Posts filed under 'A Proper Virtual World'
Virtualization Critical Evaluation – Chapter 12
Fired up the good old iPod, old since it is an original Video iPod via iTunes, which compared to the iPod Touch, is more than obsolete, try comparing a Ford Model-T to a SmartCar, and although they seem similar in some ways they are worlds apart. The iTunes semi-randomization or shuffle playlist selected Depeche Mode, Music for the Masses, which has a number of songs that just happen to match the topic for this blog entry. For those that are not Depeche Mode fans, the song…Never Let Me Down Again…is the song I am referring to among others. This specific song always seems to come to mind when I look at general release code that something-dot-zero. What is it about 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc., as a concept, which always freaks me out? It is not as though .0 releases are always good, bad or ugly, is it? What is the old axiom from my business undergraduate degree days? Oh, yes… Never buy an automobile from Detroit that was made on Monday.
There are, from my perspective three (3) basic scenarios for adoption of a new architecture/solution/infrastructure. This is not rocket-science more Common Sense, versus Profit Driven, versus how should I say this… Just-Must-Have? The definitions of the three approaches are outlined below per my perspective.
- Common Sense – Cool your jets cadet, what many would call a late-adopter strategy. That really does describe the concept. Let someone else break their teeth on the newest release. In the case of VMware, which I would call middle of road in the quality of release code, it is Update 1 or version .0.1, which achieves the next order of magnitude, and is a reasonable bug-less state. No I am not saying VMware, Xen, or even Microsoft released horrible release code, which at times they have done, only that every code shop must at some point declare a .0 release as done, and prioritize any remaining issues for resolution in the next incremental release. In virtualization, this is significant, because of the eggs-all-in-one-basket issue with virtualization hosts. An issue on a host is always a factor times 16, 20, 24, or more, since multiple virtual instances are often impacted. It is not uncommon for some firms to let a general release, that is .0, mature, 90 or 120 days. In the case of ESX 3.0, given some nasty issues, and a major change in the ESX OS for a number of reasons, I know of one firm that waited more than 6 months to adopt a well patched ESX 3.0.1 before leaving ESX 2.5.2 after several years on 2.5.2. Yes, 2.5.2, it was stable and consistent for them, so moving to ESX 3.0 soon was not reasonable.
- Profit Driven – This is similar to an early-adapter model, with the motivation specific to the situation. There can be a situation where a given general release has features or even fixes that the older major version just does not have or will never achieve, the newest version must be leveraged. Or the situation is such that to wait for a less painful implementation is a significant opportunity cost, or even competitive advantage issue. What pain is encountered with the .0 release is deemed acceptable because a significant feature is critical to near future success? The term bleeding edge is sometimes referenced for this scenario, but that is misleading, at least from my point of view. I would define the bleeding edge as implementing production on release candidate code, rather than general release code. Microsoft at times has done this, on their internal infrastructure, for example this was done with Hyper-V, since Microsoft deemed the later versions of Hyper-V stable enough for such action before the official general release was out the door.
- Just-Must-Have – This approach is often confused with the Profit Driven approach. Management is profit driven, but there are personalities in the command structure that just want the latest and greatest, or the next wonder solution, because they can mandate it. Of course all the official communication will define the demand for action in a profit justification, the market share versus competitive feature set, buzz words inclusive. But in truth somewhere in the dark, someone just wants the latest new toy. New toys cost real money, in training, issue resolution, and mistakes, throughout the entire vertical product stream, from OEM to customer. Consider that there is always someone, somewhere, that needs the latest and greatest. Think about it, was there not someone you knew that had a High Definition (HD) television that was $10,000 or more, and there were at most a handful of television shows in HD? And how often did that wonderful HD unit fail? Was the service contract at least 10% of the total purchase cost, if not more? Now the same basic television, about 5 years later is around $600, and still HD television is not universal across the board? Thank goodness virtualization assimilation is not quite that slow!
Now, I am sure some are wondering what my strategy is? Well, let me explain it this way. Yes, I own a SmartCar. No, I did not get it right away, so I did not exhibit the Just-Must-Have approach. Although, I have a close relative that did get a SmartCar very soon after they came to the United States, and yes, they experienced some issues about 1 week after they got it. Some will say, but the SmartCar has been around in Europe for years, true, but driving in Europe is not the same as in most of the United States. So, did I exhibit the Profit-Driven approach? Yes and No. Yes, in that I decided and ordered my SmartCar when fuel costs where well over $4.00 US. No, in the sense that the SmartCar had been in the United States for about 18 months before I got mine, given that there was about a 6 month queue between order and receipt of a SmartCar. So I would say my approach was part Common-Sense, but not completely.
As for virtualization adoption, specific to .0 releases? I never recommend anything but the Common-Sense approach. This is regardless of the vendor, the situation or the environment selected. Virtualization should be stable, safe, and consistent, if not, it generates more headaches than anyone should have to deal with, never mind the endless-seeming long days, and very odd hours on the phone with vendor technical support, where we are all scratching our heads. True, I often get yelled at for this, and at times it has been at the expense of my personal standing or reputation! However, history has proven, I have been right, and the very same individuals that absolutely hated my view on virtualization adoption, with reluctant, grudging omission, noted I was after all, correct. In the course of time, those that disagreed have been mollified if not thankful for my stubborn stance on late adoption of virtualization, when it comes to .0 release implementations or infrastructure migrations to same.
Some will ask, why this topic now? That is a good question. With the recent release of vSphere 1.0 (insert polite cough here), including vCenter 4.0, ESX/ESXi 4.0, etc., moreover, Microsoft Windows 2008 R2, with some key features that support improved Hyper-V platform use and function, for example, the Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) 1.0 feature coming into its own. Not to ignore, RHEL 5.4 with KVM .83, .84, or maybe even .85, thus approaching KVM 1.0? Now seemed a reasonable.
June 9th, 2009
Looking way out there
Recently I attended my 25 year high school reunion. It was not an earth moving experience, but enjoyable to my surprise. Many of the friends I saw at our 10 and 20 year reunions I saw again. Although I was a bit of a geek, and an outsider to an extent, definitely not part of the in-crowd, but I was not an outcast either. I was just normal enough to be accepted by the brains and jocks. I realized returning home, later the same evening of the reunion dinner, that I was successful, that I have done well. Sure, there are always some individuals that do better and some that have done worse in life, and I have never been one to keep score, I did realize, that enough time has gone by, for the next generation to be learning how to find their own way, their own path. That we are no longer the next generation, but the past generation, it was ironic, that given that I work with the cutting edge of computing, that I am still part of the next generation, in a computing sense, if not in a chronological sense.
Of course, my thoughts turned from my personal career and the information technology industry in general. I consider myself as a strategic thinker, wanting to believe that only the best years for the industry are ahead? That robotics and man-machine-interfacing will continue. The science fiction fan in my, wants to see bionics, cybernetics, nano machines, etc. all benefit us. But I cannot in good faith, wear my rose colored glasses, any more when it comes to virtualization. Taking off said glasses allows me to look at things with an honest perspective, and what I am about to say will not make some people like me, or my views, fine, I am not here to be loved, liked, or even respected, if I am not honest. Of course this is my opinion, of course it is just my perspective, but in the past, my perspective has been accurate based on what the facts of history are or became over time. I leave the readers of this blog to call me to task, or yell back as they desire, saying I am insane or crazy, but so be it. Here goes. Let history judge:
- Xen will not survive, not because it is not good, it is, but because market share trumps all. Citrix has not owned the low cost virtualization market segment, and now with other competition maturing they are under severe threat. Xen also is not free and compared to KVM and Hyper-V is not that cheap, at least not as cheap as one would wish.
- Hyper-V will struggle for another two years, because it is still weak. Being free only gets you so far. Microsoft will make Hyper-V successful, and as with how Microsoft all but destroyed Novell in the distributed server market, many managers in information technology do not have the balls, yes lack the balls, to not pick Microsoft.
- Life-Cycle wars, is now, and only now gaining a beachhead in the mindset of management. This is not because it has been a concept missed or ignored. But because the solutions that implement life-cycle management have been horrible. They have lacked insight and flexibility. To an extent, until some given firms have 1000s hosts, or say 5000 virtual instances, management is a nice to have, not a key requirement for many, because focusing on growing the virtualization environment, is not the same priority as managing the environment?
- Entrenchment is the ruling strategy, or retraction might be a better term. Collapse and consolidation are the only strategic plans that anyone in the corporate world seem to believe it. The current economic situation worldwide is just an excuse to accelerate what was already going to happen. Virtualization promotes consolidation, so now that firms can compress computing infrastructure just as they can reduce man power? In fact, virtualization has slowed cloud computing not encouraged it.
- KVM is going to grow and strengthen, but will only do so, as long as it is dirt cheap and, at the very same time, matures to incorporate key features that most end-users of virtualization must have, including, basic virtual instance life-cycle management, self-serve virtual instance provisioning, ease of use, transparent live migration, and some type of master image, common boot image, cloning and template functionality, and of course at some point a very lean, near embedded hypervisor as well as a strong virtual container model.
- Of course, last but not least, VMware. Well, this is actually obvious, at least to me it is. I made the point to a friend at VMware over two years ago, when Hyper-V was nothing but a bad dream on a drawing board at Microsoft. VMware just costs way to much. This view of mine was reinforced in a recent meeting with VMware, where the discussion of VMware feature set, and the associated pricing became, well, to be fair, enthusiastic to be sure. It was professional, it was honest, and it was quite clear, that VMware was not hearing us. VMware has for the last 5 or 6 years, continued to add features, failed to enhance existing features in reference to scale and scope, for enterprise clients. VMware still thinks and acts like the small customer is their strategic niche. VMware has not, in my view, learned anything from its key enterprise customers, when it comes to pricing. To be blunt, VMware increasing its pricing, now, in this economic situation, is not good, and is not going to work. Not based on the feedback I am getting. When a cheaper solution has 60 or 80 of the VMware feature set, but VMware costs even more than ever before?
- Last, we have not seen the next great quantum leap. The next great wow is still out there. Microprocessors have hit a wall; we are scaling in the horizontal faster than the vertical. Memory and storage density need a break through, we still struggle with the basic laws of physics, but sooner or later, chemical or biological computing will emerge, maybe as part of a break-through in man-machine interface design effort. But virtualization on cell phones, as cool as that is, is not good enough, just a re-packaging of what we already have.
What is new is old, why did I say this? The same basic issues for information technology still exist, getting more for less, getting higher performance for less resource commitment. In fact, the same key issues for virtualization still exist. Virtualization is still complex, yes, complex. Management of virtualization environments suffer from complexity and scaling issues. This has never changed. As the demand for larger and faster virtual instances has grown, the monitoring and maintenance of these same environments is not easier, it is harder, just the scale and scope of growth alone have far out stepped any rational expectations. In fact, the information technology industry has done this over and over. With each new reinvention of the same original concepts, gains critical mass, it happens. The move from mainframes to microcomputers, from centralized computing to distributed server computing, from the distributed server computing refactoring back in to centralized processing or consolidation, yes via virtualization to achieve cost avoidance, we create our own challenges.
This swing back and forth is normal, it cannot be avoided, we improve performance, only to realize we spending, and we reduce expense only to realize we now must have improved performance, on and on. But the days of purchasing the best of breed solution are gone, just because the best of breed is just that, is no longer defendable, welcome to a key aspect of retraction! We are going to have to settle for the Just-Good-Enough (JGE) mindset, and that puts severe pressure on VMware, and will force minor entities out of the market, so KVM, Xen, Parallels, Hyper-V, etc., will all fight for market share, below the VMware price model, offering a smaller feature set, but under cutting VMware with vengeance.
My 92 year old Grandmother is fond of saying… There is nothing new under the sun. This is either the result of 92 years of life or that she is a quite a biblical scholar, maybe both. But it is true, I hate to say it, but right now, at least in reference to strategies around virtualization, that is true.
May 14th, 2009
Virtualization Critical Comparison – Chapter 07
The last few entries to this blog have been focused on Kernel-Based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology with some metaphor parallels to Microsoft Hyper-V. Some may question why comments have been absent in reference to VMware? That is a good question. Well, to be honest, when grousing about KVM or Hyper-V, the actual best of breed gets a pass, for now. This will not continue, well not for long, once vSphere is out, there are bound to be a few things to discuss. Leave it to other blogs to comment on the latest buzz, the top new tricks, etc. This blog focuses on the things that from a strategic perspective are issues for virtualization.
A case in point and applicable to right now, KVM, or to be fair, the painful Virt-Manager. Having gotten a basic platform on KVM running, things are moving the right direction in the analysis of KVM. So this blog entry is going to be a bit shorter, KVM experimentation takes time, a lot of time. This has long been one of my disappointments about Linux based solutions; there is nothing quick about Linux the first time you walk down a new path to a new solution. Fighting the interface issues, the unexpected incompatibility issues, etc. Never mind digging through the tons of well intentioned documentation, but often dated material. Hate, absolutely despise, finding an article that solves one of my issues, only to get 2 pages into it, and realize it is only applicable to RedHat and not Ubuntu! To be balanced, commercial documentation is often dated as well, but at least there is someone that is paid to get it right, when it needs to be right, this not the case with open source of course. The ability to call someone and get things right, just is not possible with open source in the same way as RedHat or Microsoft.
Do not misunderstand; I enjoy digging into problematic scenarios. I am enjoying my ordeal with KVM. It reminds me when I first got an IBM PC XT, and wanted to run two monitors at the same time, months before anyone else, it reminds me when I got my Macintosh Plus, before any of my peers, and I figured out how to cross connect the XT and Mac, starting a small business as a University student, getting $22.50 an hour, when everyone else was getting $2.50, because moving data between the two systems was so new, I had the local market cornered. Dealing with KVM has that same feel. Unfortunately, I am not having the same enjoyable experience with Virt-Manager. I have been spoiled by VMware VirtualCenter, cough, vCenter. The issues with vCenter are real, the scaling and performance of vCenter plague its elegance and ease of use. Of course, vCenter regardless of its faults trumps Virt-Manager. So my expectations are out of whack, or unrealistic? Yes and no.
Yes, my expectations for Virt-Manager are unfair; Virt-Manager is wonderful, compared to what could be the situation, if Virt Manager did not exist. However, no, my expectations are not unreasonable, when considering that Virt-Manager should be closer to the competition, sooner than later. The interface needs some significant work to compete with SCVMM which is still not great, and vCenter. For example, the fact that you have to remove the network adapter completely from a virtual machine, to change the type of network, virtual versus bridged physical, is just not acceptable from an end-user perspective. Add and remove is not operational sanity when an edit option is obvious. To be sure, I really do want KVM and Virt-Manager to be successful. We need them to be successful. Once Microsoft and VMware do reach parity in functional feature set, only two outcomes are possible. Both are ugly for us, the humble end-users of virtualization.
- VMware survives; they own the top 10 or 20 percent of the virtualization market, which are cost elastic. Any organization that needs and demands the best overall solution that is feature rich and continues to push the edge will continue to use VMware. Silicon Graphics in post production video, for example. Or even more significant, look at Apple Computer as an example. Apple re-invents its-self over and over; this is what VMware must do. In fact, I think Apple should purchase VMware and virtualize the iPod, iPhone, moreover consider the iTouch as a generic platform in this direction, so that many different hardware devices can function as iType devices. The first generic platform along this line, which has a common end-user selectable interface, which is the same on the HD TV, the Cell Phone, the DVR, even in the automobiles, which is not on a closed network, will, mark my words, crack the BlackBerry, and the hang it up for the iPhone.
- VMware does not survive; Microsoft so dominates the virtualization landscape, that lowest common denominator virtualization platform cannot be surpassed once in place. This a proven model, why are there no new word processor applications? The barrier to the market is that critical mass cannot be achieved by anyone else other than Microsoft, simply because Microsoft is already there. This is why Sony Betamax though obviously superior, failed against VHS. However, there is one flaw in this situation for Microsoft, at least right now, for a short period of time, Linux based virtualization containers! Kernel based Virtual Containers (KVC) which does not exist as yet, but will once Sun Micro goes extinct, at least compared to what Sun has been in the past. Maybe RedHat will license Zones?
Why will KVC gain ground? Microsoft costs way too much per copy of operating system, and many fortune 500 firms are looking for ways to reduce operating system costing, licensing included. Microsoft forcing purchase of Datacenter is a panic response to how the slow of total operating system license purchases is hurting Microsoft. Microsoft is hiding the dark side of operating system downsizing under a new license strategy that will change again, and again. I will not be surprised to see Microsoft begin to lose market share to Linux in the server platform, faster than ever before. Do you not see this as well? Why is Microsoft pushing System Center so hard? Microsoft is worried. It is almost a joke, how desperate Microsoft sounds when trying to evangelize System Center, including Virtual Machine Manager, using Hyper-V as the vaguely successful crowbar to crack open the minds of CIOs to this refurbished concept. What exactly makes Microsoft think that if CIOs refuse to purchase vSphere they will instantly purchase System Center and Datacenter?
But I digress, or do I? One could say my disappointment is not KVM, but with Virt-Manager, why? Because I see Virt-Manager with its understandable but slow progress so far, as bad karma. We need the Linux based virtual containers, not Linux based virtual machines, and to achieve this, the management and ease-of-use aspect must exist sooner rather than later. I Hope the Linux community is thinking about this? Now is the time to be aggressive, when CIOs hate spending cash, cannot justify VMware or Microsoft big ticket expenses. I know for a fact, that every strategic thinker I know be they CIO, Strategic Architect, etc., just hate seeing Microsoft dominate the computing industry over and over, and real long term high expense that such a situation includes, no matter what Microsoft states today. Maybe some firms refusing to implement Vista should be a realistic indicator to the Linux community that the 1000 year era of Microsoft may be in trouble, about 30 years into the master plan? That a dynasty is posed to fall? Well, not quite yet. VMware has been unable to do it. VMware was in the best position to do so? VMware has had a great run, but has the same issue, cost. So is now is it time for Linux to live up to its highest potential at a reasonable cost? Time for Linux virtualization, KVCs, to leave the shadows, and take a place in the light?
April 14th, 2009
Virtualization Critical Comparison – Chapter 06
The title of this entry really gives everything away. I have not had a positive experience with my analysis of KVM. I have found KVM to be difficult to install, difficult to configure, difficult to use, and yes, frustrating. At times I enjoy using Linux, but Linux is not easy, not when you want to do something fast and quick. Many will scream that is not so, but objectively, it is true. This is where Microsoft Windows always trumps Linux, ease of install and use. And KVM is no exception. Of course Windows 2008 Core suffers from many of the issues that Linux does, in that Windows 2008 Core it is not trivial, when you have to do things sans GUI.
All I wanted to do was to have one Linux box as my remote management entity (Ubuntu Desktop with Gnome) and two virtualization hosts sans GUI, in effect a Dell 2850 and 2 Dell 2950s, of course NAS via Ubuntu based NFS as the storage back end. This seemed reasonable since I have used this same setup for VMware, Xen, and Hyper-V (using iSCSI) functional comparison in the past. But in reference to KVM, virt-manager and of course libvirt this was impossible on Ubuntu 8.1, since version virt-manager (and libvirt) integrated into Ubuntu 8.1, an unsupported configuration for remote virtual instance creation. Compile of KVM-84, since only KVM-72 is integrated into Ubuntu 8.1 is possible but throws more warnings than the highway patrol about drinking and driving on New Year’s eve. Of course there are 100s of examples of how to do all this via Google and every single one is different, and none of them worked quite right. No disrespect the respective authors; I am sure their respective setups worked, but not mine, they did not setup the way I wanted to setup.
To be fair, I did not make things easy; I used Ubuntu, which is not quite as easy to use as RedHat in some ways, and easier in others, a topic outside the scope of this blog. There is something to be said for commercial quality versus true open source, and Gentoo was even harder to get to a realistic functional level, even though it is my favorite distribution most of the time. RedHat of course, is not quite savvy with KVM, either, given that true integration is not until RedHat 5.4, and was once targeted 6.0 if memory serves. I found the communication of when and how KVM will be integrated into RHEL interesting and telling, but is a discussion for a different day. Of course I don’t have a copy of RHEL 6 or even 5.4 at hand, so Ubuntu it was. I have found Ubuntu 8.1 stable and consistent, but 9.0.4 Alpha 6 not quite where I needed it to be now, so that too impacted my experience with KVM so far.
This is not to say that Ubuntu is at fault, no, it is not. The real issue with KVM is founded in two key issues, at least two for me, even after I have a functional environment. First, KVM and Windows seem to have a love and hate relationship. This is a maturity issue if anything, and I am sure KVM will improve Windows support; it really must to take on VMware at any serious level. Of course KVM will support Linux well, that is an obvious winner. The real war between Linux and Windows has yet to happen, but it will, some day. Windows 2008 Core is just the introductive probe Microsoft has staged to target against Linux. Don’t be fooled, if Microsoft could figure out how to kill off Linux, Microsoft would. Second, I am not a fan of virt-manager or libvirt as yet. None of the basic components are as polished as I need them to be to see any rational parallel or competitive advantage that can threaten VMware vSphere. The libvirt process keeps dying on me for some reason, something that I am still trying to isolate. However, back to libvirt and virt-manager design, I am not talking about the greater feature set, that other platforms already have, including transparent migration, e.g. VMotion, but basic virtualization function. Of the three key components, KVM, virt-manager, and libvirt, I think virt-manager really is the worst; it just does not work well for me, at all. Even VMware ESX 2.0.1 would trump KVM, libvirt, and virt-manager as they exist today. How long ago was ESX 2.0.1 viable? About 5 years ago or maybe a bit less?
Serious development of KVM eclipsing QEMU has been what? About 2 years, give or take a bit? I guess I had unrealistic expectations so soon? Or is KVM losing some steam? Will RedHat dominate KVM to such an extent that it will fail the way Citrix has all but killed Xen? I reserve judgment for now. Do I need to wait for KVM, virt-manager, and libvirt to mature, at the same rate as VMware? I think not, I think RedHat and maybe IBM, among others will drive things at a faster pace. But today, right now, KVM is frustrating, due to its limitations. I really do want KVM to be successful, if for no other reason, than it will keep VMware on its toes! Something that Microsoft has not quite managed to do right so far, did I hear someone whisper System Center Virtual Machine Manager? Since VMware can be seen as the Neiman Marcus of virtualization, what does that make the KVM, virt-manager and libvirt solution, the Wal-Mart of virtualization? Not sure, I think Microsoft is really pushing to win the Wal-Mart parallel in the virtualization market. Therefore KVM will have to define its self somewhere between Wal-Mart and Neiman Marcus parallels?
March 31st, 2009
Virtualization Critical Comparison - Chapter 05
As I listen to the Halo original sound track, a sense of shock and ah creeps up on me, in tempo, to the music. What Halo sound track? Hey, I am a geek, get over it! But moving on to the topic at hand, I promised that I would deep dive into KVM, as I have with Hyper-V, and parallels between these two virtualization solutions, at least so far in my analysis are similar as well as not on some key points. I have by no means finished my dive into the virtualized ice supported by Hyper-V and KVM, but here is what I have in my notes so far. Expect this to change over time, as I get deeper into the ice.
- Hyper-V is not ready for the enterprise, large scale enterprise. This is not to say it cannot be made to work, but Hyper-V today is not a clear winner compared to Xen, vSphere, or even KVM.
- KVM is still difficult to install and configure when one takes into account that its implementation is not as easy as KDE across multiple distributions; I found RHEL and Ubuntu to be easier than Gentoo for example, even though Gentoo is my favorite Linux distribution. This is not to say that any of them are very hard or just easy, only that the multiple distributions make KVM standardization a bit hard, and digging through all the Google hits a pain in the posterior.
- SCVMM in my view has great potential but fails short of the mark. It is slow. It still has issues with complex Active Directory designs, and disjointed domains. It does not eliminate vCenter, only links to it. Notice I did not use the word, integrate, SCVMM does not integrate vSphere, because it just glues its-self to vSphere and makes vSphere management, with its limited scaling, look like SCVMM, yuck. I really do hate the SCVMM interface. Microsoft has bundle System Center in such a way as to target vSphere management suite, this is interesting, but very expensive no matter what Microsoft claims. Management of virtualization is where everyone thinks the money to be made is at. Idiots. Chasing dollars and not improving the total solution is just as bad as adding new features in a half-ass manner.
- KVM management, this I must admit has been struggle for me. I am not used to using a GUI in Linux, and the fact that I really have to use a GUI to be effective in management of KVM, is fine, just a bit of culture shock for me. Odd, I accept a GUI in MacOS with no worries, I work with Microsoft Windows, which I still feel is a rip-off of the original Machintosh OS, but balk at a GUI in Linux? Never liked Gnome, that may be coloring my perception.
- KVM is still immature with its support of Windows, I am attempting to run Windows 2008 R2 Beta, and having no end of issues, I suspect many of my issues are learning curve issues with KVM management tools, virt-manager, and the GUI issue as noted above. I really need to setup a Ubuntu desktop, or server with KDE, and that is the plan. Even when I reverted back to Windows 2008 proper, the issues remained, so it is a KVM issue from my perspective at the moment. It is interesting that every example of Windows running in KVM is desktop class software, Windows XP to the greatest extent, and a odd instance of Vista here and there. What does this tell you?
- Hyper-V no matter what Microsoft says is still not on par with vSphere when it comes to a clustered file system. No this is not an argument about NFS versus VMFS, even with the SCSI reservation scaling issues and such on VMFS, VMFS kicks everything else to the curb right now. Sure NFS is gaining, and may at some point own the shared IO storage space, but not right now. Clustered Shared Volumes (CSV) feature in R2 is going to be a disappointment to many. It is nothing more than NTFS with a few filter/wrapper drivers, so it is not going to win any awards.
- Some time ago, I told Microsoft to walk away from NTFS shared, and just adopt NAS, NFS and iSCSI and call it done, but Microsoft has problems listening to the customer at times. Microsoft needs to get to NAS with Hyper-V quick. Much quicker than VMware did. NFS and iSCSI, thought I am not endorsing either here, significant threats to classic fiber-channel, never mind FCoE, which is a solution looking for problem until it is finalized and officially adopted by at least a few big vendors. NetApp is yelling from the mountain top various points of how NFS scales beyond VMFS, duhe. But until everyone has 10GB dedicated storage networks, FC will always have its place, but it is threatened, no doubt.
- Hyper-V with its very immature network model, that is not even close to vSphere or Xen, is another weak point, that is going to plague Microsoft for months if not years. Microsoft needs to implement a MPIO like model for Hyper-V virtual networking. Why Microsoft did not do this in Microsoft Virtual Server, is a mystery as well, this was an obvious and clear winner for Microsoft.
- Why am I referencing the above Hyper-V issues, because KVM addresses these out of the box, in fact, the further down the rabbit hole I get, the more I see KVM not as threat to vSphere but to Hyper-V. Interesting no?
- KVM has one other significant win, it is lean and mean, it is a virtualization container model, similar in strategic approach to Solaris Zones or LDOMs, and as you all know, from my past discourse on the topic of virtualization containers, I see this as the first step to operating system instance reduction. We need to reduce the total copies of the operating system running in parallel in virtualization, now is the time, everyone!
I am slowly coming to the realization that vSphere may be irrelevant, based on cost, and Hyper-V and KVM will drive right at each other, Xen is always road kill, not because it is wrong or weak, but because it has not momentum behind it. KVM has something that VMware has lost, and Hyper-V is trying to gain…Energy! No, Passion. When you read about what developers are doing in KVM, and how they discuss issues, there is emotional if not a spiritual aspect to their oration. Excitement and motivation in their words, and this is critical to the future success of KVM. I perceive the significance of this having once been a down and dirty developer in my college days. It is not the high caffeine loading, or the potential profits, that drive developers, it is the bragging rights around the water cooler, cough, the instance messaging groups or dig-it or even tweeter, about the latest kewl trick that is rad if not sick, that was added to KVM, which has everyone jumping online to download KVM. The Linux architecture fans are just itching to nail Microsoft, and as a freebie kick VMware at the same time. I will continue with my deep dive of KVM and comparison to Hyper-V, and I expect my perceptions to change or surprise maybe re-affirmed? But I am distracted.
Changing Gears for a Moment…
About 40 or so people, some very close friends that are now unemployed, all in the IT industry, that I have worked with for years if not decades and knew will, in a work association context, have been let go, laid off, etc. This weights upon my thoughts often now days. The aspect of this current economic situation that saddens me is this, the pain I see in others, in the looks on faces, the words left unsaid, living through the economic instability cut lose in the wind if you will, through absolutely no fault of their own. It is difficult for me to endure. Life is not fair, to be sure, not even life in the IT industry. Nor do I blame those that make these ugly decisions; it is a thankless situation for all. Decisions have to be made.
But still, some of these people, friends or otherwise, I know for a fact, where ranked very high in their respective organizations, provided excellent service to their respective employers for decades, where often recognized and rewarded, and still the axe came with merciless speed and disregard of achievement, skill or even talent. It begs the question…what criteria is used for deciding who is left standing, and who falls to the axe? Moreover, I ask…how many times does the axe fall, before any given firm loses competitive advantage? How many times does axe fall, before any given firm loses talent and thus knowledge that is gone forever?
What is the true definition of profitability and strength of a firm? What drives strategic success? Tactical results of course. It is skilled and talented people, in-house, that do real work. Retaining those that make your respective firm profitable is strategic and tactical, the people that work where the rubber meets the road, not management, not directors of the board, of course not the investors, and dear God, not even CEOs. How many talented people can a firm retain, if it let the top 10%, no, top 5% of its management structure go?
Furthermore, is it not ironic, that we call it in-house resources and out-sourced resources? Of course, the most straight forward descriptor to the opposite term for in-house, the true antigram to the term in-housed resources, is well, honestly, is out-housed resources? But I guess out-housing does not have that positive executive level ring or spin to it, now does it? But it does have a certain a semantic parallel, right?
March 19th, 2009
Well, life often throws one a curve now and then. And for me, this is true it seems as well. In just 2009, I have a close family member struggling with cancer, a close family member struggling with heart disease, and lost my favorite pet to old age, my first real pet, Gunter, his full name was Lord Gunter of Fair Winds Kennels. He was a dachshund like no other, a strong fierce spirit, for the past 18 years, never accepted the word or command, compromise. What else could go wrong, I don’t need more stress? Little did I know! Family is one thing, but I have friends struggling as well.
Last week, in one day, I realized I had gotten notification via various methods of more than 10 people I knew, most very well, were laid off. This brings my personal head count to well over 25 in recent months. Most of these 10 or so, I worked with or for many years. No, I am not going to explain specifics of what business segment, or scope I work in, or what areas the respective, recently unemployed, once worked in. That is taboo. As anyone knows, I don’t discuss specifics of or to my blog readers, nor do I discuss specifics about my real-career. What? You ask? This blog is not a job; it is fun, not quite a hobby, but something other than work. But I will say this, I am an engineer, a system integrated, and solution evaluator, so you can gather I have a large scope of friends in the IT field. My friends, yes, friends, at ToutVirtual included!
I am sure everyone understands the current economic situation we are in, specifically the IT industry. As major clients entrench, and new initiative funds dry up, what is the impact to us? What is the impact to virtualization in general? Well that is the interesting thing. Now is the time when virtualization should be going nuts. Firms that never wanted to do virtualization or saw minimum benefit, may be changing their collective minds? No? I wonder? What if the impact of the current crisis is too hard, too bad, too much for virtualization? This is an opportunity but also a threat. How so?
Yes, virtualization saves money. If done right, it should hands down. But it comes at a cost that is not always understood well, or acknowledged up front. With virtualization, your environment is more complex, your technical resources have to be on the ball, and know what they are doing. After all, if they take down one virtual host, and you lose 10, 20, whatever virtual instances in one shot? Right? So it can cost you in unexpected ways if you are not serious about virtualization and support it well. Pre-provision of virtual hosts makes sense; you need that achieve speed to market, right? But that is a capital cost that is not realized or recovered immediately. Your virtual clients may not be ready to use your virtual hosts and associated virtual instances at the same time you bring them online. What if your growth rate has all but died? You have virtual hosts that are under utilized? Ouch. To be sure these issues and more are understood by now, by most that are using virtualization or planning to do so. So what is the point? The point is, do you still really need to virtualize? Or virtualize more than you have?
Yes, but what type of virtualization? I think the current situation is going to push application virtualization into the lime light. I think operating system isolation is going to suffer for it. I think that as corporations look at costs from a strategic perspective, we will see a major push to eliminate multiple operating systems, from environments. For example, do I really need Solaris, Linux and Windows as server platforms? Of course not, many will say. This places emphasis on frameworks, and co-hosts if instances, in SQL, IIS, Oracle, Apache, etc., will reduce operating system sales, and hardware sales, just when hardware sales are hurting in general because of virtualization? Nuts. In fact, cloud computing if done right, will reduce operating system sales, and virtualization sales! It only makes sense, if doing more with less is the goal, operating system isolation virtualization is going to take a hit sooner rather than later.
Yes, we will see more layoffs and downsizing, we will see more friends let go or gone from the world we work in. We are on a downward spiral, still. And our own success nails us, to be sure, because the goal of IT is to reduce personal, flat-out. To do more with less is our super ordinate goal. Never mind the economic cascade and customer entrenchment. Unfortunately, this means that as the front office is downsized so is the back office, and IT is a big part of the back office. Do I see dark days ahead? Yes. What does this mean to me, from a personal perspective? Do I believe I will be out of work? That is a loaded question. But I will say this, as a knowledgeable individual in most things virtual? No, at least not right now. Knowing VMware, Hyper-V, and to some reasonable extent Xen, and soon, KVM? I think I have my bases covered for Hypervisor based virtualization. Time to move to cloud computing?
Yes, I even established an iSCSI and NFS test appliances based on Ubuntu in the home office so I can brush up my skills for Microsoft Fail-Over Clustering, yes, for Hyper-V, as well as improve my overall storage engineering skills as applicable to VMware vSphere, not withstanding Xen and emerging KVM. Never hurts to broaden the skill set. It was quite interesting to setup NFS on Windows 2008 (since having NFS on Windows 2003 up for years), also iSCSI target on Windows 2003 (that was interesting), and then compare these to Ubuntu server variants for NFS server and iSCSI target server. I plan to outline my observations on these efforts over the next few months, documenting what I did and how I did it, as my way of helping others develop their skill sets on tight budget.
Oh, now that I think about it, I need to freshen up the old resume as well. After all, around here, things are nuts!
February 24th, 2009
Know What Virtualization Is, But What Is Next – Chapter 15
As some of you may know, from reading this blog, I tend to be rather critical of virtualization implementations that are, well, what is the correct term… Slipshod? Consider the following scenario, if you would… Major company implements virtualization, same company saves a lot of costs upfront, less hardware purchased, less shared storage allocated (that can not be leveraged by virtualization better), better utilization of resources geographically, both human and machine. Elimination of cost, or avoidance of cost are the new buzz words around the management water cooler. Maybe even a few nice bonuses happened to float down to the dark shadows in the trenches, where the real work is done, the last few years. But senior management is already focused on utility computing, or cloud computing, they see virtualization as just another platform to be leveraged, the era of the floating datacenter is upon us! So what happens? Reduction of staff with incomplete planning, transfer of knowledge is weak, new personal that have no real experience or understanding of virtualization, which is a very complex animal, are now forced into a technology that is more demanding and harder to deal with, yes, virtualization is not easy to support nor manage. If you don’t understand this, you don’t really know virtualization.
Think this is not possible? Look again, I suspect it is already happening or, yuck, happened to you already, in your organization. Life cycle management is the big deal, right now, but is not the true specter, what is the true shadow over virtualization, in a strategic sense; it is how easy management sees virtualization as a commodity, a cog, and nothing more. Meaning management thinks, virtualization is like a simple operating system, the classic… been there, done that, ignorance. They forget that virtualization is a strategic platform, that it must be implemented well, supported well, designed well, and most important, planned for very well. This is easy to forget when considering cloud computing. Still think this is not happening to you? Even VMware has prompted this, in their rush to make cloud computing the new wave of profitability, to starve off Hyper-V. ESXi as a free component is worthless, if you don’t purchase all the toys! The name convention VMware just now adopted, says it all, vSphere, including vNetwork, vStorage, and vCenter. VMware is thinking strategic not tactical, true, but is your respective information technology management forgetting that virtualization is a true and significant increase in complexity? Strategic planning ignores the details, tactical planning and implementation tends to ignore the big picture, so which is it that you are struggling with in your organization? If not both?
Several years go, with my clients I started talking about a task-force mind-set, cross discipline technical teams, where storage, network, and operating system teams must integrate and have a common command structure, to prioritize goals. From a strategic perspective this makes obvious sense. But at a tactical level, it is expensive, because you are dedicating personnel, often your brightest and best skilled and talented people, to focus only on virtualization infrastructure. The devil in the details, tactical objectives, to support the strategic opportunity, thus be prepared for things like VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), VMware Fault-Tolerance (FT), better leveraging of VMware High-Availability (HA) and VMware Dynamic Resource Sharing (DRS), which at the time where about two (2) or so years in the future!
Was I successful? No. Nor were others I know. A peer of mine, in a different firm, but one that I am on good speaking terms with, that has also looked at virtualization from a strategic perspective, but only seen tactical implementation efforts, said to me just yesterday… Why don’t we have an enhanced storage infrastructure? Why don’t we use HA and DRS better, why don’t we have everything in place to use SRM today? I replied, well, everyone wanted to do it, but we never got funding, and migrating physical-to-virtual (P2V) was where all the cost savings has been, or straight-to-virtualization (S2V). So, it just never happened in the last four (4) years. First, the technology was not there to allow for it, so for two (2) years, we have waited for the technology to appear, well, for the integration of technologies to be fair. For the last two (2) years, we have just enjoyed the cost savings, ignoring the strategic advantage. Yes, the tactical cost savings should have supported as a funding initiative the infrastructure enhancements required to prepare for the new toys, no doubt. His reply was, and accurate I think… Great, so now with the economic issues we have today, we have no options, on strategic infrastructure, nothing in place to let us use the greater, if not best, features of virtualization, yet invented? What a slipshod plan.
I could do nothing but smile. I saw this coming more than three (3) years ago. My management and his, agreed, something should be done, we were right, but neither management structure acted, as the savings rolled in, as millions were saved, nothing was channeled to the future needs of virtualization. Our respective plans were stamped tactical, not strategic. So, given the economic down-turn, right now, when we really need to save more, than ever before, and the tools to allow for this are there, they now exist, to make even greater savings possible! Are any of us in a position to do so? Did we have strategic plans that were several years forward looking? No, well, only on paper, since no one wanted to invest in the future? So I ask you, again, is your virtualization plan stamped tactical or strategic?
February 4th, 2009
Virtualization Critical Comparison – Chapter 04
I have been spending a lot of time with XenServer 5, Hyper-V 2008, and of course VMware vSphere, over the last month or so. I expect I will continue to do this through March 2009. I planned to spend some serious time with KVM, but have not as yet had the time or resources to do so, yet. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have not been surprised by what I have seen and learned. My expectations have been met, things are improving in general, but maybe not as fast as I would prefer. No, don’t misunderstand me, I realize things take time. What I am saying is that I expected more from everyone, in comparison to everyone else, when new features would be added, not if. That everyone would steal more ideas from each other, and get these features started sooner than they have, in their respective platforms years ago, rather than in the coming year or so. For example, VMware now seriously is working towards imaging, or Microsoft now seriously working towards transparent migration. In both examples, VMware and Microsoft could have achieved these features years ago.
Here is my explanation of the key strategic issue per platform now, as a concept, not a specific feature comparison or analysis:
- At least the way I see Xen, given what I have researched and experienced so far. Xen seems to be dying. RedHat does not seem to know how to spell the world Xen, interesting since after all they were significant to the development and enhancement of Xen. I not sure why this is the case, Xen is a good platform, even if it does lack the features that make it a true enterprise solution, say compared to VMware. RedHat can not control the destiny of Xen, given Citrix being in the picture, so RedHat moving to KVM seems logical. However, Citrix I fear in light of Hyper-V, can not continue with Xen either.
- Microsoft, which should be called the Godzilla of virtualization, is just about ready to pop-up and trash everyone and everything that is not Microsoft. Of course, Hyper-V, yes, wonderful Hyper-V, well, it is a threat to everyone, but System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is a pain to install, a pain to use, and worse, it appears to me, to be very slow, slower than vCenter, which is significant. SCVMM is a pain to interpret, above all else, every single time SCVMM reports an issue it fails to explain it well, whatever the issue is. I love the…Host Needs Attention generic warning…most often this appears when an individual host needs a few hot-fixes applied, but now where in the SCVMM interface are the individual hot-fixes itemized? And of course SCVMM does not integrate into Microsoft Update, so you have no clue what the real specific hot-fixes issues are, if in fact the issue is missing hot-fixes. How many firms are going to purchase SCVMM or Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) for Hyper-V? Not many. SCVMM and/or MOM are not inexpensive.
- KVM, as I said above, I have not spent enough time with KVM yet to have a detailed list of the good, the bad, and the ugly for KVM. However, as the late comer to this world of virtualization as we know it today, it has a very complex set of features and options that it must achieve to compete with VMware, and to some degree Hyper-V and Xen. The KVM open source heritage with support from IBM is a good thing, but can it really survive? Only time will tell.
- VMware of course is King Kong. Mature, stable, feature set deep and wide, most of the time there is obvious intelligence behind the design. But dang it, it costs too much. Given the current economic down turn, this is more significant than ever. I have read three (3) different proposals, in the last 10 days, from different enterprise architects from various places, that want to walk away from VMware, today, just because Hyper-V exists, and the single justification is, total cost, Never mind, that Hyper-V on clustering is horrible to setup and difficult to manage. That Hyper-V has some impossible single-point-of-failure-issues. Nevermind that supporting Hyper-V will be expensive given real and instance out-of-the-box limitations. VMware is in the clouds, discussing vSphere and its wonders. But are they watching the back door? ESXi free or not, is useless to anyone that has any significant scale of virtualization to implement and support. Any serious enterprise must have vCenter at a minimum. This makes Hyper-V look easy to implement at a strategic level, because it is just part of Windows 2008. Wrong. Hyper-V is an operational nightmare at a tactical level. Worse, if a firm is not going to purchase SCVMM or MOM, they of course will not be purchasing much if anything in or from vSphere. So where does that leave VMware?
At this point, I am sure most of you, are saying…What does any of this have to do with the title of this blog entry? I will elucidate. Well, the bears are gone; the bulls own the market right now, this economic situation, is innovation-to-support-expansion (ISE) death. True, I may have misled everyone, by referencing Bears, but…Lions, Tigers, and Bulls…Has no ring to it either. As for the Lions, they are the enterprise customers; they put up a good image, talk big, but behind the scenes, are doing little or nothing, everything is status quo, which is not good for any hypervisor vendor. Lions often have multi-year, enterprise licensing, so they will just continue as they have, using the product mix already licensed to continue in a tactical mindset. Thus the ISE projects are dropping off the RADAR like bugs flying too close to a zapper! The Tigers are the interesting aspect, they are the loners, singular, mavericks that will purchase what, when, and how they want, but over all, do not represent sufficient market share or scope to support the robust and extensive virtualization vendor industry.
I expect that the virtualization technology and related companies, especially the remaining 3rd party solution providers, for the most part will go the way of the Dot-Com firms collapse about 2000, we will see flood of failures, mergers, buy outs, etc., beyond the purchases that VMware has already made the last two (2) years. My view is that this chaos will last for about 9 or so months, with the avalanche hitting about June 2009, and thus going into 2010. This means that as Hyper-V starts to major in 2011, VMware will be in difficult situation. I would not be surprised, to see the greater hypervisor oriented virtualization market consolidate as well, to just two (2) firms, VMware and Microsoft. Leaving us, with King Kong, and Godzilla? Was there not a cult classic movie by that title in the 1960s? Yes, Kingu Kongu Tai Gojira. But I was always a Wizard of Oz fan, so I am sticking with Lions, Tigers, and Bulls, cough, Bears.
January 28th, 2009
Christmas Eve is upon us yet again, and I leaned back in my chair, put up my feet, balancing somewhat poorly, in my standard corporate chair, which is not designed for leisure repose. The boss via instance messaging, and all my other co-workers, few as they are now, that come into the office routinely, are long gone for the day, at last. I have a mug of tea heated to perfection, now at my elbow on my desk. I am content; another year of successful virtualization engineering and implementation is done. VMworld was a blast; to be sure, all things considered it has been a good year. So relaxed am I, proud of the achievements thus far this year, I feel the creep of sleep approach my consciousness… I start to think this is not the place to dream… but this thought is never finished as I slip into unconsciousness…
I sat in my favorite chair, in fact, the only chair in my bed chamber, the last bite of my warmed gruel, still favoring my tongue. The cold of the house barely avoided by the weak flames in the fireplace, I bemoaned the high price of cool. I hear the wind out side, move across the house structure, but I am warm, comfortable in my miserly surroundings. Unexpectedly, I felt a sudden chill, a phantasm like wave of cold. I fear for my life, but no rational evidence to do so is apparent, or so I thought. Faintly and then louder, I heard the clanking and jingling of metal objects linked by almost silent, fiber optic cable, the scratch or scrape of heavy objects across the hard oak floor. The objects, which appeared to be servers of various sizes and models, all dragged by a ghostly image of the contractor technical support person we, lost to the severe cold of the server vault all those years ago. As this person, of whom I fail to recall their given name, perished while struggling to rack hundreds of servers in just a couple of days. A cruel end for a poor soul that was just doing as instructed. Never mind the task was impossible for any mere mortal to do alone.
This poor unfortunate soul, this poltergeist condemned to travel the spiritual waste lands of the nether world in server support hell, approached me as though solid walls had no substance, having come through my bedroom door as if it was nothing more than smoke or mist. Again the noise of the looped together servers and other miscellaneous fiber fabric infrastructure, I now recognize, assaults my ears. I am speechless, the enjoyed gruel after taste in my mouth, now soured on my tongue. As the apparition spoke with haunting, hollow tones, words drawn out like they were painful to speak, and slurred in duress, as though each syllable was an extreme effort of will to be formed.
It, the thing unreal shadow, said “You will be visited by three wraiths of the virtual realm. They will come after the midnight hour but before dawn, each in its own time. Beware, beware, these wraiths will part the veil of reality. Be warned, be warned, that you heed their words of wisdom and advice, so you have been warned, so you should be aware. Fore ignoring their respective councils is doom assured, and thus doom earned.”
I squealed in fright, I jumped from my comfortable, if suspected quality of chair, and made flight to my bed, drawing the curtains of the bed frame around me, hiding my sight from the specter that voiced such dire prophetic whispers. No, I thought, no, this can not be real, it is not real, I am a man, a man of significant years. I can not and will not be boxed into a corner like timid child. I thought to myself, be gone, be gone you unholy spirit, I have no need of your contempt or compassion. But I stayed my tongue, voicing no sound, for I was, I admit, afraid. And as I thought these thoughts to my self, I heard again the noises I heard before, the rattle, clanking, and merciless scratching, of the technical resource ghost that was once human make its exit as it had its entrance. I thought anew, had this same technical position been not out-sourced under the circumstances then done, this poor entity might yet live still?
Some time passed, and I don’t recall the old clock on the fireplace mantel chiming at all, but when the chime toned thrice, I realized it was now three(3) in the morning or there about? For the old clock was wont to keep imperfect time. As poor in resources I felt I was, I had no desire to acquire a more accurate time piece. After all, approximate time, is good enough, only a fool desires the real time, all the time. A penny saved, is a penny earned, no? But my self congratulation for being frugal was interrupted, and I do not reference such as a computer processor would be. For a physical presence was near me, just out side the curtains of my bed I believed, nay, I felt there. In trembling movements I opened the curtains and there before me, was a wraith, as promised before. I yelled in spite of myself, and hid my direct view with a nearby pillow, saying “Go away oh wraith, leave me in peace. I deserve not this visitation.”
The wraith, in response did nothing more than motion with an appendage that appeared to be a very old and weathered hand, that I should come forth. No word or sound was made, nothing but an android or robotic like stiff jester with the hand. I could not resist the beckoning, though I hated being intrigued by this event. As I left the false security of my bed, I donned my robe and slippers, leaving my night hat a top my head, I also attired myself in my shabby old robe that was at hand at the end of the bed, where I had left it before sleep. Once I seemed prepared, the wraith placed that same aged hand against my forehead, and I lost all since of time and space, as I closed my eyes, for this was an uncomfortable happening. Movement of some type I knew was done, but the means of transportation and location selection were beyond my observation or ability to describe. It felt like I was falling, losing balance, but I never seemed to fall. After some brief time of this sensation, I sensed it was time to open my eyes. I did so. But what I say was both irrational and yet believable. Something I could some how identify as true.
Before me aligned in straight rows, some 100s, no 1000s of server racks, in long rows, stretched across a room longer and wider than I could determine with unassisted vision. Every make and model of server were represented, all manner of distributed server by vendors I recognized were in this unworldly presentation. I walked up to the nearest row of these racks, looking at the enclosed devices, and touched the keyboard nearest me. The corresponding flat-panel, be it small, and quite old in appearance did flicker into refractive light, the backlighting of screen still functional, a miracle given its apparent age. Before me was the simple console of a VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) ESX or it appeared to be such? It was hard to tell the specific version, since no reference to the version of ESX was obvious on the screen, this struck me odd, that I could see it was a VMware VI host before me, executing, but I could not focus on the specific version. All I gathered from the screen that this was old infrastructure; this entire location was in fact very old, the distant past, in a word, obsolete? The wraith, still not saying a single word, nor making any sound, motioned to all the racks in a wide sweeping movement, that imparted to my understanding that the entire room, as such, was all the same, VMware VI hosts in all its forms and variances was shown before me.
As I worked the keys on the keyboard before me, I realized in horror, that even though the host I connected to at random, was functional, no virtual instances were in existence. This realization allowed a cold chill to walk down my spine. “Was in fact, this entire expanse empty of all virtual reality? Were there not virtual instances in existence here?” I did not realize I had thought this idea aloud, but I had. Again, I asked, “Were there not virtual instances in existence here?” The wraith moved not the slightest, nor gave any indication that my question was acknowledged or understood. Still, I asked, pointing to the rack both to the left and right of where I stood saying, “Pray, tell me wraith, is this the future? Is VMware not but doomed to be abandoned?” Again, as before, the wraith gave no response. I yelled in frustration, “Wraith before me, speak!” Still this elicited no response.
After a few moments more, the wraith raised that same aged hand, a move I was now familiar with, and motioned for me to follow, I did this, taking one step then another with honest dread as to what I would see next. I was led to a cubical via that same falling sensation of transportation. This cube was long layered in dust and neglect, for it appeared, had not been used for some significant length of time. The trash bins were over flowing with papers and empty cans of Jolt cola. The desk was covered in corporate snail mail and other correspondence from various vendors, unsolicited marketing information to be sure, it all. An empty coffee cup placed at the edge of the desk, which read simple script, “We have done so much, for so long, we can now do anything with nothing, and management could still, care less!” It was clear this was a dead-end cube, which some unfortunate life form once used but was now long forgotten, long abandoned to a fate unknown. The wraith pointed to the name plate on the cube wall just at the entrance to same. Reading the name there, I fell to my knees, the strength of my legs abandoning me. Disregarding the pain of this maneuver, crying in a weak voice I said, “No, no. Please spirit, no.” I was in shock, and despaired at what I had just read. Saying with difficulty around my tears, “Spirit tell me this is not true, that this is only what could be?” But as before, the phantasm before me said nothing, making no jester or response in any way as recognition of my query. I felt confused, I felt lost.
The next instant or so it seemed to me, I awoke. I was sitting in my chair, in my cube. I found it odd that I recalled nothing about two (2) of the three (3) wraiths in my dream. Was I visited by all three or just one? No sooner did I think this thought, than a cold chill walked up my spine, where before it walked only down. The same chill? It changed directions? But that was in a dream, I told myself. Nothing but a dream, I told my self again. With practiced ease, I pulled my legs down to their proper business position, if only the boss knew how often I have my feet above knees with my keyboard placed across my hips as I sit in a relaxed pose, while at work. But the boss is 1000s of miles away, never yet to visit my physical location. So be it. With little thought to other needs of work, I started to disconnect my laptop, planning to stuff same into my portable bag. Thinking I never know when I might need to access the company network over the holidays. When my eye just catches one specific iconic flash in the bottom right corner… an icon that warns that I have new mail, yet unread. I freeze, I think, then say to no one but myself, “Ah, dang it, ignore it, it is Christmas day!” But truth be told, my personified view of life is closer to that of a cat, than of some other animal, whereas my cursorily often gets the better of me.
I click the icon, thinking, with luck it is something of no consequence, something that will be banished to the delete folder or little better. However, it is addressed to all my peers, my manager and other managers in the department, as well as me. It is from the boss of my boss, a communiqué from the top of my world, which makes me nervous. For as everyone knows this type of note, this time of year, is never good news, or never has been in the past. Regardless of my fears, and because I clicked the icon, the note opens to a larger window, which displays the message…
“Everyone, sorry for the late notice, but I wanted to get this to you all before the end of year. It has been decided, that starting the first of next month, we will begin the process of implementing Xen, and Hyper-V as our core virtualization platform, variable class of service, for virtual instances that leverage the Windows operating system. Furthermore, all Solaris virtual instances now run on VMware VI will be retired, and functionality migrated to Solaris LDOMs. All Linux virtual instances on VMware VI will be migrated or otherwise recreated as RHEL KVM based instances, in parallel, to the Solaris move.” As I read this, my knees start to shake; my hands take on a noticeable tremor. What? Has VMware VI not served us well? I read on, having trouble focusing on the meaning behind the words, “I am sure everyone saw this coming, so this should not be a surprise to anyone. Please understand the timeline for this is very aggressive, we need to get this done sooner than later. Right after the holidays, we will have a few meetings to work out the tactical objectives now that the strategic direction has been established. Remember, we have to get more done this coming year than ever before, faster than ever before, or else. Oh, I want to also say, of course, to everyone, Happy Holidays!” Is it a dream, did the wraith have it right? What is real? What is virtual? I am again scared…
Abruptly, I scream in pain, this hurts. No this really hurts… I am now, really, awake! I realize I have fallen out of my chair, spilling my almost empty cup of tea on myself in the process. What a horrible dream? Yes, a dream about a dream? As I set to rights my chair, and clean up the last of the spilt tea, I think to myself… Never fall a sleep at work after a big office holiday party… It is then, and only then, I notice that infernal inhuman soulless iconic flashing at bottom right side of the flat panel monitor on my desk. The unread electronic mail indicator is demanding immediate attention.
December 24th, 2008
Virtualization Critical Comparison – Chapter 03
Well, boys and girls, of which there should be more girls in the information technology industry right? Christmas is upon us, and the New Year will be here faster than you can say Jack Frost. Thanksgiving is gone, Halloween is long gone, so where are we? We are in that dead space between the old and new, when all planning is up in the air, resource planning, time planning, project planning are all but done, but could change over night this time of year, here to day, gone tomorrow, is a real situation this time of year. Wonderful, but what have we done to change the world, in the information technology industry as a whole? What will we do in 2009 that will shake the foundation of a strategic planning? No, I am not consulting with the ghosts of Christmas past or Christmas present they do not understand binary computing, or even virtualization.
Sure, virtualization has changed server side computing, sure virtualization is changing desktop computing, heck, virtualization is changing cell phone computing, yes, virtual machines on cell phones, of course. But in the rush to improve computing utilization, have we missed something? We have, and we have missed it in a big, big way. Clouding or utility computing, depending on how your organization defines it, is wonderful, the SETI project proved that distributed computing, or floating processing is viable, and functional, so of course the idea of floating resources between datacenters is an easy goal to promote, no? And virtualization makes it, at least from a tactical perspective, possible, and from a strategic perspective, logical. But what did we miss? Still guessing?
No it is not application instancing per se, although I have long said that application instancing is going to be a big deal, a least a few times in this blog as well as elsewhere. No, the next big deal is operating system reduction. Gartner do you have your ears open? What? What the heck are you smoking? I am sure some are saying…You stuff a bunch of mistletoe in a pipe and smoke it? Virtualization does not reduce operating system instances, but application instancing should or does if done right. But that is not what I am saying, I am saying, operating system reduction according to type. Yes, type. How many organizations are struggling with multiple operating systems while trying to craft a cloud or utility infrastructure? Why do multiple operating systems exist? Well that is a complex question and a straight forward question? The answers are complex and straightforward as well.
Let us take the simple question first, why do multiple operating systems exist? In simple prose, if you wanted a specific feature or variant of performance, you needed the right operating system. Well, those days are gone, at least in distributing computing, there is no reason for any organization to have more than two operating systems, if that, one for servers and one for desktops, done deal. Why? Simple, it is not worth the resources and expense to maintain a multiple operating system scope and scale engineering and operational support models for each operating system. You can do everything on every operating system within common reason today, the performance differences are disappearing for must applications. Virtualization has encouraged this, by further abstraction of the hardware. After reducing the total number of servers, and reducing the total number of operating systems, increasing the utilization curve, what is a big cost issue? Personnel, yes, even in these hard economic times…I heard the word depression echoing in the vast, empty, cube spaces of corporate America, no? It does not make sense to have a UNIX team, a Linux team, and a Windows team, now does it? Never mind that many large enterprise firms have several different variants of UNIX or Linux and even Windows running of very long periods of time? Why does it take so long to certify solutions? Why do cross operating system solutions fail to work well? You avoid these issues, when you eliminate operating system types. Imagine if you had one and only one engineering team focused the one operating system? That would save personnel expense, because yes fewer persons, but more important, less time to get to solutions to your clients, since only one platform is focused on, be it Solaris, Red Hat, or Windows 2008, to be specific via example.
Let us now tackle the complex question, how many organizations are struggling with cloud or utility computing when multiple operating systems are available or viable in the enterprise of the organization? Cross operating system solutions never do well consistently across all operating systems, in fact, they often lose focus and support all operating systems according to lowest common denominator. Why? Oh, it would be easy to say political turf, right? And that is actually true to some degree. There is absolutely no synergistic effect when you are trying to be all things to all platforms. At some point someone at the top has to make a hard decision and stick to it. This is both true for the developer of a solution and the users of said solution. But the greater cause is avoidance of pain, it is much easier to do what has always been done, because UNIX or Linux or Windows has always been there, it is easier not to force change.
Even virtualization is nothing new, just a slight improvement on the original problem, supportability and utilization. Virtualization has improved utilization, but made supportability worse, or should I say more complex? Absolutely everything in the information technology scope is complex, more complex than it needs to be. Why? Because marketing loves new features, and suckers, I mean upper management types find it every easy to fall in love with a specific concept or feature that makes a quick bonus, then standing up for a long term, far more superior objective, which should be more profitable years down the road, but then again, no high end of year bonus? Tell me I am not right? Has the number of vendors demanding to present new toys to your engineering group increased or decreased over the last year? I for one, have never seen so much junk, yes, junk, solutions flood into by electronic mail, snail mail, or even the door to my office, because there is a hard blitz on to chase the latest new toy. When did early adoption become strategic planning? And of course absolutely every new toy must be implemented in less than 12 months, or else.
We need to de-complex the computing infrastructure in order to create a new cloud or utility computing model that will give us long term, or more than 5 years is what I call long term, and significant strategic benefit. The first step to that goal, is don’t implement every operating system in the cloud. And if not implemented in the cloud, let those orphaned operating systems decline, and disappear. Until this is done, cloud or utility computing will have a flawed foundation, a weak point, that will drive up cost and complexity, which is not acceptable. Cloud or utility computing must be easier than ever before, must be leaner than ever before, it can not survive the silo effect of conflicting operating system goals, objectives and needs. Cloud or utility computing should be monolithic or it will just fail to live up to even modest expectations. So, until the number of operating systems up for consideration in your cloud or utility model is reduced, I say, bah humbug. Oh, and the ghost of Christmas future, it, agrees with me…Ha! So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
Personal note…To all that read this blog, including those that have agreed, disagreed, and stated such in comment or reply to this blog; I wish you all happy holidays for 2008 and best wishes for 2009. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog, and will continue to enjoy it next year.
December 17th, 2008
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