ToutVirtual Enterprise Virtualization - A Proper Virtual World

It is Veterans Day

Virtualization Critical Comparison - Chapter 10

As I write this, it happens to be Veterans Day. No, I never served, but have friends and family that have and did. I don’t have any family or friends in current service, but I wanted to say to those that maybe Veterans, that happen to read this blog… Thank You. If I had been able to serve, I would have. I believe all citizens of the United States should serve, as all citizens do, in Germany of today for example do. I take a very deep sense of pride in America, when non-citizens, became citizens, in serving in the Armed Forces. And to be clear, I thank you for every type or era of service from every armed service, from the Revolutionary War, to Civil War, to WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I and II, etc. I do not make delineations between peace keepings, police actions, or world wars, combat is combat, this is one lesson I learned at a young age listing to family and friends that participated in the various conflicts throughout recent history.

Moreover, I had close relatives on both sides of WWII, German and American. So I feel I have unique perspective from mein Grossvater who served in the German Technical Corps in Poland, in active combat with the Russians and Americans, as well as a Great Uncle, a pig-boat man and medic, who lost the back of his knee on a beach on Iwo Jima, because when they lost all the medics at one point, he was volunteered. There is nothing honorable or romantic, or even glorious, about combat. Saying thanks, and meaning it, I know has special meaning to all veterans that only they can appreciate.

As my best friend in high-school said, a former Marine, once said…Semper Fidelis, or Semper Fi, meaning Always Faithful, is a state of mind, not a motto. Thinking of this fact, I realized VMware is at a moment of truth, since it is facing an intense battle, a Battle Royale, really, against all comers. I discussed this at length with a good friend of mine at VMware recently, just after VMworld 2008. No, I will not name this person here, since to do so would not only violate their respective privacy, but since my blog is at times critical of VMware solutions, it would not be appropriate to create a perception of association, beyond our friendship of course, here, or with my, at times, intense views of VMware products. The basic discussion was an honest debate, in policy context, about how VMware should combat the threats, VMware sees in the virtualization sub culture of the Information Technology (IT) industry.

A standard SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis model is illustrative of the debated items within our discussion. MBA students hate these; I did when I got my MBA as well, professors love them, or so it seemed at the time. The itemization here is not exhaustive, but illustrative. I am sure many readers of this blog will find more items then are listed here, feel free to comment on such in reply to this blog as you would. All feedback is good, even that which we don’t enjoy, VMware are you listening? Sorry, was just too easy to say or type rather.

Strengths

• Market Share, VMware owns officially, last I looked at the various reports something close to 60% of the market? But with Datacenter adoption rates of only 10% or so, is this significant enough? The competition is getting stronger; well, Microsoft not withstanding, maybe VMware should acquire Citrix, Ironworks, Parallels, etc., just to eliminate confusing options to the potential customer base? VMware should focus on virtualization, even developing its own application instancing solution, which, is not based on VI? Something new and radical?
• Product Feature Set, no doubt VMware VirtualCenter (VC) is still key to the success of VMware, even with its scaling limits and top-heavy implementation of today, single point of failure (SPOF), it is, for now the best Ease-of-Use (EOU) solution for virtualization. HA, DRS, and UM have all added to this model, for EOU, while detracting from VC scaling and SPOF issues. Not to forget (Storage) VMotion, and VMware SRM. True, VMware IV 4 promises to address these issues, improve integration, but only time will tell how successful this is, or how well received.

Weaknesses

• Lack of focus on Enterprise client base, this is changing in VMware, but it took a long time for it to become reality, years in fact. As the economic situation worsens, it is only the Enterprise and strong growth segments in Healthcare, Financial (cough, those that survive), etc., which for the most part are very big globalized entities, which will have the resources to continue with VMware.
• Cost, VMware in comparison is expensive. Unlike Apple Computer, Inc. VMware can not survive on only the top 10 or 20% of the market share that will always need or be able to justify VMware cost over other solutions.
• Loss of true innovation? Has VMware lost its ability to innovate? Yes and No. Yes, in that we are not seeing the great insightful leaps from VMware as a leader in virtualization, but what new big advances are still to be made? Hypervisor, operating system isolation virtualization, is quite mature. Application instancing, streaming, and state-less solution delivery appear to be eclipsing virtualization. Cloud computing, utility computing, even Grid computing are all gaining acceptance, if slowly as concepts that Enterprise entities are struggling to define, delineate, and implement, of which virtualization as we know it today, is only part of the overall strategy that is typical.

Opportunities

• Innovation? Well, VMware is still acquiring or should I say is now almost completely, acquiring solutions, not really creating new solutions? Is that a fair statement? I think so, now. VMware has learned from Microsoft, that it is easier to purchase rather than innovate? This is an opportunity to be sure, but also a weakness.
• VMware cost model is its greatest weakness but also an obvious opportunity. But does VMware have the strategic will to convert a weakness to an opportunity? Can this opportunity offset the impact of the significant threat, Microsoft? Will VMware continue to be a high-priced option, and elite solution? Or will VMware become the Walmart of virtualization? Which strategic direction will force Microsoft to re-think its strategy?
• VMware must differentiate its self from the competition, showing values of its solution as superior thus, worth the investment. This is an opportunity that VMware only has as long as others continue to goof up, who are goofees, or is it goofies? Microsoft, with its rather weak, compared to VMware, Hyper-V solution, has established yet another opportunity for VMware to get crazy and surprise all of us again?

Threats

• Microsoft, is not the Borg, they are not that efficient or effective yet…I fear we have awoken a sleeping dragon, is just not accurate yet, and VMware knows this. Not to be confused with the famous phrase…I fear we have done nothing more than awaken a sleeping giant. I leave it to the readers to discover the famous context of the later phrase; the hints are WWII and Pear Harbor. Microsoft has goofed twice, well three times, first the failed to acquire VMware, then they never got Microsoft Virtual Server right, then Hyper-V was released, as was ESX 3i, before, in my view it was ready. This does not mean that Microsoft is not a threat, only that it is more potential than reality at this point. Hyper-V is weak, but System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) for all its potential, is a disappointment to me. I really expect more from the Borg, I expect Microsoft to adapt much faster than they have so far. Still an emerging threat.
• Xen (Citrix or Red Hat), Virtual Iron, Parallels, Solaris Zones, etc., the various virtualization container models and smaller organizations all are threats that will become more significant over time, as long as VMware cost model is significantly higher than the others, but will they survive when VMware and Microsoft own virtualization? I would say they are a declining threat.

Well, Gartner is not as outspoken on this topic as they could be, which strikes me as odd. Maybe no one wants to predict what will happen? As for me, I am going back and look at VI 4 again, now that I just completed the deep dive on Hyper-V, and look at VMware VI 4, including ESXi, yes, I said ESXi, with a fresh perspective, being a good critic means revisiting conclusions and assumptions, no solution is static so no critic should be static. I also plan to look at the latest version of Xen, again, in light of pending VI 4 and recent Hyper-V analysis, and see if my original SWOT analysis as noted above holds true or not.

Oh, as for my friend at VMware, what were the applicable conclusions from their perspective? In brief, agreed with the strengths, and to some extent saw reasonable merits in the opportunities, especially the idea of differentiating value of VMware quality and depth of offering over cost, but disagreed to some extent with most of the weaknesses and threats, noting that Microsoft was an obvious future threat.

Since this person is my friend, I would not wish to offend, therefore, I did not ask…Did you enjoy the cool-aid?  Instead, I thought to myself…What flavor was selected for next month, hoping the flavor selected would be agreeable. Cherry is just horrible, if I remember right. I am hoping for Grape, after all, I will be drinking it as well, because friends should never drink alone? Or I should say… I will be drinking it, at least until a strong and significant threat to VMware materializes. It is a question of when, not if, of course. All suggestions for future flavors of the month for cool-aid should be posted to this blog, the flavors the next 18 months or so, thinking of Microsoft for some reason since it took about that to get Hyper-V off the drawing board, are still open for selection. Don’t even suggest Cherry, yuck.

Add comment November 11th, 2008

Hyper-V, No Warp Drive, Struggling With Impulse Power Still

Virtualization Critical Comparison - Chapter 09

Well, I did it, I did the deep dive into Hyper-V, it was demanded, it was not an option, and when I came up for air, I felt like I was covered in dirt, well to be more specific, not dirt. The stuff was brown, but it had an odd smell, and it did not come off easy, too greasy for my liking, more like something unexpected that oozed out of the cracks of a weak impulse propulsion engine design prototype. Which I am not sure was what Microsoft was hoping for? Or was it? Microsoft released something that was better left stuck to the bottom of my pressure suit magnetic boots, rather than introduced into my virtualization lab. But in reflection this is what Microsoft intended, yes, intended. How so? Microsoft wanted to avoid looking like they were standing still, that they had not completely lost the Hypervisor market for at least another 18 or so months?

Look at Microsoft goals and objectives, from the past, they have done this before. They almost never have a winner out the door, but something that is functional, or looks to be anyways. Something that can be built up and refined, and polished into a mirror finish of Brass. Not Gold or Silver, at least not yet. Hyper-V gets you from Earth to Saturn and back again. But if you need to leave the Alpha quadrant, such as VMware has already done? For get it. Of course, along the way, Microsoft gets just enough of a following to make the solution look passable, if not viable at some scale or degree. Look at WordPerfect and Lotus, they dominated their respective markets, and Microsoft took them down hard, over time.

The gloves are off, that is obvious, and Microsoft has VMware in the phasers targeting array, and is locked on. The interesting thing is that VMware is a moving target, at warp speed, so Microsoft is having trouble getting a kill. Microsoft is still not strong on the feature set, no matter how many their sales teams decry the faults of VMware or Microsoft otherwise discounts the gaps in Hyper-V to cool-aid sipping CIOs of firms world wide, VMware is still the best of breed, still avoiding assimilation or destruction. And I am not just referring to VMware VMotion, or what Microsoft has tried over and over to rename as transparent migration. Lets be real, quick-migration is not quick, if any reboot is required, and in Hyper-V, that is what is required, be it planned or as a recovery on a cluster, it is not HA (High Availability) but AHA (Almost High Availability).

Let us dig a bit deeper. If some of that brown stuff gets into your suit vends, sorry about that, but when you decided to read about Hyper-V, you should have expected the brown stuff would get all over the place. The incomplete features that hurt Hyper-V are as follows:

• HA (High Availability), well sort of, Microsoft Cluster running VMs (Virtual Machines) as a resource is not HA, it is really a band-aid, no matter how you look at it.
• QM (Quick Migration), a reboot is a reboot is a reboot. This was discussed above, so no need to itemize again here.
• One VM (Virtual Machine) per LUN? Are You Kidding? What bozo thought this up? Did I say band-aid again? Microsoft does not have a shared IO model that is really a shared IO model. VMware VMFS is not perfect, but it did set the expectation of standard high. Even in the Microsoft Clustering model, Microsoft says that disks should be duplicated not shared, the old X-Cluster versus Y-Cluster argument. Well, even if shared in a Y-Cluster, there are scaling problems, for anyone with 1000s of VMs. Like 1000s of LUNs?
• Networking? It is horrible in Hyper-V, and Microsoft says, well, we depend on vendors to develop new or better drivers. Bull. Microsoft has all the leverage, the design is weak. For example, HP is still working on getting teaming to work right with Hyper-V, to which HP PSP 8.2 will support teaming in Hyper-V. Dell and IBM are silent so far on the issue, stating that they rely on the NIC drivers as provided. But simple teaming to avoid Single Point of Failure (SPOF) is not the issue I am yelling about here, it is the fact that Hyper-V does not do load-balancing or even an active/active pool of NICs, similar to VMware Bond, for me, that just yells weak design out of the space dock.
• You have to have VMs with IDE for boot? But can have SCSI for other VM disks? Dumb. I think Microsoft did this to make transportation between VMware ESX and Hyper-V and back again, which will be a key trick for enterprise scale organization, as painful as possible.
• Microsoft Clustering is horrible. Yes, horrible. When it works it is great, when it is ill or sick, you often will find it easier to take a node offline and shoot it with a phaser, because recovering a node that is whacked is one step short of a digital miracle. How do I know this? I have been supporting and designing solutions around Microsoft Clustering since 1998!
• The entire Hyper-V solution is dependent on MOM, SCVMM and other Microsoft tools, so Hyper-V is not free, in fact, if you need to scale Hyper-V, it is not inexpensive. Anyone look at the cost of SCVMM and MOM? They are expensive and going up in price, with each new version, are they not?

The single most disappointing issue, well more of an architectural concept to be fair, with Hyper-V, for me, is the SPOF (Single Point of Failure) issues. With VMware ESX, to eliminate SPOF, I just double my components, and of course when needed, add an additional VMware ESX servers, maybe one or two or three, etc., and I am done, yes, done. No SPOF, unless I don’t know why physical switches and/or storage processors are. I can have as many physical NICs as the given hardware can handle, and I can map the physical NICs as I see fit. The same for HBA channels to the fabric, as long as I have shared-storage, I am good to go; a Virtual Cluster is just a few clicks away… Make it so, Number One. Microsoft, I need so many other components, applications, and layers of integration, it takes a Xenomorphic degree to keep things straight.

VMware VirtualCenter (VC) server? Sure if you need it, but not required, to achieve about 80% of the benefits of the virtualization architecture we need to avoid SPOF. VC components and features are integrated into one interface, where as with Hyper-V, you really need to use three (3) different tools just to match VC for configuration tasks, lets see, 1) the Cluster Administrator, 2) SCVMM, 3) Hyper-V MMC plug-in, because? Why Cluster Administrator and SCVMM don’t talk or play nice, you end up in Hyper-V MMC, to figure out what the heck has gone sideways. I will not itemize the other features in VC, which would only kick more of the brown stuff into the Microsoft fans suit cooling system, while they are reading this. Now I ask you? Does Hyper-V look that appealing, or is this a case of the old adage…You get what you pay for?

True, I am not the biggest fan of VMware, and at times I hammer VMware in this blog, to get things right, to improve, to be a better steward of the virtualization cutting edge, to boldly go where no, man, cough, virtualization company has gone before, sure. But compared to Hyper-V? This time I am going to praise VMware, a bit. VMware has a better solution; it may not be perfect, from my perspective, but compared to Hyper-V? VMware has achieved warp drive, where Hyper-V is still stuck on impulse drive. Maybe Microsoft should hire a few Vulcan technical experts? Hey, I wonder, VMware, Vulcan? Is it just me? Or is there a connection here? How many years did it take Star Fleet to get out from under the guidance of Vulcan? Vulcan developed 2nd and 3rd generation warp systems under the support of the Vulcan Science Directorate, I mean VMware developed VI 3 and 4, while Microsoft is still trying to get out of the space dock without training wheels. It was 3, maybe 4 years at least, right? Well Microsoft has already had 3 years already, and the training wheels are still welded to the side of the hull of Hyper-V, at best it is embarrassing for Microsoft, at worst, again for Microsoft, Vulcan, cough, I mean VMware has escaped the Borg, yet again!

1 comment November 4th, 2008

VMworld This Week! What Will The Wizards Have For Us This Week?

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 08

This week, 09/15/2008, is VMworld 2008! VMworld is always fun, sometimes more hype than fact, other times lots of facts, and minimal hype, you just never know which you will get. This is a good thing, it keeps everyone guessing, at least to some degree. I have been at every VMworld event, in the US, so far, and always enjoyed hearing the discussions in the hallways. For example, VMworld in Los Angeles, every one was talking iSCSI, the very first VMworld event, in San Diego, everyone was talking VMotion and ESX 2.5.0. VMworld 2008 should be no different, some thing will be buzzing. The question is what? ESXi? I do not think so. After the initial flop of ESXi, or ESX 3i, I should say, VMware needs a few winners, to freak out Microsoft, if for no other reason that it is fun to freak out Microsoft.

Microsoft has still missed the target on a number of issues, but they will address these. The question is can VMware exploit, oh, bad pun, these before Microsoft eliminates them? The issues I see with Hyper-V are as follows:

• No VMotion function, yes, quick migration exists, and that is fine if you don’t need transparent migration, but most server virtualization does need this feature, as transparent as possible. VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), can survive without instance migration, no?
• Hyper-V, due to its design, has a different performance model, the VMBus will never quite be as good as a dedicated Hypervisor, such as ESX. Microsoft strategy is, get it as good as we can; which is worth the effort, but close is not better.
• Security is an issue with Microsoft, more so than VMware, not because there are so many instances of Windows out there, but because a generic operating system can never be as secure as a dedicated appliance or structured solution such as ESXi or ESX full. I don’t believe hyper-jacking is are threat yet, but it will be a threat for Microsoft sooner than VMware ESX, duhe.
• Is Microsoft worried? Of course they are, why else did they certify VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2, finally? Microsoft is looking like for the 3rd time, in about 5 years, they are a dollar short and day late, more than that, really.

As I am traveling to VMworld 2008 I will be thinking about what my expectations and what my wishes for this VMworld will be. There are things I believe I will be expecting:

• We need ESXi to be identical to full ESX installation, in reference to monitoring, and alert status reporting. Complete features set, such that ESXi installation with traditional agents must be identical to full ESX. Everyone at an enterprise level is struggling with this one, so ESXi will never grow to its potential until this is resolved.
• We still need better archival/disaster recovery solutions. VCB is not living up to its potential, I liked the idea of VCB, but it still does not scale. Array based snap solutions like Avamar from EMC or the similar solution from NetApp, are still complex, hard to manage, and just a pain to implement. This is insane, and I believe the key issue for 2009, we have larger and larger VMs, but no realistic way to archival them.
• We will need USB support in VMs on ESX. Security/License dongles of course. KVM dongles, yes KVMs, since new KVMs continue to add USB features, this is becoming an issue where key sites standardize on a type of KVM, the operational teams want the VMs interface to be identical, emulated in software but same look and feel. Maybe VMware should join forces with Avocent?
• We still need IDE and SATA, emulation in VMs on ESX. How about SAS for VMs on ESX? Are any of these realistic? Maybe not, but to show clients a one-to-one emulation, is still requested over and over. VMware workstation does it, so ESX should too.
• VMware Thin-Disk support in GUI for VirtualCenter? Better yet, Disk Imaging as well, were we can use a core OS volume, and VMs actually run delta off the core OS volume? Windows 2008 is going to drive this requirement; a full Windows 2008 install for server, Microsoft recommends 40GB just to start? Oh, never happen on VMs. More realistic for static VMDKs? Maybe 20GB.
• VMware SRM (Site Recovery Manager)? We already know what this is, and how it works, but is anyone but every large enterprises going to implement this technology? Only time will tell. The real power of SRM is on a WAN scope, disasters in the same city are not the issue, it is mega events, storms, terrorists, etc., that will impact an entire city complex, lets get disaster recovery and load balancing of datacenters 1000s of miles away, not 10s of miles. Doing this is cross country, cross nation, that is the realistic need, but this is not cheap or easy. How will VMware solve this one?
• What is VMware doing to block Xen or Solaris, as they emerge to run INTEL, x86, 64bit VT, etc., and run other operating systems other than their native OS?
• What is VMware doing to improve its Application Instancing? How about a brand new product? VDM, and appliance VMs are not going to offset application streaming or Citrix next generation solutions.

I have one last question for VMware, before VMworld 2008 is official, and powered up…Where are the cheerleaders at? If you don’t understand the reference, look at my discussion in this blog of VMworld 2007, where I state that ESX 3i is nothing but hype, where I discuss some disappointments about ESX 3i, or, sorry, ESXi.

1 comment September 15th, 2008

Fear for the Sake Of Fear? Hyper-Jacking Myths?

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 07

I ran straight into a brick wall this week. Not to worry, no injuries, much to the displeasure of some I am sure. However, I do this upon occasion, and some times I enjoy it, some times I don’t. Walls, of the virtual brick variety, in the computing industry are unique, because they often are built upon bad ideas, bad assumptions, bad conjectures, and mortared together with bad logic. Moreover, it has been my experience, that if you pull just the right brick, just the right way, then the entire structure is exposed as flawed, and comes down like, well, a ton of bricks onto the original builders. Hyper jacking myths are such brick walls. Hyper jacking is reality? Or is it? What are we afraid of? We know some day someone or some entity will hi-jack a hypervisor? Right? Or do we? Depends on who you asked, but to some, it is all the rage in the press right now, and has been since about the same time last year. Even the motives for discussing threats to hypervisors are suspect, based on my research. Although, not an article, but a thread, that illustrates the discussion of hyper-jacking as motive driven, is http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=179419. And of course, Google is just spilling over with topical discussions, about hyper-jacking, but seem to be all words and no real substance. There is so much misinformation about what can and can not be done in reference to hacking that security teams both public and private are having nervous breakdowns just trying to understand the risks and threats never mind formulating plans of action or as some like to call it, remediation of risk. One of my favorite articles that does nothing more than generate fog, or mild panic, is http://rationalsecurity.typepad.com/blog/vm_hyperjacking/index.html. Unfortunately, this article is misleading. The key virtualization platforms that dominate the industry have been certified and vetted, against known methods and techniques, something this article, among others,never explains and thus never provides a balanced view of the issue. Of course, no one is secure against new techniques and methods, but this article does not explain that point well either, it raises questions, nothing more.

From my perspective, I have never liked the term, remediation, it smacks of re-active tasking. And mediation alone is still perceptive classification as post facto resultant state. But, then again, just what is a threat? When is a concept become a threat? Or even more than theory? We have so many threats to our existence, virtual reality is no different, but fear of threats that may never materialize? I am not saying you don’t plan for threats, but what I am saying, is that threats are just that, potentials, not impacts. What was the key concept in the Matrix? Neo had to believe he was the one, the reality, in all that was, is, and had been dominated by virtual reality? Or to explain it in a historical context, what is the quote…We have nothing to fear, but fear itself . So why you ask, did I say I hit a brick wall? Fear of what could happen was the wall this time. Fear has caused may a good idea to die on paper. Security teams are exceptionally susceptible to this scenario, the fear of what could happen, no matter how remote or indiscrete. Opinion can make what is rare or even not probable; appear to be a rather solid, a wall to success use of technology, no less. The specific wall that I ran straight into was built by a group of security experts, which had the best of intentions, but had a serious lack of foundation, just fears based on potential issues, causes with no realistic materialization that could someday be effects, nothing more.

For example, just because there maybe someday, a virus that can attack NICs directly, and just because someday someone may hyper-jack a hypervisor, therefore, virtualization is not as safe as traditional hardware. To repeat, because of the potential to be hacked at the physical NIC, or the virtual NIC, or the virtual switch, and subvert the hypervisor, by definition, virtualization is not as safe as traditional hardware. To which my response was…What? Do you know what circular logic is? These are potentials not realities. So you decide what reality is, based on what casual fantasies you see as potentials? That is like saying you never will use a horse and cart to deliver carrots to market because the horse might die from pulling the cart, because the cart may break down, because the left rear wheel may fall off, because you loaded 27 carrots not 270? Therefore, horses are dangerous?

Trying to get to the bottom of this line of thinking as urban legend or not, I found a number of articles that all discuss what the new threats to corporate entities must be, yes I say must be, because the articles all promote their authoritative position, with little or not objective explanation. One that stood out as such, hyperjacking the latest threat to servers. To me this type of article is less than useful, it hints at a possibility and nothing more, talk about true hype, just to get a hit on a web page? Looking for threats is fine, but we don’t see a flood of articles discussing real results, real attacks, now do we? Hackers tend to brag about what other hackers have done, Even if some professional hacking group, from China or Russia, has done, or some defense contractor has done it in a lab, or worse in the real world, the word would get out, in short order, that is fact, the web is horrible for hiding the truth, just as it is horrible at only reporting the truth. At the risk of being connected to the X-Files franchise…The Truth Is Out There…if it exists, the internet always gives up its secrets, even if, the secrets are buried under a ton of garbage.

What is the goal of some of these articles? I am not sure, other than to generate headaches, and as I said before, generating web page hits. The results however, are real, when this type of hyped vague popinjaying is believed; inaction due to threat results, and is a classic psychological warfare technique, as well. Bully for the conspiracy theorist. A less militaristic context for the same basic situation is called analysis paralysis. The lack of action because of fear of the consequences of taking said action. This is never rational or logical? Good point, when is a potential issue deemed a true threat that needs to be acted upon? What an idea, action to offset threats, rather than inaction. This is a good thing, because when action is taken; the technology is actually used, leveraged, what have you. So how do we put this into the context of a security strategy and still use the technology? This is not trivial to be sure, but a large dose of common sense is a key to rational success.

First, threats will continue to emerge and develop, just as methods to eliminate threats will be soon to follow, if not offset by changes in theory, design, and implementation. The only constant here is that change always happens. Second, being offensive is not always possible, and being defensive is reasonable, as long as the technology is used, at some point. Early adoption of technology is a risk. However, never adapting a technology for us, is just giving into the fear of potential threats. Third, trust that ideas, solutions, methods, etc. to combat real attacks will come, or can be implemented before impact occurs. Fourth, no matter how good, how strong, how extensive the strategy implemented to protect the environment, there will be some event or situation that will compromise the environment at some time. To believe otherwise is foolish, or worse to believe that it is impossible, is irrational.

Keeping the above concepts in mind, and looking at the hypervisors of today, which are safer than others? That is a rational question, a proactive one, not a reactive one. Saying that all are unsafe is not rational. True, all have some level of risk, but so does using every operating system, and we still use operating systems in everything, from servers to cell phones. Never using an operating system, because it may someday be hacked, is defensive, and irrational. Focusing on the proactive aspect, and agreeing that hypervisors should be used, there are a few basic design features that offset risk, not quasi threats.

• An embedded solution is safer than any generic operating system based solution. This is straight-forward. Operating systems, in the traditional sense, have a large surface area of attack because they are designed to be flexible. Flexibility is difficult to manage. Embedded models are focused functional elements. Easier to manage.
• Hypervisors should be designed to never allow themselves to be executed by themselves in abstracted context. This is obvious no? It takes only a few lines of code to validate that a hypervisor is hosting a hypervisor. This is true of multiple vendor or different vendor stacking, say Hyper-V refuses to execute ESX, and ESX refuses to execute Hyper-V. No hypervisor should ever host another hypervisor, therefore, nesting is forbidden.
• Never violate the context of function versus access. What does this mean? It means that virtual instances should never have access to the hypervisor, nor know they are hosted, and the hypervisor should never inform a virtual instance that it is hosted. There should never be any inter-process communication between virtual worlds and the framework that hosts the worlds. This is a pain at times, because we sometimes want to cheap as developers, but don’t do it.
• Never ask a hypervisor to be a firewall. This is similar to the point above, but is an external design issue to the hypervisor. Never connect the hypervisor management functions to a less secure environment, than the virtual instances. This import in the case of a DMZ environment, but should be true for any environment. Is it a real risk? Today maybe not, but if someone, some day actually does figure out how to effectively hyper-jack a hypervisor? The environment design should be strong as possible and still be useful.

There is one guaranteed way to address fear, specifically the fear of hyper jacking as security teams today feel they must. However, these same security teams need to understand, they can not deny or disqualify solutions because of fear of the unknown or the future. They need to understand a concept that I coined in a meeting about 4 years ago, Engineering-By-Fact. This is based on a concept a former boss, of my boss at the time, coined, Management-By-Fact. In explanation of Management-By-Fact and Engineering-By-Fact, as well, this boss of my boss stated that he never wanted anyone in his organization say…I Think, I Believe, It Should, Most Likely, Maybe, or Most of the Time, or any variation of the same expression of opinion, in the same sentence as voicing a solution to an issue. Solutions, like problems, are black and white, if you don’t know for a fact, that you have the right, correct, and factual solution, or even worse you really do not understand the problem, don’t venture opinion over facts. Now, if we could only get the people which express opinions as facts to honor this concept, the poor security teams out there, which seem to be afraid of their own shadows, at times, could spend less time building brick-walls, and more time configuring fire-walls, right?

2 comments September 10th, 2008

VMware Really Hurting? Or Just Really Bad Timing For A Simple Mistake?

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 06

Is VMware really hurting, meaning are they coming a part of the seams? Or was the latest licensing bug issue just bad timing? It was a minor code mistake, but a major perception mistake. For something that happens all the time in a code development shop, more often than a non-coder would care to understand. Just imagine you are the one that make the mistake? Just imagine you are the one that missed catching the mistake? There will be some careers that will end or at least be derailed for a while, at best, at worst, change lives of some with dramatic impact. Is this fair? No. Is it really reasonable, maybe it is given what VMware must now do to recover from this perception of running a lose development shop. No one is perfect, but the world expects perfection, and more than the perception of perfect. VMware is not perfect. No software publisher is. However, the real issue here is not the mistake that was made. But why the mistake was made. Perception has real significant impact. Why do I say this?

Some time ago, just short of a year ago, VMware promised a specific group of enterprise customers that the licensing model would be, and I believe I quote, “we are discussing options for making the licensing model more informational, rather than enforcement oriented.” Those in the room, there were some 50 or 100 of us that heard this asked almost in one voice…When? Where? How will this passive licensing model be implemented? VMware at that point became very vague. In fact the topic never came up again. This is the real issue, because if VMware had owned up to this promise, at least I saw it as a promise as a time, as good as a promise, and then the impact of the August 12th bug would not have been the fire drill it was. VMware seems to be doing damage control as a matter or routine throughout 2008. Was the exit of Greene not a type of damage control?

Even the evaluation version of VMware ESX OS has a 60 day try it window before features are disabled. Now what an interesting idea! The commercial version of License Server would generate events and warnings but not actually disable functions for 60 days; this would have avoided the issue no? Never mind the fact that I think that the Flex License Manager solution is horrible, I am just not a fan of restrictive licensing, and I have never been impressed with Flex, it has a very long and negative history depending on who or whom you ask. And, yes I know all the issues and debatable points that surround software piracy and theft. So the following questions come to mind? First, just how many Lawyers will get sacked at VMware for the August 12 issue? Lawyers, yes lawyers. This is terrible, sad even, because I am sure some heads will roll across the floor and down the stairs, out the door of VMware. I hope the heads migration, includes the entire brain trust that thought proactive enforcement of licensing was a good idea, I bet it was a lawyer that initiated the idea! Am I wrong? VMware say something if I am.

Just how many of senior management will get nailed? After all, there are serious issues with VMware quality if this is a trend. Blaming Greene is a cheap shot at this point. Lets be honest, there is a growing trend in the entire information technology (IT) industry to release solutions to the customer that are flat out incomplete, broken, or worse pushed out the door because of a fixed deadline. The quality assurance process, I believe, is seen by the marketing, sales, and even top management, as an evil thing, that holds back solutions from being released. After all, most customers pay for support, so we, the customers pay twice? Once for the product as concept that is incomplete, and again for getting issues fixed that never should have gotten out to us in the first place? You bet, your sweet posterior, you do. Just how long should a list of known issues be, to be deemed reasonable? My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I read the release notes for ESX 3.5 Update 2, very long, does not install a sense of confidence? All I could think of was… If the known issues list is this long, how long was the issues list that they actually fixed? And what did they miss?

Guess the issue was not big enough for the CEO of VMware to make a public statement? Maybe at VMworld 2008, in the key note address, someone at VMware will do the right thing, and state that VMware will and has improved quality assurance methods and processes, so customers are not impacted in a similar manner in the future? How about a known issues list that is only 5 items long in total, or less than 10 items in total? That would answer a lot of critics, including me. And go a significant way in the positive direction to answering the question…Is this the end of a bad series of missteps for VMware? Or I sincerely hope this is not the case…Is this just the next incremental step in a longer trend, before VMware goes down in flames?

2 comments September 2nd, 2008

Emerging Technology Is More Painful Than Management Wants To Believe

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 05

There is a trend in the Information Technology (IT) industry that is well known, well understood, and the truth about it, well hidden at the same time. Not because it is held under non-disclosure-agreement, not because it is patent or copyright owned, but because no one wants to acknowledge it. The fact is that the concept of faster, better, cheaper is foolishness in the IT industry. Moreover, it is an excuse, not a strategy. Real work, real quality in design and development takes effort, and exactly what management does not want to here, real time. Good work always takes good time to do.

Want an example? VoIP (Voice Over IP), it is horrible, to be honest. The voice quality is one step short of ridiculous, the quality and consistency is nothing compared to good old analog. I am now on my third vendor for VoIP, and considering looking for a fourth, if I could or even can. And I bet you thought I was going to illustrate that virtualization would be the example a technology before its time? Well, give me a few minutes, maybe I will.

Compromise is the dominate theory in the development in the IT industry today. I dare anyone reading this blog to say otherwise. I dare anyone to debate this issue in an honest, rationale, and objective manner. Change context for a minute, where are the 5, 10, 15 or even 20 year strategic plans for product development? How is the IT industry really going to go green, and not just pay lip service to the concept of green for decades? The IT goals of 20 years ago have not been very effective now have they? The paperless office never really got off the ground did it? For years, laser printers generated more volume of print on page than the total book publishing houses, world wide, ever did or do? Want an example? Purchase a new automobile, there are still somewhere between 25 and 40 pages printed for getting out of a dealership. Where did we go wrong? Such great ideas, such poor implementation? Why, it all comes down to compromise of ideals, goals, and objectives. Why is it that all the vendors only have roadmaps that are 12 or 18 months long? Because no one is thinking long-term, no one wants to make real commitment in a specific direction, Edison labs did what, some 6000 attempts to get a better light bulb? I doubt the typical technology firm that develops a new PCI device or USB device does more than 100 code builds once alpha code is locked, before market release.

The IT industry, reference to product and solution development is a mob mentality. Baby steps all the time, not leaps and bounds. This is not to say that the IT industry as not done some wonderful things. It has. Computing technology has revolutionized many fields of science and technology, in ways, that even 40 or just 20 years ago would have been closer to a Star Trek series, pick your favorite and insert here episode, than what even I could have dreamed up at the time, and believe me, I have some crazy ideas. Just ask my friends! But am I making my point? How many great ideas have been scrapped because someone was unwilling to wait for the solution to be realized? Or never wanted to commit resources, financial and temporal, to the solution when it was nothing but an idea? How many ideas never made it to a napkin in a coffee shop because time and resources were impossible to get? Or, and this is frightful, how many solutions have been strangled in the validation and certification effort phases, because some one, some where, in the chain of command, was unwilling to wait? Because someone refused to believe in potential because someone could not see short-term profit? Imagine if Edison, Tesla, or even von Braun, von Neumann, Babbage, and sorry, almost forgot, Einstein, had a project time line that strangled their explorations of thought, never mind, prototyping in a lab.

I experienced this first hand as a very young support technical resource person. I was assigned to an evaluation team, for a new software application, this was about 15 years ago. We worked day and night to improve the application in question. Feedback to the developers, feedback to us from the end-user population that was doing alpha testing, then beta testing, and even, finally, release candidate testing for the application, it was wonderful to feel progress, that a quality solution was near completion. However, there was not enough time, we just did not move fast enough it seemed. For whatever reason, even though real progress was made, we were not making everyone happy. The timeline for release was predetermined by management more than a year before; the first line of code was typed. This was a new experience for me. I was taught, both at home and in school, you do the job right, you do the right thing. Meaning, in my innocent, rose-colored glass view of the world, in the IT industry world, that if the application was not quite done, you delayed release, you got it right, then, and only then, you released it. Quality was the key to success. The key to true massive profitability, I was quite wrong, or so it seemed at the time.

The lead project manager walked into the end-user test lab, early one morning with no warning and began red-lining the project test plan. Days and weeks of regression, system integration, and component validation testing just disappeared from the master timeline. We would miss real bugs and real issues by doing this. I was about half way done with my breakfast, when I got the news from others on the evaluation tea. Why was I eating breakfast? Well I had been up all night chasing a nasty bug in the code, trying to isolate the issue, so the developers could move forward sooner rather than later. When I happened to see the project manager, after he had done the nasty to the master time line. I asked…What is this? Are we closing the project? The reply was…No. We are selectively shifting features to the planned version 2.0, rather than version 1.0 release. Of course, being young, and lacking tact in political scenarios, I asked…What about those features that were agreed upon with the end-users, our customers, our clients, before we started? How will you explain that significant features are really there, but not enabled because they are incomplete, when we are so close to being done? The answer, and I am being explicit, was…The application must be released on 15 days; we will never train the end-users on the additional features that were not validated, we will never acknowledge that some features have been dropped from 1.0 release. I was in shock, I was confused, I felt betrayed. This decision just did not make sense. Why? We still had some time, but they shortened the total timeline, some 5 days ahead of the original planned release. What the heck!

Now, you may be asking, why I explained this story from so long ago? Because I now realize, 15 years later, that this theory of product release is so ingrained into the IT industry, at all levels, that it is killing the industry. Management in the IT industry is under so much pressure to make things happen, on a strict mathematical schedule, with no exceptions, no flexibility. Thus all the true creative effort and the artistic aspect of idea development and design are dying out. The ugly aspect of this is that quality is something you get with version 3.0, which actually costs the customer or client even more. Look at Windows? Was it not 3.1 that really was functional to any reasonable degree? What did early adopters do? Spend a ton of money on Windows 1.0 or 2.0?

When was the last time we had any true, knock your socks off, quantum leap in the IT industry? 15 years, or 25 years, or more? Is it not true? Nothing new under the sun should be slogan for the IT industry. Tell me I am wrong? I am not bitter about this; I am not even surprised by it…any more. I was at a technical conference recently, sponsored for the most part, by one of the big three hardware vendors. Which one it was is not significant to my discussion here, but what every technical session screamed at me, was, yes, you guessed it, compromise. In ideas, in design, in implementation, and the attempts to compare these just average products to the competition only reinforced how all three vendors are in lock-step with each other, with solutions that are so close in capacity and function, that picking one over the other is almost insignificant. Of course, we all know the one that offers the cheapest cost, will be declared the best, quasi faster and better. Great, faster, better, cheaper is back!

A number of things have contributed to this, out-sourcing, why own when you can leverage? Lowering of educational standards, hey, expecting results above and beyond the average is not fair; you might damage some below average student esteem, rather than encourage improvement and achievement? The lack of large firms willing to develop talent, create careers, versus steal talent, only to let it go when out sourced? Why invent, when you can purchase? The Japanese still work according to 20 year or longer timelines, they expect achievement, but they also commit to technologies that seemed logical in reference to maturity in future years, not quarters. Ask General Motors? They have had more than 30 years to get something on the table, to really change the world, and they have failed, and a 100 year firm is all but dust. Look at Toyota? They are only just now peaking on plans established more than 30 years ago. Just imagine what the computing industry would be like if that type of effort was done? Don’t like automobiles as an example? What about fuel? Brazil has done better than most Countries along the same idea, did someone yell sugarcane?

And how does this have anything to do with virtualization? It is simple and easy to see, if you take the time to look. We have so much computing power compared to the past, cores upon cores, that we over purchased, over scaled, and under use it to the point, that an entire new segment of the IT infrastructure was created and now dominates said IT industry, and it is called virtualization. What is really stupid is that it is hypervisor virtualization, not application instance virtualization that dominates now. Why, because we want to achieve, faster, better, cheaper of course! Hypervisors are a result of faster, better, cheaper, mind set in virtualization. Virtualization should have only resulted in flexible environments, not utilization redirection. Iif all of those project managers, developers, designers, etc., years ago, took just that extra bit of time and effort, to do something right before hand, then there would be no afterwards, no emergence of virtualization, as we know it today. No outrageous cost avoidance because the environment would have been lean and mean. No zealous endorsement of…faster, better, cheaper. Well, at least not in the IT industry.

I am putting my rose-colored-glasses on e-bay, I have just enough faith in the future, that there must be someone out there that needs them…I hope.

Add comment August 22nd, 2008

Was Greene Kicked to the Curb or What?

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 03

EMC, and to an extent VMware, think they are in trouble. Why else would Greene be kicked to the curb? I have refrained from comment in this blog about Greene until now. This has been a decision based on perspective, meaning that, since I have not been a CEO of one of the most significant firms in the last 10 years, nor walked in the shoes of Greene herself, I feel it is not my place to comment on her, as an individual, in any personal context. This is difficult because I feel her view of the virtualization industry, has in no small part created some issues for VMware. No one, I believe could decry the fact that VMware, as a company has been very careful for years to be say we are not, really, part of EMC. I remember being corrected by several VMware employees, or should I say, associates, since employee seems to be a dirty word, that EMC is nothing more than a necessary evil to protect VMware from others, did someone say Microsoft? What the heck does that mean? VMware is not really part of EMC? EMC paid hard cash for VMware, so to speak. Since when is purchase not ownership?

But regardless of your perspective on the EMC ownership of VMware, the negative impact of this philosophical view of non-ownership of VMware is real, painful in fact. When you are an EMC customer, and use VMware Virtual Infrastructure or a VMware customer and use EMC storage solutions, the internal infighting between EMC and VMware over the last few years has been nothing but frustrating. The disjointed nature of the relationship has done nothing to benefit EMC or VMware. I know this from personal experience, as well as from quite a few friends in the industry that work in or with virtualization scope, and the two entities. EMC says tomato, VMware says tamota? That is the last thing anyone wants to hear doing architectural design meetings, or even worse, after you get EMC and VMware to agree during design efforts, to be up at 3 am in the morning, on a weekend, working on a nasty storage processor issue with EMC behind your virtualization infrastructure, only to hear the VMware technical resource on the same conference call say…ah, why did you do that, we don’t support that…whatever that is…that should just never happen between EMC and VMware. Fortune 10, or even fortune 50, nay, fortune 100 firms have absolutely no patience for this type of bull, cough, zero tolerance for this type of foolishness, and again, I know this from direct experience.

So why was Greene kicked to the curb, if in fact that is what happened? Because I am not completely sure that is what happened. What is obvious? Is it that EMC and VMware not agreeing routinely seem a big enough issue to cause such shake up? I say maybe it was. Never mind the fact that VMware stock is slipping, never mind the fact that VMware has laid a few eggs that stink, ESX 3i, yes 3i, was a great idea, but either immature or marketed wrong, the classification is your choice. ESXi has not yet emerged as the Hyper-V killer it should have been? It is not an enterprise solution, yet. A fact that I have made known in the past. VCB which was a great idea, but just completely failed at any scale, approaching enterprise needs. I do understand how a storage technology firm can not create a backup solution that works at scale? That is core to their completive advantage! It happened because VMware ignored EMC? Yes, ignored, worse, VMware kept thinking, VCB must work for all customers, not just EMC customers. Maybe EMC will get it right with Avamar and VMware ESXi. That remains to be seen as well, but seems to have more potential than VCB did at a minimum.

I think the real reason that Greene was kicked to the curb was much darker. In fact, it goes to the core of VMware management direction, and policy. VMware does not know if it is an Enterprise client firm, or a small mom-and-pop firm. VMware is struggling with its identity when it should be 100% focused on its product development, and improvement, I said improvement, of its core business, not biased to innovation. Some say VMware has lost its way. That VMware is no longer listening to its non-Enterprise, smaller customers. That VMware is defending its self from Hyper-V by ignoring its smaller customers? Well, to be honest, that is exactly what I believe that Greene was focused on, the non-Enterprise customers, because of how VMware talks, walks, and explains about its self. I get this impression based on what and how she communicated to entire VMware organization. The scary thing is that small customers, in part become bigger customers, because they think and act like Enterprise customers, with hard work, a bit of luck, and thinking strategically, not tactically alone, any firm can become an Enterprise scale entity?

What is my evidence? In short, VMware does not listen to its enterprise customers, or has not for last few years in a consistent manner. VMware does not sound like a strategic thinking company even today at times, in how they present their new products, or new features. They still think like a smallish customer organization. Unfortunately, scale is everything, and profitability in competition with Microsoft is scale, scale, scale, and market share, market share, market share. Thus, VMware must reassert a two channel marketing plan, something that VMware has struggled with in the past. I have experienced this first hand. Growing faster than lightening has been confusing for VMware, but that is no excuse for VMware not catering to its enterprise customers, the way it must do, to survive. It is the big scale, large infrastructure firms that are going to allow VMware to survive. With the current economic situation, that the United States faces, in 2009, it is the major players of scale, that will have the resources and goals to continue with virtualization as the pace and scope that VMware must have to continue to be successful.

This is not to say that the smaller customers are not important, in fact, if VMware changes its cost model, which I believe must happen as well, to take some of the sting out of purchasing VMware solutions, small customers will continue to be significant, and help avoid de-facto acceptance of Hyper-V. But smallish customers can not continue to dominate the VMware thinking in reference to product design and evolution. It is just too easy for big customers, Enterprise scale, to go to Microsoft, which thinks big, does big, and is at its core focused on its cash cows, so addresses Enterprise customers concerns with easy and expectation enterprise customers demand. EMC sees this, and so, I think this is why Greene is sitting on the curb. The choice of the new CEO for VMware just screams…VMware is an Enterprise friendly firm, really we are, believe us, we are listening, well, we are now. The question is, just who, still, is listening, and who has already drank the Hyper-V favored cool-aid?

Add comment August 15th, 2008

Hot Computing Going Environmental Green in the Extreme

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 04

This article is a milestone for a couple of reasons. First, a Proper Virtual World as a blog has been around for year or so. Although popular to a reasonable and rational extent, there have been several high notes, where specific articles have been extremely popular, threatened, hated, if not described by every negative adjective know to human kind. At times I believe VMware hates this blog, EMC shakes its collective head in demur surprise, and Microsoft decides that stepping on this ant is not worth the effort to do so, well, fine. In defense, I do know that there are some that love this blog, because I have said things that make people think, question, and re-evaluate their perspectives, and that, is goal of this author. Second, this article is unique because it is not talking about virtualization, but about the infrastructure that supports virtualization. Energy is a significant, critical resource, and the computing industry has done, as a whole, from my perspective, a horrible job reducing energy consumption. So this article is going to discuss why and how we, the information technology industry, as a whole, should change its use of energy.

We need to agree or establish one key point for common understanding, heat should not be feared, heat generation is not bad in of its-self, but carbon generated or released into the atmosphere is. Why is this important distinction made? I will explain further in this discussion. But for now, let us explore what has been done? Reduction of total infrastructure, and the corresponding reduction of offset cooling, is reduction of energy use. For example, if we are talking about datacenters, anything that reduces infrastructure cost is a step in the right direction:

• Virtualization reduces total infrastructure, reducing heat, cabling, total servers purchased, etc., thus reducing heat generation, and energy needed for cooling.
• Processors, dual-core, quad-core, etc., have reduced total servers purchased, processors can now step down or up based on processing demand or load, reducing energy needed for function.
• Centralization of computing resources. This is a work in progress for many entities but it is placed here, small sites, regional datacenters incur infrastructure costs that with modern networking speeds, 10GB or better for Ethernet, and 8GB or better for fabric, allowing for re-centralization, should not be incurred.

The above successes beg the question, why is offset cooling still used to such an extensive degree? Reduction of heat by design is not the same as management of heat, thus offset cooling is handling heat that has already been generated, because this heat is feared, since it will damage or reduce the lifespan of equipment. The goal should be survival of heat by design, making the need for offset cooling as irrelevant as possible. Now what has not been done? What could have been done better? What should be done moving forward?

• Everything should be fiber based. Retire copper transport completely, everything based on fiber, but it switches, routers, backbones, etc. Why not. This makes sense. Photons which transverse glass/plastic, generate less heat than electrons pushing through copper. Electrons movement is a very inefficient chemical and physical process that generates heat. Photon migration with in fiber reduces the chemical and physical interaction to the lowest level possible.
• Development of more realistic direct-power backbone concepts? My personal experience with direct-power models for computing has not been extensive, but discussing this topic with friends and experts this technology is not living up to its potential. The best I have seen is a 5 or 10 percent total power reduction, and to get near 15% an entire datacenter has to be built with this technology in mind. That is a hard position to take with existing datacenters that can not be converted, but must be abandoned, since entire buildings must be redesigned for this concept to be effective. There has to be something better.
• More extensive use of the utility computing models, that are application instance based. Operating system isolation demands millions of lines of code run, plus intensive use of redundant resources, for RAM, Disk, etc.. Whereas application instance based virtualization model reduces total lines of code execution foot print, which reduces the need for faster, bigger energy hungry processors as well as the need for the redundant infrastructure thus reduceing heat generation, and need for offset cooling.
• Development of computing at above room temperature? This is the trick, just like cold fusion would save the world. A hot computing model, this is a great idea, but it has gone almost no where? Processors that use heat, not avoid heat? Processors that do not generate significant heat? Photon based processors? This is not science fiction, or at least is would not be, if we committed to its development. This should have a bunch of physics graduate students going crazy at 3am in the morning across every University in the world working on this idea, no?

True, we have some technology that works without offset cooling. For example, all our mobile communication and computing options achieve this. However they are also some of the most inefficient devices in reference to energy consumption, and battery technology lags. The latest battery film isolation materials may break through and impact this trend. But practical application of these new battery films is still pending.

Remember, I said heat generation should not be feared, it is atmosphere carbon that should be? The Earth survives, or more to the point, life survives because the Earth is warm. Space is cold, very cold. In fact, the Earth gives off a significant amount of heat, no problem. Carbon, maybe the most significant offender, in the atmosphere blocks this heat loss, and so global warming, such as it is, regardless of the source of carbon, occurs. So that is why I said, generation of some heat is not or should not be a problem. It is how we generate the power and how we use power that generates Carbon, which is the problem. We can generate all the heat we want, and as long as we do not trap the heat in the process of generating the heat, thus we will avoid global warming. Nuclear power is a perfect example of this, and why I believe in Nuclear power generation. It generates heat, and leverages heat, but it does not generate the Carbon, that traps the heat generated. So, we can generate heat, we design computing to survive heat, and not design environments that must control heat, such as offset cooling. Taking this idea further, imagine a battery concept that is more efficient for mobile computing, a datacenter model that embraces heat, by design? Now that would be extreme green.

We sent mankind to the Moon, we sent semi-autonomous robots to Mars, we launched objects in near deep space for decades, and some objects beyond our Solar system. But we can not reduce the total energy foot print in the computing industry, and significantly eliminate the need for offset cooling? In fact, energy consumption has seen a dramatic increase because of integrated computing, in just about every way you can think of, be it large appliance to hand-held device. What is wrong with this picture? Even if energy costs are not up by 50 or 100% at times, why have we not reduced computing infrastructure energy use by 50 or even 75%? Yes, elimination of the need for offset cooling would just about do it, no? Is not your summer air conditioning bill, about 50 or 100% more than your average winter bill? Well, mine always seems to be!

Add comment July 30th, 2008

Does My Dachshund Know More About Virtualization Than You?

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 02

My dachshund, well Dachshunds, I have two actually, one is quite old, 17 and wise, in dachshund terms, where the other is younger, but not a puppy, 11 years old, and even smarter. At times I think either of them has more common sense than most strategic theorists in the information technology industry. No, am not talking about Gartner, although I can understood why you would think that at first. Gartner as an organization has more individuals that can state the obvious today, but guess at the future, than I could believe anyone could have. But as I said, I am not talking about Gartner. No, I am not talking about VMware. Buzz, buzz, wrong, buzz, wrong, but thank you for playing. Please play again. Anyone guess Microsoft? I am, talking about Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft.

If there was a Raspberry award (Razzie) or something similar for the information technology industry, oh, let us say, the Frozen-Or Just-Again Reboot (FOJAR) Award, then Microsoft would not only receive just about every FOJAR, in just about every category, but would of course anyone not be surprised when Apple Computer was the most significant sponsor. I can just see the trailers for the show now… Watch the FOJARs, on iTunes! Of course the most memorable FOJAR won by Microsoft this year was for the most significant missing feature in a modern hypervisor, in Hyper-V, the not-so-transparent-almost-not-really-real-time virtual instance migration! Talk about the power is on, but no one is computing!

Why did Microsoft after more than two(2) years, no three(3) years, release Hyper-V without the single most significant feature that everyone doing virtualization is chasing? A feature that is 100 percent identical to VMware VMotion? Even my Dachshunds know this was not a good idea. In fact, it is little better than a joke among virtualization architects that I know. But, I think I understand why it happened, Microsoft is afraid of looking like they are standing still compared to VMware (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9980571-7.html, not the article, in the comments on the same page… from Penguinisto is classic). Another reason, which just makes the perception of Microsoft is in fact doing little more than standing still in the hypervisor market, is that Microsoft has completely lost its ability to innovate?

Yes, I know others have said this before, but it has never been more obvious than now, true? I see little improvement in Hyper-V to Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, or even Connectix Server which Microsoft purchased, what, some five(5) years ago. The real surprise is that Gartner has not said this at least twice in 2008, nor noted it as a strategic fact, cough, prediction for 2009? Talk about missing the obvious?

Of course, not commenting on Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), would be a mistake on my part, a fact of which both of my Dachshunds have just reminded me, would be as unforgivable was running out of dog chews over the weekend. Last time we, I mean I, failed to immediately go the store and restock up on dog chews, you would not believe the dirty looks I got from my Dachshunds. And as any one that has a Dachshund knows, Dachshunds are masters of the dirty look, that-do-it-now-or-else no nonsense stare. But I digress. Obviously Microsoft is ignoring the stares from those of us that love virtualization? Maybe not completely? As I have said before, Microsoft has a true threat to VMware with SCVMM, aimed at the VMware strategic flagship, VirtualCenter. However, I have to disagree with my esteemed Dachshunds, SCVMM without a VMotion comparable feature, read comparable as transparent to end-user migration? Never mind Storage VMotion? And if Microsoft SCVMM does not scale better than VirtualCenter? Well, Microsoft still gets two FOJARs, the first for Hyper-V, the second for SCVMM if it does not nail VirtualCenter to the wall. No, Microsoft gets three(3) FOJARs. Why? Well, Microsoft gets the hat-trick FOJAR because they have taken more than 60 months to go almost absolutely nowhere in the fastest era of virtualization adoption the information technology industry has ever seen.

Gartner, how in the world did your crystal ball miss this one? Maybe Microsoft will create time travel? So Microsoft can innovate in the future, but release to the market today? No, we already established Microsoft does not innovate. Hey, maybe they can buy time travel from someone in the future… Yeah, that is it!

Add comment July 16th, 2008

This Article Will Be A Bit Different?

Virtualization Critical Evaluation - Chapter 01

This article will be a bit different.  How so?  Well, that is both easy to explain and hard to illustrate.  The year 2008 is effectively just past half over.  This is significant, because thoughts about the near future of virtualization come to mind, and how I will communicate to my clients what makes sense and what does not make sense over the next 18 months on paper?  Preparing them for the next 36 months?  Really strategic scope would be 60 months!  There will be long hours with spent with AIX (Dynamic LPARs), Xen (be it RHEL integrated or Citrix aligned), Solaris Zones, even Parallels, and the potential 800 pound gorilla, Hyper-V of Windows 2008 heritage with Microsoft SCVMM as well.  Why?  Because ESX 4.0 and its lean relative ESXi based on 4.0 core must be a winner.  Unfortunately for VMware, as Rome, there are many Huns at the gates of Rome.  I do hold out hope that VMware will have another winner, or I should say a better winner than ever before.  The history of ESX major versions for the most part has been one of best of breed, but the competition is prepared as never before.

VMware, with a few missteps, has achieved a notable hat-trick, 2.5.x, 3.x, and 3.5.x.  I do not quality 2.1.2, not because it was lacking significance, but it was just on the introduction of shared-storage as a serious feature or infrastructure component to virtualization, and was from my perspective the precursor to the serious modern hypervisor trend VMware established with 2.5.x and VirtualCenter 1.x.  This is subjective of course, but VMotion was the single most intriguing and significant feature that VMware has ever implemented, and it came into its own with ESX 2.5x.  As for those missteps?  Well, VirtualCenter comes to mind again, as does VCB, in fact, scaling seems to be a concept that VMware has and continues to struggle with. Including more recent solutions like Update Manager, and even in the core VMware API, which still seems slow for some reason at any significant scale, as I have noted in the past in verbose detail.  Unfortunately, this is where Microsoft can nail VMware to the wall.  The very same wall that has the writing on it, that says…Abandon All Hope, All Ye That Read This Here…if you see complete doom for VMware ahead?

In spite of what others may predict or even believe about my views, I do not yet, see failure for VMware.  VMware has potential, but so does every other virtualization platform.  As other solutions move or prepare to move into application instancing, VMware still holds firm that its future is ESXi and a pure hypervisor-ized vision.  That is dangerous.  Hypervisors will always exist, but will never dominate the industry over time.  VMware keeps its virtual-appliance model, only because it is a fake instance model?  That is a dead end, when any true application instancing solution out performs it hands down, this is where Citrix may be going?  There are just too many strategic reasons to reduce the complexity of virtualization, as only application instancing allows.  How do I know this to be true?  Why the emergence application instancing?  My wish list for 2009 and 2010 are not dependent on hypervisor technology, is why.  The wish list, in simple descriptors is as follows:

• Reduce the Total Number of Lines of Code Executed!  This is #1
• Avoid any solution that layers filter drivers upon filter drivers.  This is hard to do!
• Easy intra- and inter-site recovery, De-Duplication Models for Archival
• Thin Disking and Imaging, Greater alignment to Storage Arrays
• Reduced Support Staff (Yes, This Is Reality)
• Realign instancing back to its roots, Exchange, SQL, etc., all are instancing models that should never be in operating system isolation
• Utility Computing (Heterogeneous Application Hosting), Application Instancing
• Grid Computing?  To some degree a solution looking for a problem?
• Kill dependence on VMFS, Explore other file systems, NFS, iSCSI (Again)
• Become Even More Green, this is related to #1 (Energy Consumption Must Be Reduced)

How many of these goals is VMware presenting against?  Since LifeCycle solutions are nothing more than creative repackaging, not that many as I see it.  None of these goals or concepts is in any way new.  But achievement of these simple goals still is not consistent throughout the information technology industry or across hardware vendors.  We, all seem to be waiting for something, watching, believing that just around the corner, over the next slight hill; the ultimate solutions, in each scope is there just out of sight, the supreme utopia for those of us that are architects of infrastructure.  Why are we still chasing solutions to problems, not implementing?  I for one, can not continue to wait, VMware VI based on revision 4 must be a quantum leap again.

Remember I said, it is easy to explain, but hard to illustrate?  Well, we do well to itemize the problems, but do not do was well discovering the solutions?  So, we compromise against the options that are available, saying to ourselves, it is just the 80/20 rule, that I can not have everything, everything does not exist.  Food for thought no?  I want my cake, and will eat it too, and I want zero calories with that real sugar taste!  Well, for me, 2009 starts in the later half of 2008, and 2011 will start in 2009, if you understand my inference?  2015 is just not that far away, will you have the right solution, for 2015?  Global Datacenter will be the expectation for 2015.  Yes, I want everything just the way I want it, and to do that, I will have to implement a multiple vendor and tiered virtualization solution platform which may be, no will be, more complex than I want, but is the only way to achieve the efficiency I need.  The operations teams are not going to be happy?

Do I sound sad?  Or is the impression I present a bit dark?  That is reality, providing VMware ESX 4.x is a winner, it may not be as dark as it could be.  My hope is that VMware will spend major time in code validation and quality assurance certification with ESX 4.0, eliminating new introductions of features in 4.0, for inclusion in 4.0.1, 4.0.2, cough, or even 4.5 Update 1, in preference to solid stability.  I hope that VMware has a true instancing model that is a surprise?  Did I mention this all has to happen at a penance of a price?  Dang, knew I forgot something in my wish list…Adding…Everything Has To Be Done On The Cheap.

Add comment June 26th, 2008