaaS Delivery
InstallFree, Inc., developer of platform application virtualization solutions for enterprise desktop environments, today announced the completion of the InstallFree Bridge rollout at Pentucket Medical Associates, a leading multi-specialty medical group practice, with over 400 medical professionals and staff serving patients in five outpatient facilities in Massachusetts. The Pentucket system delivers GE Healthcare's Centricity® EMR as a virtual application from hosted IT services at Global Data Systems Inc. (GDS), an InstallFree IT Services partner. The system securely delivers patient records to office desktops, mobile laptops, and tablet PCs of Pentucket clinicians whenever logged on to the domain. Test results import directly into a patient's EMR, providing the most current information to support complete diagnostic assessment and delivery of consistent quality service. ...(read more)
OpenVZ—Back from the LinuxTag
First, hello to all!
Second, my friend Bernhard and I helped Kir with his booth on the LinuxTag. It was a great pleasure for us because Kir is a really cool guy. We had the chance to hear and learn a lot about Kernel development and OpenVZ in general. Also it was very nice to discuss our OpenVZ server farm at work with Kir's Know How. Quote "Kir: Uhh, you perl scripts are really hardcoded" - :o)
I hope we will see us before the next LinuxTag next year. As we spoke about we decide to help the project by doing support on the forum/blog and maybe some wiki stuff (system use case).
For all readers we took some pictures from the booth and us. You can find them on our blog page systec.blogsite.org.
Thank you - It was a lot of fun - Mario
Second, my friend Bernhard and I helped Kir with his booth on the LinuxTag. It was a great pleasure for us because Kir is a really cool guy. We had the chance to hear and learn a lot about Kernel development and OpenVZ in general. Also it was very nice to discuss our OpenVZ server farm at work with Kir's Know How. Quote "Kir: Uhh, you perl scripts are really hardcoded" - :o)
I hope we will see us before the next LinuxTag next year. As we spoke about we decide to help the project by doing support on the forum/blog and maybe some wiki stuff (system use case).
For all readers we took some pictures from the booth and us. You can find them on our blog page systec.blogsite.org.
Thank you - It was a lot of fun - Mario
Server Virtualization News—Red Hat turning VMworld into KVMworld?
Red Hat will reportedly release its new KVM-based suite, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, during VMworld 2009.
Server Virtualization News—Running CRM on virtual servers becoming a reality
While CRM may not be the first application one would consider for a server virtualization project, it's starting to see some use and in some cases is creating demand for virtualization.
VMblog—ASG's New Virtualization Management Solution Eliminates Virtual Sprawl to Maximize IT's Cost Savings Across the Enterprise
ASG Software Solutions, the originator of ASG's Business Service Portfolio™ (BSP™) and a worldwide leader in business solutions for global enterprises, today announced the immediate availability of ASG's BSP Virtualization Management, a new solution that monitors the real-time performance, health, and efficiency of both virtual and physical IT environments.
...(read more)
VMblog—Virtual Computer Releases NxTop 1.1 with System Workbench
Virtual Computer Inc., the company redefining PC lifecycle management through virtualisation, today announced the availability of NxTop 1.1. Since it was first released for sale in April 2009, NxTop has differentiated itself with its ability to deploy a single, centrally managed Windows desktop environment to all users while maintaining user-specific personalization on each PC. Release 1.1 brings further innovation in this area by introducing System Workbench™. This new element of NxTop’s award-winning management system employs file system layering to isolate elements of the system to improve backup performance, retain end-user installed programs and settings and provide desktop IT managers with tools to manipulate the file system and registry. NxTop 1.1 is available immediately through the company’s NxTop Now! program which provides early adopters access to the product prior to general availability. ...(read more)
VMblog—F5 BIG-IP Solutions Integrated with VMware vCenter Server to Support More Rapid Alignment of IT to Business Requirements
F5 Networks, Inc., the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today announced integration between its BIG-IP® solutions and VMware vSphere™ 4 and VMware vCenter™ Server, together creating a scalable and extensible platform that allows IT administrators to dramatically improve organizations’ control over virtual environments. Working in concert, VMware vCenter™ Server and F5® BIG-IP® solutions enable customers to dynamically provision application resources, reduce costs, and maximize the automation and agility of their IT infrastructures. ...(read more)
Scott Lowe—Links for 2009-06-29 [del.icio.us]
- VMware KB - Index Page
This is the full index of the VMware Knowledge Base.
Scott Lowe—Thinking Out Loud: Why Deploy FCoE?
This is another one of my “thinking out loud” posts. This time, the question I’m mulling is this one: why deploy FCoE?
I haven’t hid the fact that I’m not really a fan of FCoE (see here or here), but I was starting to warm to the technology and thought that I was beginning to see some benefits to deploying FCoE. Namely, the fact that FCoE is inherently very compatible with “traditional” FCP, allowing organizations to leverage their existing FCP installation while transitioning to FCoE. Some hands-on time I’d recently spent with a Cisco Nexus 5000 switch showed me just how closely aligned the two technologies are and how (relatively) easy it was to extend an FC fabric using FCoE. OK, I think I get this.
Then, a few days ago, I read this article on FCoE divergence. Given that The Register can sometimes be quite sensationalist (and that’s putting it mildly), I contacted a colleague of mine whose input and knowledge I trust. He informed me that FCoE was currently limited in that FCoE is not multi-hop enabled—meaning, you can’t connect FCoE initiators on one switch to FCoE targets on another switch. (Apparently, this shortcoming is due to be corrected shortly.)
Whoa! That’s a limitation of which I was not aware. And with that limitation in mind, knowing that FCoE will—for the time being at least—be limited to convergence at the edge, I have to ask: why deploy FCoE at all? What real and specific benefits does an organization seek to gain by deploying FCoE as opposed to just deploying FC? Is the edge convergence really that worthwhile and valuable?
This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.
Thinking Out Loud: Why Deploy FCoE?
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- Blades Won’t Die, But They Will Change
Scott Lowe—Blades Won’t Die, But They Will Change
I was going through my list of actions in OmniFocus, looking at my projects and actions and evaluating each of them. In my “Potential Posts” project, where I keep links to articles that I might use in a blog post, I found the URL for this article by Steve Kaplan about virtualization, Cisco Nexus, and blade servers. The basic idea of his article is that virtualization and the Cisco Nexus—specifically, the unified fabric—are going to combine to kill blade servers.
I do agree with Steve that there is no innate relationship that means running VMware on blades is somehow “automagically” better:
It is amazing how frequently we hear IT managers talk about deploying blade servers as an integral component of their new virtual infrastructures - as if there were an obvious synergy between VMware and blade server architectures.
Absolutely! Blades are an option, just like rack mounted servers, and it’s up to the customer to choose (or us as consultants to recommend) the form factor that best meets the business needs. It might be blade servers, or it might be rack mounted servers. It just depends. So, on this one point, I agree with Steve.
Yet, at the same time, I also disagree with this point that Steve makes in his article:
Blade servers have always been an impediment to an optimal virtual infrastructure because they introduce limitations in efficiently utilizing power and cooling resources, budget, flexibility, manageability, bios and firmware updates, performance and troubleshooting.
Here is where Steve and I start to disagree. In fact, this specific article was something of the catalyst for a series of posts, written by colleague and friend Aaron Delp, detailing how blade servers and virtualization work well together:
Blades and Virtualization Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Part One, HP Power Sizing
Blades and Virtualization Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Part Two, IBM Power Sizing
Blades and Virtualization Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Part Three, IBM Traditional Expansion Options
Blades and Virtualization Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Part Four, HP Traditional Expansion Options
While this series of articles doesn’t squarely address all of the arguments against blades and virtualization, the series does make it clear that blades can produce power savings vs. rack mounted servers, and that blades do offer enough expansion options to accommodate the majority of virtualization deployments.
I also disagree with Steve about the value of the unified fabric, especially considering that right now unified fabric can exist only at the edge of the network and not at the core. That being the case, I find it hard to say that unified fabric is going to kill blade servers. So, again, I have to disagree with Steve’s position.
However, Steve’s not entirely wrong—virtualization, FCoE and 10Gb Ethernet, and yes even unified fabric will change how blade servers are designed and deployed. Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) is one example of how blade servers are going to adapt to these agents of change, and I believe we’ll see more examples from other leading vendors in the coming months and years. But will blades die away entirely? No, I don’t think so.
Think I’m crazy? Think I’m out of my mind? Feel free to speak up in the comments—courteous comments are always welcome.
This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.
Blades Won’t Die, But They Will Change
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- Blades and Virtualization Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Part Four, HP Traditional Expansion Options
VMblog—RingCube Joins Sun Partner Advantage Program to Deliver Managed Virtual Workspaces with Sun VDI
RingCube Technologies, the leading provider of managed virtual workspaces, today announced interoperability between RingCube vDesk and Sun's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution. The collaboration between RingCube and Sun would help customers lower the costs of deploying personalized desktops through automated provisioning, and add flexibility through offline and synchronization between the virtualized desktop and portable storage devices or physical PC or notebook. ...(read more)
Scott Lowe—Snapshot Issue with VMware Data Recovery
Reader Kyle Ross shared with me a potential issue with VMware’s new backup product, VMware Data Recovery. Others within the VMware blogging scene have also covered this, but I wanted to mention it as well so that others didn’t run into the problem. Here’s Kyle’s write-up:
I was made aware of a serious (in my opinion) bug with VDR during a call with VMware support that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere. This is an internally known issue that causes snapshots to build up on VM’s that are members of VDR backup jobs.
During the backup process a new snapshot is created and VDR updates the snapshot descriptor file (vm_name-000001.vmdk) to mark the snapshot as un-removable. The bug is introduced when the backup process completes, it fails to mark the snapshot as removable causing them to remain.
The tricky part of the problem is that the snapshots are not visible through the vSphere Client, nor are they listed in apps like ‘RVTools’ that use the VMware CLI to gather data. They could potentially be listed in the new datastore views but I didn’t think to look there before I resolved it in my environment. I ran across them by logging into the service console and running the following command to list all the delta files on the datastores attached to the server.
find /vmfs/volumes/ -name \*delta\*
In my environment I noticed numerous VM’s with multi-gigabyte delta files that I couldn’t account for via snapshots listed in the GUI. Here is the solution I was given by VMware. Via the service console, browse to the location of the VMDK files for the affected VM. Run this command to identify the descriptors that need to be corrected, replacing ‘virtual_machine_name’ with the actual name of the VM.
grep –I ddb.dele *virtual_machine_name*-000???.vmdk
This command will quickly identify the delta files that are marked as non-deletable. The workaround is to edit the affected VMDK descriptor files and change “ddb.deletable” from “false” to “true”. You will probably also need to edit the root VMDK file and change this field as well, otherwise you may be left with one open snapshot. Note that due to a change in how ESX 4 performs file locking, you will probably need to SSH into the host that is currently running the VM to edit these files. Once you have edited all the files, create a new snapshot for the VM either via the GUI or command line. Then issue the “Delete All” snapshots command to force ESX to combine all the files and close all the visible and hidden snapshots.
As soon as more information is available, I’ll post it here. If any other readers have more information to share, please speak up in the comments.
This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.
Snapshot Issue with VMware Data Recovery
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Server Virtualization News—VMware takes another stab at virtual appliance authoring
VMware Studio 2.0 free virtual appliance authoring software can create multi-tier virtual appliances, but some IT pros have already settled on Sun xVM VirtualBox.
Server Virtualization News—VMware takes another stab at virtual appliance authoring
VMware Studio 2.0 free virtual appliance authoring software can create multi-tier virtual appliances, but some IT pros have already settled on Sun xVM VirtualBox.
VMblog—VMworld 2009, the Premier Virtualization Event of the Year, Returns to San Francisco and Spotlights Business Transformation Through IT
VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that VMworld® 2009, the leading virtualization event, makes its return to San Francisco August 31-September 3, 2009 at Moscone Center. With more than 11,000 attendees expected and more than 180 sponsors and exhibitors, including AMD, Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, Intel, NetApp, Terremark and SunGard, VMworld 2009 will spotlight how virtualization is revolutionizing the next generation of computing. ...(read more)
VMblog—eBook From Agilysys Examines the Value of Virtualization in Today's Enterprise
Agilysys, Inc., a leading provider of innovative IT solutions, announced the availability of a new eBook from Agilysys which examines how virtualization is quickly becoming a standard in the Data Center as a tool to redesign computer infrastructures and eliminate inefficient systems. ...(read more)
VMblog—Rapid Growth of VMware Service Provider Program Illustrates Increased Demand for VMware-Based Cloud Solutions
VMware, the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced expansion and continued momentum of the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP). The VSPP is designed to enable IT service provider partners -- solution providers that offer cloud-based IT services to customers outside their traditional datacenters -- to leverage the VMware platform, including VMware vSphere(TM) 4, to offer external IT infrastructures for customers so they can increase or reduce compute capacity based on business demands. Since its launch in 2008, more than 700 service provider partners have joined the VSPP, and the program has expanded to offer benefits to partners in the EMEA region. Service providers in 32 countries are current VSPP members....(read more)
VMblog—Neptuny shows how Capacity Planning can be integrated with CMDBs
Neptuny received a warm interest from the audience of the latest HP Software Universe, which took place in Las Vegas last week. Neptuny was present both in the exhibition area and as a speaker in the Configuration Management track.
...(read more)
VMblog—NewServers and Scalable Informatics Partner to Deliver High Performance Cloud Storage
NewServers Inc., the leading provider of Hardware as a Service (HaaS) dedicated cloud servers, today announced a strategic partnership with high performance computing (HPC) provider Scalable Informatics that will provide cloud storage solutions capable of supporting HPC.
NewServers will integrate Scalable Informatics' JackRabbit™ high-performance server storage solution into the company's service. Customers, particularly those with high performance or high volume storage requirements (in petabytes), will benefit from the design, maintenance, and support of this system by Scalable Informatics.
...(read more)
VMware—VMworld 2009 - Hello Freedom
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VMware—VMworld 2009 Content Catalog
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The Content Catalog has been released for public viewing, covering VMworld 2009 session and lab titles, abstracts and speaker bios. |
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VMware—VMworld 2009 Exhibitors
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Ben Armstrong—Creating Virtual Hard Disks with Windows Virtual PC
Existing Virtual PC 2007 users who start using Windows Virtual PC may be startled by the lack of an obvious “Virtual Hard Disk wizard”. But do not fear, the virtual hard disk wizard is still there – it is just hidden. Or more accurately – it has been placed into more appropriate workflows.
The first place where the virtual hard disk wizard appears is when you are creating a new virtual machine. If you select to Create a virtual hard disk using advanced options in the new virtual machine wizard you will seamlessly transition into the new virtual hard disk wizard:
The second place where the virtual hard disk wizard appears is from the virtual hard disk settings page, if you click on the Create… button:
Now, you may be wondering what to do if you want to create a virtual hard disk that is not associated with a virtual machine? The answer is that you do not use Windows Virtual PC! With Windows 7 virtual hard disk management is now part of the core operating system. You can create virtual hard disks using either Disk Management or DiskPart:
Cheers,
Ben
Chad Sakac—A great new VMware View/Cisco UCS/V-Max whitepaper
The team in Santa Clara pumped this one out furiously over the last little while – it’s got great content.
Here are a couple of highlights:
- We showed we could support 640 desktops on four half-width UCS blades, each configured with 96GB of RAM. That’s 160 users per blade, and almost 4x what we did with the previous generation of this work on older generation Dell M600 blades.
- This time, the workload included not only office apps, but also Outlook – very difficult to generate a workload in this use case (Loadgen is designed to stress the Exchange server environment, not the client) – we’re trying with each iteration to make the VDI use case workload generation more “real world”
- The V-Max wasn’t huffing and puffing.
- This config could scale up linearly due to vSphere, UCS, and V-Max scaling models.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/App_Networking/vdiucswp.html
More to come, we’re starting on new stuff coming from VMware, adding EFDs into the mix, and more.
Ben Armstrong—Virtualizing Windows Essential Business Server
Thanks to Dugie for bringing this to my attention. We have just published a document that outlines approaches and best practices for running Windows Essential Business Server in a virtual machine. You can grab it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=933b2eb6-f3bb-47c1-a227-13bb2ccc0a94
Here is the abstract from the document:
This document provides guidance for virtualizing Windows® Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008 by using the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V™ technology. Server virtualization allows you to install Windows EBS software on a single physical server reducing hardware, energy, and management costs. Virtualizing Windows EBS consists of the following steps:
- Choose a virtualization configuration
- Install and enable Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008
- Create and configure the virtual machines for Windows EBS
- Install Windows EBS on the virtual machines
This document covers virtualizing Windows EBS Standard
Cheers,
Ben
VMware—Bringing your Spouse to VMworld?
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Roger Lund—OpenFiler 2.3, on vSphere, using VMXNET3, and Paravirtual SCSI
I am going to walk you through setting up open filer 2.3, ( after a openfiler 2.3 64 bit, install with Static IP. * note, do not use openfiler VM ) to work with vSphere’s latest VMware tools, and VMXNET3, Paravirutal SCSI adapters.
Why write this? the openfiler 2.3 kernel is build with open VMware tools installed, which do not support the above, and we will need to remove these to get them working.
When I refer to console, I am talking about Linux console, not VMware’s.
- To Start, Create a Server 2008, 64 bit Guest, remove the NIC, and add a new Nic, Select VMXNET3 from Adapter Type, click ok, add a VMDK with 1:0 SCSI, change SCSI to Paravirtual (i’ll assume you know how ) and hit ok.
- Edit the Guest, go to options, and change the Guest Operating System to the Linux 64 bit, 2.6x OS. ( doing this allows you to later install VMware tools )
- go into console, type conary update kernel:build-tree
- type conary update gcc
- reboot
- go into the web UI of openfiler, and update to the newest version. ( system, system update )
- reboot
- go into console, type nano /boot/grub/grub.conf
- Change change "default=0" to "default=1" ( to use the older kernel, needed because devel is older)
- reboot
- in VI, Select Install VMware tools to the guest ( i’ll assume you know how )
- Go into console, type the following lines 12 - 18 :
- mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
- cp *.gz /tmp
- cd /tmp
- tar zxvf *.tar.gz
- cd vmware-tools-distrib
- cd bin
- ./vmware-uninstall-tools.pl ( follow any prompts )
- type ..
- now, run ./vmware-install.pl, and it will give you a execution aborted, and list the following modules that are installed.
- write down the modules names.
- type find /lib/modules | grep nameofmodule ( example find /lib/modules | grep vmmemctl), ( this will display somthing like /lib/modules/2.6.26.8-1.0.11.smp.gcc3.4.x86_64/misc/vmmemctl.o /lib/modules/2.6.26.8-1.0.11.smp.gcc3.4.x86_64/misc/vmmemctl.ko
- You need to remove all finds and directories listed when you run find /lib/modules | grep nameofmodule . Do this by using RM, and RM dir, ( example rm /lib/modules/2.6.26.8-1.0.11.smp.gcc3.4.x86_64/misc/vmmemctl.o rmdir /lib/modules/2.6.26.8-1.0.11.smp.gcc3.4.x86_64/vcmmemctl ) * note * if the file doesn’t have a . it’s a folder .
- run ./vmware-install.pl ( follow any prompts ) ( you will see it compile support for vmxnet3 and paravirtual scsi.)
- reboot
- In console, cd to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
- type nano ifcfg-eth0 , change the IPADDR, DEVICE to eth1, and the HWADDR = to the address of your virtual nic. ( see the guest’s nic in VI), hit Ctrl X, yes, and type ifcfg-eth1
- reboot.
- in console, type nano /etc/modprobe.conf
- make sure that( alias eth1 vmxnet3 ) is a line.
- test the IP you assigned in eth1 and make sure it’s alive ( ping )
You are set, you can now use the IP of the VMXNET3 nic for your NFS or ISCSI, and the other static ip for management.
You should also see the vmdk under block devices in openfiler UI in the volumes section.
Roger L.
Scott Lowe—I Love Having My Content Stolen
You know, it’s really irritating when you pour your heart and soul into something, only to find someone else riding your coattails and leeching off your efforts. It would appear that NetworkVirtualization.com is one such leech.
I have no problem with other sites syndicating my content as long as proper attribution of the original author and original site is provided. Do me a favor: visit some of the URLs below (I’m not going to hyperlink them and give the site a traffic boost) and tell me how any of the examples I’ve listed below provide proper attribution of the original author and the original site:
http://networkvirtualization.com/content/unified-fabric-inevitability
http://networkvirtualization.com/content/vmware-io-queues-micro-bursting-and-multipathing
http://networkvirtualization.com/content/tap-vsphere-pvscsi-performance-separate-vm-boot-and-data-drives
Let’s see…content from my site, Chad Sakac’s site, and Rich Brambley’s site, all syndicated on their site without any clear attribution back to the original post—except for a very small link near the bottom of the article. If you hadn’t been looking for that link, or if I hadn’t told you that the articles above were written by me, Chad, and Rich, respectively, would you have known? And those are just the authors I recognized! How many more are there that I don’t recognize?
To whomever is running NetworkVirtualization.com: if you are going to syndicate content, you need to provide proper attribution. Otherwise, taking someone else’s content and allowing people to believe that it’s yours is called plagiarism, and it’s wrong.
This article was originally posted on blog.scottlowe.org. Visit the site for more information on virtualization, servers, storage, and other enterprise technologies.
I Love Having My Content Stolen
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Vaughn Stewart—NetApp: Microsoft’s Storage Solutions Partner of the Year
As most of my posts are focused on and directed to the VMware community I’m afraid that I’ve neglected to share that we actually have a very large install base of Hyper-V and customers who have deployed both VMware and Hyper-V. I consistently receive constant stream of emails asking me to share more about what NetApp is doing with Microsoft in the virtualizaiton space.
Well the Hyper-V and Data ONTAP teams have put together some video demonstrating our joint integrations in action.
Demo One: Hyper-V & NetApp Storage - Overview
Demo Two: Hyper-V & NetApp Storage - Storage Config
Demo Three: Hyper-V & NetApp Storage - Cluster Building
Demo Four: Hyper-V & NetApp Storage - Optimising Storage
I believe the bottom line here is clear: The value of virtualizing one’s storage in the same manner as one's servers is the key to building a cloud infrastructure.
I must admit, I wanted to elaborate on a few key technical points (I know many of you clamor for more technical detail), but my REM window is rapidly shrinking. I promise in my next post I’ll share the intricate details around the components that comprise the ‘NetApp Nebula’ and how these technologies led to Microsoft’s decision to name NetApp their Advanced Infrastructure Storage Solutions Partner of the year.
Kudos again to both teams!
The Virtual Intelligence Briefing—Akorri Makes Important Announcement
On June 22nd, Akorri made ,in my opinion, the most significant announcement that they have made in over 1 year.
Was it a big product announcement ? NO
Was it a new strategic partnership or distribution announcement ? NO
What is it?
Akorri announced that it has appointed three veteran industry executives to lead and build upon the company’s continued revenue growth and strategic business development efforts - Bill Simpson as Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Warren Mead as Vice President of U.S. Channels, and Jim Comstock as Vice President of Business Development.
I have worked with Warren in the past and know that Bill has a terrific reputation with his employees and customers. Warren is a stand - up guy who seems to do what is right for his customer's (the end user & channel partners)
Akorri has a great product. They do what NOBODY can do , which is troubleshoot and optimize a virtual environment where the sticky problems usually occur - at the disk or I/O.
Akorri BalancePoint is a must have for any sizable virtualized production environment and it the only tool that one can use today to confidently move from a test/development environment to production.
Akorri has made a good move in bringing in the 3 guys that have a track record with sales. Companies with great products don't always live very long. Companies with great sales prowess, but nothing else don't usually live very long.
The combination of a great product with sales talent gives a company a fighting chance along with a few other factors that include financing, operational discipline, customer service, etc
Taking it the next level won't be an easy task for Akorri though - they need educate the market why BalancePoint is a must have vs a nice to have, build brand awareness, jumpstart a channel program and fend off VMware, Quest/Vizioncore at the same time.
I have many clients who are 50-60% virtualized and are on the way to doing much more and Akorri makes it possible today.
Chad Sakac—Virtualize Everything!
We’re running a webcast series for the slightly more laid back summer months, in run up to the full extravaganza that will be VMworld.
Join us every Thursday at 11am ET for a new EMC Solutions for VMware webcast.
To view all EMC Solutions for VMware webcasts:
- Visit: http://www.emc.com/events
- Select Event Type: EMC Live webcast
- Enter Search: VMware
First few up to bat:
Jul 02, 09
Backup and Recovery for VMware Infrastructure – Driving Costs Out of Your Virtual Environment (how do you backup more, for less $, faster – and recover files in VMs, VMs, and sites?)
Jul 09, 09
EMC and VMware—Building Your Internal Cloud (this is focused on management tools for VMware environments)
Jul 15, 09
Maximize the Benefits of Virtualization with Optimized VMware Backup (how do you tweak your backup strategy in VMware environments)
Jul 23, 09
Complete Disaster Recovery with EMC and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
(Deploying Site Recovery Manager, configuring, using, and automating failback)
VMware Tips—VMware Code Central - Now Online
I’m a couple days behind on this, been extremely busy at work getting ready to go live with our SAP Deployment on July 2nd. Anyways, enough crying to you about my busy schedule. Nava Davuluri wanted me to help get the word out about the new VMware Sample Code website (titled Code Central).
This will be a site dedicated to the developer community, sample codes related to products such as the new vSphere CLI, vCLI, Perl Toolkit, Java Webservices SDK and much much more. Check out the site today for great code from other bloggers such as Eric Sloof and Alan Renouf!
Also be sure to check out the Code Central Blog!
Ben Armstrong—Multiple Seamless Applications with Windows Virtual PC
We have spent a lot of time telling people how Windows Virtual PC and Virtual XP mode will allow them to run incompatible legacy applications on Windows 7. Unfortunately a number of people have come away with the impression that you can only do this with Virtual XP mode and that you can only run a single application at a time.
This is simply not true.
Using Windows Virtual PC you can access seamless applications from Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines. You can have multiple applications running seamlessly in a single virtual machine, and you can have seamless applications running under different virtual machines at the same time.
If you look at this screenshot:
You can see that I have Internet Explorer and a command prompt running under the same (Windows XP) virtual machine. I then have Windows Live Photo Gallery running under a separate (Windows 7) virtual machine. All three of these applications have been launched directly from my start menu in Windows 7.
Cheers,
Ben
VMware Tips—VMware vSphere 4 - Enterprise Plus - 2 Month SnS
A big issue for companies making the upgrade to vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus from their existing VI3 Enterprise License wasn’t the low $295 price per CPU (VMware Part VS4-ENT-ENT-PL-UG-PROMO), it was the hassle of having to renew their SnS Entitlement! What if your company just renewed their 1 Year Enterprise SnS? You’d basically need to purchase another 1 Year Enterprise Plus SnS. Even though it would push out your support another year, this additional cost could be quite high for some companies, especially if you have dozens or even hundreds of hosts!
Customers complained and VMware Listened…
VMware will be releasing a 2 Month Enterprise Plus SnS package for customers in this exact boat. The price will be reasonably priced at $140 per CPU for Platinum and $120 per CPU for Gold (both estimated retail). Well thank you VMware! IMHO the best thing you could have done was just given all your Enterprise customers a free upgrade to Enterprise Plus, but I suppose this is the 2nd best thing I could ask for….seeing that I’m upgrading about 20 licenses in the next week.
For more information on the Enterprise to Enterprise Plus upgrade promotion, please contact your local VMware Retailer! There is also an upgrade promotion that includes the Nexus 1000V Virtual Switch (VMware Part VS4-N1K-UG