Currently viewing the tag: "vSphere"

Austin, Texas VMUG

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VMUG-Logo.pngAlright!!!! VMware community members and followers, If you’re anywhere near Austin, Texas on April 2nd come an join us for a day of fun and knowledge transfer at the VMware User Group (VMUG). The event is set to be a very good one with great breakout sessions about the Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC), Software Defined Storage, VCDX Workshop bootcamps.

If you interested on the challenge and pursuing the VCDX certification you want to attend one of the bootcamps delivered by actual VCDX panel members. The VCDX bootcamps have shown to be very helpful for candidates. I will be there along other fellow VCDXs and  panel members Wade Holmes, and Matthew Meyer.

The VCDX bootcamp will cover everything you need to prepare for the certification process and the defense with topics such as

  • What the VCDX covers, and what it is designed to demonstrate
  • Profiles of successful and unsuccessful candidates
  • An insider’s view of the VCDX Panel Defense process, including perspectives from the panelists
  • Advanced best practices for VMware design and architecture available nowhere else
  • Practice VCDX Design and Troubleshooting Scenarios, and more

If you’re curious and want to learn more about the Software Defined Datacenter and Software Defined Storage, I will also be presenting a session on VMware’s Software Defined Storage (SDS) vision for the Software Defined Datacenter, and providing some insight into some of the features and technologies VMware is currently working on to make the vision a reality.

If you are already a VCDX, master of the universe and already know about all this stuff than great!, you’re the Man!!! or the Woman!!! still just come down and socialize with everyone it will be fun.

Feel free to sign up and register Austin VMUG User Conference

- Enjoy

For future updates, be sure to follow me on Twitter at  @PunchingClouds

Architecting Storage Offerings for vCloud Director 5.1

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Prior to the release of the vCloud Suite and vCloud Director 5.1, the discussions for architecting cloud as it relates to vCloud Director and storage offerings were based around tiered models focused on performance and capacity.

The access to tiered offerings was previously achieved by creating multiple provider virtual datacenters (PVDC) that would consist of different storage characteristics that could be offered to different tenants.

Storage offerings revolve around disk types, protocols, capacity, performance, and other items which are then bundled into a service level grouping. The majority of the time they are packaged and labeled as a precious metal or tiered level (e.g Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3).

Predominantly the goal is to design storage offerings comprised of multiple or even a single service that would satisfy any tenants application’s requirements. In the previous version of vCloud Director multi-tier storage offerings were designed and made accessible via separate PVDC constructs. The illustration below is an example of the approach utilized with the previous version of vCloud Director.

Because vCloud Director 5.1 is now able to leverage some of the vSphere storage features such as Storage Profiles and Datastore Clusters, the approach for architecting storage offerings should be revised.  Storage Profiles and Storage Clusters are native features of the vSphere core platform but not of vCloud Director. This means that most of the decisions made related to storage features and storage hardware design are made at the vSphere layer to a certain degree.

Multiple PVDC Design

 

By leveraging Storage Profiles and Datastore Clusters it’s now possible to design single instances of vCloud Director PVDC capable of providing multi-tier storage offerings. This approach could reduce the complexity previously experienced by using multiple PVDC designs for multi-tier storage offerings. This new approach could also have an impact by improving operation efficiency and deployment accuracy.

From a manageability standpoint, the use of both storage features could possibly have an impact with initial implementation effort. The storage array properties and capabilities can be systematically identified with use of the vSphere Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA). VASA can take care of the datastore classification profile from a performance standpoint, but in the event that the vSphere Storage API for Storage Awareness are not leveraged, then manually user defined storage capabilities is the other option to get the job done, and this will incur a bigger effort.

Leveraging both features at the vSphere layer would allow vCloud Director to simply utilize that multi-tier storage design. Storage Profiles will take care of the vApp/workload performance related part of the design, while Datastore Clusters can be utilized to organize or group datastores based on their specific Storage Profiles or Tiers.  Another possible benefit of this is that this approach could also serve as a risk mitigation strategy for the deployment of vApps and their respective workloads, as vApps/workloads will be forced to stay or move to a predefined storage cluster and remain on compliant datastores. The image below illustrates the use of Storage Profiles and Storage Clusters in the vSphere Web Client.

Storage Profiles, and Storage Clusters in vSphere Web Client

The three Storage Profiles and Datatore clusters illustrated above will be available  in vCloud Director during the creation a PVDC. When creating a PVDC you can select the options that are applicable to a specific service offering. The image below illustrates the options presented to vCloud Director during the creation of a PVDC.

Provider VDC Creation in vCloud Director 5.1

 

The “*(Any)” storage profile is there by default, but it should not be included as part of any PVDC without considering the possible performance and operational risks. This is something that I will cover in a future and separate blog post.  Once the PVDC’s have been created, the utilization and capacity metrics can be tracked directly in vCloud Director as well as in vSphere. The images below illustrate the Storage Profiles and Datastore Cluster view within vCloud Director 5.1.

vCloud Director Storage Profile View

 

vCloud Director Datastore Cluster View

One of the goals for any architecture design is to always try to reduce the level of complexity whenever and wherever possible. It’s always good to balance how the technology used will impact design from an operations perspective. You can now explore the possibilities of streamlining storage offering designs by considering vCloud Director’s capabilities to leverage vSphere features and end up with less complex solutions as the one discussed here and illustrated below.

New PVDC Design

I hope some of you folks out there finds this post helpful and useful in your cloud design journeys.

Enjoy!

Get notification of my blog postings by following me on Twitter: @PunchingClouds

vCloud Director Resource Allocation Models Whitepaper

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For those of you who didn’t get the opportunity to attend VMworld 2012 in San Francisco, and missed out on the sessions delivered by Frank Denneman, Chris Colotti, and myself on vCloud Director Allocation Models, and vSphere resource scheduling, don’t worry we got you covered. Frank Denneman (@FrankDenneman) and I delivered the VMworld 2012 session INF-VSP1683 VMware vSphere Cluster Resource Pools Best Practices. Here we discussed various design consideration when using or architecting the foundation of solid cloud environments. Here we got in to details and gotchas about the use of resource pools and functionalities as they related to resource allocation models. The information delivered was extremely important as the building block for vCloud Director Allocation models is based on vSphere Resource pools. This session was nominated as one of VMworld’s 2012 Top 10 sessions.

Another key session on this topic was one delivered by Chris Colotti (@ccolotti) and myself, OPS-CSM1167 Architecting for VMware vCloud Allocation Models. In this session Chris and I discussed the details of the three different allocation models of vCloud Director and explained the affect they have on the vSphere resource scheduling. We talked about and demonstrated examples of use cases for the different allocation models and how to use them. The main goal was to basically demonstrate that by having a solid understanding of the vSphere resource allocation, the logic, understanding and use of vCloud allocation models would be simplified and much easier to understand.

Well… for those unlucky ones that missed out on VMworld 2012 and missed the sessions don’t worry we got you covered. Some of the content that was the basis for the two presentations mentioned above was just published VMware vCloud Director Resource Allocation Models. I got the opportunity to review the document and If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my tweet about it how exited I was about this paper coming out about two months ago. Frank and Chris did an excellent job with the paper. The way the content and illustrations are delivered tie everything together from the vSphere resource allocation to the vCloud Director allocation model perspective, and how all of that affects VMware HA. The white paper is based on vCloud Director 1.5 but all of the content and information it’s still relevant to vCloud Director 5.1.

This is a document that I would recommend for all vCloud Director architects, and vCloud Director administrators to read, and consume completely. Go Big!

- Enjoy

vCenter Orchestrator Team Page Online!

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vCO TeamFor those of you that have been wondering about the capabilities of the vCenter Orchestrator (vCO), that one component that gets installed under the hood with vCenter Server 4.o. Well now you don’t have to wonder about it anymore really…the vCenter Orchestrator Team is now sharing their knowledge, skills, and resources on the web. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Burke Azbill on an engagement for vCenter Orchestrator, and VMware Lifecycle Manager recently, when he told me about the site. just to give you everyone a bit of info o the person I’m referring to here, Burke Azbill is a VMware Senior Consultant, and one of the experts of vCenter Orchestrator, and VMware Lifecycle Manager, and also the master mind behind the vCO Team Site. Some of the ways on which VMware is going to be using the vCenter Orchestrator, I can’t really talk about yet, but vCO it’s definitely going to be another one of really awesome plugable applications that will integrate deeply into the rest of the vSphere, and future platforms. I’ll say this… the vCenter Orchestrator is not just limited to the virtual infrastructure, or just VMware related products. There are just so many things that this application can be used for, and it’s pretty cool. Check out the site and contribute if you can, ask questions, make request. I know there are a lot of people out there wondering how to configure that service they see in Windows Services after the vCenter server is installed. You can watch videos of configuration, and installations and much more there. Everyone will be amazed by what this product will bring to the internal and external cloud in the very near future. vCenter Orchestrator is one of my favorite products so check it!

Punching Clouds VMworld 2010 Presentations

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VMworld 2010VMworld 2010 is going to be loaded with an incredibly interesting amount of presentations. This year there many new things planned, but this year VMworld is bringing something truly special… the virtualization’s dynamic duo, the Chips (TV Show) of virtualization, the John & Ponch of virtualization, AKA Chris McCain, and I (being funny).  We have a couple of interesting topics for VMworld, and now that the VMworld sessions are now available for public voting, go and check all the sessions out and what’s going to be possibly available this years,  and vote for ours if you want to see them at VMworld 2010. We’ve submitted the following session:

VMworld 2010 Session:

Private Cloud – Business Continuity Section

Exploring the vSphere 4 Business Continuity Spectrum

Session Id: BC7521

This session will explore all of the business continuity options available within a vSphere 4 virtual infrastructure. The session will define the various types of data tragedies that can occur and how to plan and react to these events. Attendees will learn how to apply defined Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) to the various vSphere 4 business continuity features.

Technology and Architecture Session

Breaking Down the Distributed Virtual Switch Starring the Nexus 1000v

Session Id: TA7523

This session will break down the components of the distributed virtual switch. Attendees will learn how to implement and manage a DVS including a look at implementing the Cisco Nexus 1000v. Topics covered will include VLANs, PVLANs, DVS security, and granular DVS port management.

Virtualization 101 Section

Managing vCenter Server Certificates

Session Id: V17522

This session will detail certificate management for vCenter Server. Attendees will learn how to implement a trusted Public Key Infrastructure using Microsoft Active Directory Certificate Services along with the steps to allow vCenter to use self-issued certificates.

We’ll also be around to discuss some of the punching topics about the vSphere Resource Kit , and some other cool projects. Check out Chris’s blog, which is yet another dynamic duo creation. Hopefully we will see you all at VMworld 2010.