Tag: citrix

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IBM buys Softlayer, for software defined infrastructures and clouds?

Storage I/O trends

IBM today announced that they are acquiring privately held Dallas Texas-based Softlayer and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider.

IBM is referring to this as Cloud without Compromise (read more about clouds, conversations and confidence here).

It’s about the management, flexibly, scale up, out and down, agility and valueware.

Is this IBM’s new software defined data center (SDDC) or software defined infrastructure (SDI) or software defined management (SDM), software defined cloud (SDC) or software defined storage (SDS) play?

This is more than a software defined marketing or software defined buzzword announcement.
buzzword bingo

If your view of software define ties into the theme of leveraging, unleashing resources, enablement, flexibility, agility of hardware, software or services, then you may see Softlayer as part of a software defined infrastructure.

On the other hand, if your views or opinions of what is or is not software defined align with a specific vendor, product, protocol, model or punditry then you may not agree, particular if it is in opposition to anything IBM.

Cloud building blocks

During today’s announcement briefing call with analysts there was a noticeable absence of software defined buzz talk which given its hype and usage lately, was a refreshing welcome relief. So with that, lets set the software defined conversation aside (for now).

Cloud image

Who is Softlayer, why is IBM interested in them?

Softlayer provide software and services to support both SMB, SME and other environments with bare metal (think traditional hosted servers), along with multi-tenant (shared) cloud virtual public and private cloud service offerings.

Softlayer supports various applications, environments from little data processing to big data analytics to little data processing, from social to mobile to legacy. This includes those app’s or environments that were born in the cloud, or legacy environments looking to leverage cloud in a complimentary way.

Some more information about Softlayer includes:

  • Privately held IaaS firm founded in 2005
  • Estimated revenue run rate of around $400 million with 21,000 customers
  • Mix of SMB, SME and Web-based or born in the cloud customers
  • Over 100,000 devices under management
  • Provides a common modularized management framework set of tools
  • Mix of customers from Web startups to global enterprise
  • Presence in 13 data centers across the US, Asia and Europe
  • Automation, interoperability, large number of API access and supported
  • Flexibility, control and agility for physical (bare metal) and cloud or virtual
  • Public, private and data center to data center
  • Designed for scale, durability and resiliency without complexity
  • Part of OpenStack ecosystem both leveraging and supporting it
  • Ability for customers to use OpenStack, Cloudstack, Citrix, VMware, Microsoft and others
  • Can be white or private labeled for use as a service by VARs

Storage I/O trends

What IBM is planning for Softlayer

Softlayer will report into IBM Global Technology Services (GTS) complimenting existing capabilities which includes ten cloud computing centers on five continents. IBM has created a new Cloud Services Division and expects cloud revenues could be $7 billion annually by the end of 2015. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is estimated to hit about $3.8 Billion by end of 2013. Note that in 2012 AWS target available market was estimated to be about $11 Billion which should become larger moving forward. Rackspace by comparison had recent earning announcements on May 8 2013 of $362 Million with most that being hosting vs. cloud services. That works out to an annualized estimated run rate of $1.448 Billion (or better depending on growth).

I mention AWS and Rackspace to illustrate the growth potential for IBM and Softlayer to discuss the needs of both cloud services customers such as those who use AWS (among other providers), as well as bare metal or hosting or dedicated servers such as with Rackspace among others.

Storage I/O trends

What is not clear at this time is if IBM is combing traditional hosting, managed services, new offerings, products and services in that $7 billion number. In other words if the $7 billion represents what the revenues of the new Cloud Services Division independent of other GTS or legacy offerings as well as excluding hardware, software products from STG (Systems Technology Group) among others, that would be impressive and a challenge to the likes of AWS.

IBM has indicated that it will leverage its existing Systems Technology Group (STG) portfolio of servers and storage extending the capabilities of Softlayer. While currently x86 based, one could expect IBM to leverage and add support for their Power systems line of processors and servers, Puresystems, as well as storage such as XIV or V7000 among others for tier 1 needs.

Some more notes:

  • Ties into IBM Smart Cloud initiatives, model and paradigm
  • This deal is expected to close 3Q 2013, terms or price were not disclosed.
  • Will enable Softlayer to be leveraged on a larger, broader basis by IBM
  • Gives IBM increased access to SMB, SME and web customers than in the past
  • Software and development to stay part of Softlayer
  • Provides IBM an extra jumpstart play for supporting and leveraging OpenStack
  • Compatible and supports Cloustack and Citrix who are also IBM partners
  • Also compatible and supports VMware who is also an IBM partner

Storage I/O trends

Some other thoughts and perspectives

This is a good and big move for IBM to add value and leverage their current portfolios of both services, as well as products and technologies. However it is more than just adding value or finding new routes to markets for those goods and services, it’s also about enablement IBM has long been in the services including managed services, out or in sourcing and hosting business. This can be seen as another incremental evolution of those offerings to both existing IBM enterprise customers, as well to reach new, emerging along with SMB or SME’s that tend to grow up and become larger consumers of information and data infrastructure services.

Further this helps to add some product and meaning around the IBM Smart Cloud initiatives and programs (not that there was not before) giving customers, partners and resellers something tangible to see, feel, look at, touch and gain experience not to mention confidence with clouds.

On the other hand, is IBM signaling that they want more of the growing business that AWS has been realizing, not to mention Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Centurylink/Savvis, Verizon/Terremark, CSC, HP Cloud, Cloudsigma, Bluehost among many others (if I missed you or your favorite provider, feel free to add it to the comments section). This also gets IBM added Devops exposure something that Softlayer practices, as well as a Openstack play, not to mention cloud, software defined, virtual, big data, little data, analytics and many other buzzword bingo terms.

Congratulations to both IBM and the Softlayer folks, now lets see some execution to watch how this unfolds.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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Measuring Windows performance impact for VDI planning

Here is a link to a recent guest post that I was invited to do over at The Virtualization Practice (TVP) pertaining to measuring the impact of Windows Boot performance and what that means for planning for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) initiatives.

With Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) initiatives adoption being a popular theme associated with cloud and dynamic infrastructure environments a related discussion point is the impact on networks, servers and storage during boot or startup activity to avoid bottlenecks. VDI solution vendors include Citrix, Microsoft and VMware along with various server, storage, networking and management tools vendors.

A common storage and network related topic involving VDI are boot storms when many workstations or desktops all startup at the same time. However any discussion around VDI and its impact on networks, servers and storage should also be expanded from read centric boots to write intensive shutdown or maintenance activity as well.

Having an understanding of what your performance requirements are is important to adequately design a configuration that will meet your Quality of Service (QoS) and service level objectives (SLOs) for VDI deployment in addition to knowing what to look for in candidate server, storage and networking technologies. For example, knowing how your different desktop applications and workloads perform on a normal basis provides a baseline to compare with during busy periods or times of trouble. Another benefit is that when shopping for example storage systems and reviewing various benchmarks, knowing what your actual performance and application characteristics are helps to align the applicable technology to your QoS and SLO needs while avoiding apples to oranges benchmark comparisons.

Check out the entire piece including some test results using the hIOmon tool from hyperIO to gather actual workstation performance numbers.

Keep in mind that the best benchmark is your actual applications running as close to possible to their typical workload and usage scenarios.

Also keep in mind that fast workstations need fast networks, fast servers and fast storage.

Ok, nuff said for now.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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StorageIO Momentus Hybrid Hard Disk Drive (HHDD) Moments

This is the third in a series of posts that I have done about Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDDs) along with pieces about Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Devices (SSDs). Granted the HDD received its AARP card several years ago when it turned 50 and is routinely declared dead (or read here) even though it continues to evolve along SSD maturing and both expanding into different markets as well as usage roles.

For those who have not read previous posts about Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDDs) and the Seagate Momentus XT you can find them here and here.

Since my last post, I have been using the HHDDs extensively and recently installed the latest firmware. The release of new HHDD firmware by Seagate for the Momentus XT (SD 25) like its predecessor SD24 cleaned up some annoyances and improved on overall stability. Here is a Seagate post by Mark Wojtasiak discussing SD25 and feedback obtained via the Momentus XT forum from customers.

If you have never done a HDD firmware update, its not as bad or intimidating as might be expected. The Seagate firmware update tools make it very easy, that is assuming you have a recent good backup of your data (one that can be restored) and about 10 to 15 minutes of time for a couple of reboots.

Speaking of stability, the Momentus XT HHDDs have been performing well helping to speed up accessing large documents on various projects including those for my new book. Granted an SSD would be faster across the board, however the large capacity at the price point of the HHDD is what makes it a hybrid value proposition. As I have said in previous posts, if you have the need for speed all of the time and time is money, get an SSD. Likewise if you need as much capacity as you can get and performance is not your primary objective, then leverage the high capacity HDDs. On the other hand, if you need a balance of some performance boost with capacity boost and a good value, then check out the HHDDs.

Image of Momentus XT courtesy of www.Seagate.com

Lets shift gears from that of the product or technology to that of common questions that I get asked about HHDDs.

Common questions I get asked about HHDDs include:

What is a Hybrid Hard Disk Drive?

A Hybrid Hard Disk Drive includes a combination of rotating HDD, solid state flash persistent memory along with volatile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) in an integrated package or product. The value proposition and benefit is a balance of performance and capacity at a good price for those environments, systems or applications that do not need all SSD performance (and cost) vs. those that need some performance in addition to large capacity.

How the Seagate Momentus XT differs from other Hybrid Disks?
One approach is to take a traditional HDD and pair it with a SSD using a controller packaged in various ways. For example on a large scale, HDDs and SSDs coexist in the same tiered storage system being managed by the controllers, storage processors or nodes in the solution including automated tiering and cache promotion or demotion. The main difference however between other storage systems, tiering and pairing and HHDDs is that in the case of the Momentus XT the HDD, SLC flash (SSD functionality) and RAM cache and their management are all integrated within the disk drive enclosure.

Do I use SSDs and HDDs or just HHDDs?
I have HHDDs installed internally in my laptops. I also have HDDs which are installed in servers, NAS and disk to disk (D2D) backup devices and Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) along with external SSD and Removable Hard Disk Drives (RHDDs). The RHDDs are used for archive and master or gold copy data protection that go offsite complimenting how I also use cloud backup services as part of my data protection strategy.

What are the technical specifications of a HHDD such as the Seagate Momentus XT?
3Gbs SATA interface, 2.5 inch 500GB 7,200 RPM HDD with 32MB RAM cache and integrated 4GByte SLC flash all managed via internal drive processor. Power consumption varies depending what the device is doing such as initial power up, idle, normal or other operating modes. You can view the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (ST95005620AS which is what I have) specifications here as well as the product manual here.


One of my HHDDs on a note pad (paper) and other accessories

Do you need a special controller or management software?
Generally speaking no, the HHDD that I have been using plugged and played into my existing laptops internal bay replacing the HDD that came with those systems. No extra software was needed for Windows, no data movement or migration tools needed other than when initially copying from the source HDD to the new HHDD. The HHDD do their own caching, read ahead and write behind independent of the operating system or controller. Now the reason I say generally speaking is that like many devices, some operating systems or controllers may be able to leverage advanced features so check your particular system capabilities.

How come the storage system vendors are not talking about these HHDDs?
Good question which I assume it has a lot to do with the investment (people, time, engineering, money and marketing) that they have or are making in controller and storage system software functionality to effectively create hybrid tiered storage systems using SSD and HDDs on different scales. There have been some packaged HHDD systems or solutions brought to market by different vendors that combine HDD and SSD into a single physical package glued together with some software and controllers or processors to appear as a single system. I would not be surprised to see discrete HHDDs (where the HDD and flash SSD and RAM are all one integrated product) appear in lower end NAS or multifunction storage systems as well as for backup, dedupe or other system that requires large amounts of capacity space and performance boost now and then.

Why do I think this? Simple, say you have five HHDDs each with 500GB of capacity configured as a RAID5 set resulting in 2TByte of capacity. Using as a hypothetical example the Momentus XT yields 5 x 4GByte or 20GByte of flash cache helps accelerate write operations during data dumps, backup or other updates. Granted that is an overly simplified example and storage systems can be found with hundreds of GByte of cache, however think in terms of value or low cost balancing performance and capacity to cost for different usage scenarios. For example, applications such as bulk or scale out file and object storage including cloud or big data, entertainment, Server (Citrix/Xen, Microsoft/HyperV, VMware/vSphere) and Desktop virtualization or VDI, Disk to Disk (D2D) backup, business analytics among others. The common tenets of those applications and usage scenario is a combination of I/O and storage consolidation in a cost effective manner addressing the continuing storage capacity to I/O performance gap.

Data Center and I/O Bottlenecks

Storage and I/O performance gap

Do you have to backup HHDDs?
Yes, just as you would want to backup or protect any SSD or HHD device or system.

How does data get moved between the SSD and the HDD?
Other than the initial data migration from the old HDD (or SSD) to the HHDD, unless you are starting with a new system, once your data and applications exist on the HHDD, it automatically via the internal process of the device manages the RAM, flash and HDD activity. Unlike in a tiered storage system where data blocks or files may be moved between different types of storage devices, inside the HHDD, all data gets written to the HDD, however the flash and RAM are used as buffers for caching depending on activity needs. If you have sat through or listened to a NetApp or HDS use of cache for tiering discussion what the HHDDs do is similar in concept however on a smaller scale at the device level, potentially even in a complimentary mode in the future? Other functions performed inside the HHDD by its processor includes reading and writing, managing the caches, bad block replacement or re vectoring on the HDD, wear leveling of the SLC flash and other routine tasks such as integrity checks and diagnostics. Unlike paired storage solutions where data gets moved between tiers or types of devices, once data is stored in the HHDD, it is managed by the device similar to how a SSD or HDD would move blocks of data to and from the specific media along with leveraging RAM cache as a buffer.

Where is the controller that manages the SSD and HDD?
The HHDD itself is the controller per say in that the internal processor that manages the HDD also directly access the RAM and flash.

What type of flash is used and will it wear out?
The XT uses SLC (single level cell) flash which with wear leveling has a good duty cycle (life span) and is what is typically found in higher end flash SSD solutions vs. lower cost MLC (multi level cell)

Have I lost any data from it yet?
No, at least nothing that was not my own fault from saving the wrong file in the wrong place and having to recover from one of my recent D2D copies or the cloud. Oh, regarding what have I done with the HDDs that were replaced by the HHDDs? They are now an extra gold master backup copy as of a particular point in time and are being kept in a safe secure facility, encrypted of course.

Have you noticed a performance improvement?
Yes, performance will vary however in many cases I have seen performance comparable to SSD on both reads and writes as long as the HDDs keep up with the flash and RAM cache. Even as larger amounts of data are written, I have seen better performance than compared to HDDs. The caveat however is that initially you may see little to marginal performance improvement however over time, particularly on the same files, performance tends to improve. Working on large tens to hundreds of MByte size documents I noticed good performance when doing saves compared to working with them on a HDD.

What do the HHDDs cost?
Amazon.com has the 500GB model for about $100 which is about $40 to $50 less than when I bought my most recent one last fall. I have heard from other people that you can find them at even lower prices at other venues. In the theme of disclosures, I bought one of my HHDDs from Amazon and Seagate gave me one to test.

Will I buy more HHDDs or switch to SSDs?
Where applicable I will add SSDs as well as HDDs, however where possible and practical, I will also add HHDDs perhaps even replacing the HDDs in my NAS system with HHDDs at some time or maybe trying them in a DVR.

What is the down side to the HHDDs?
Im generating and saving more data on the devices at a faster rate which means that when I installed them I was wondering if I would ever fill up a 500GB drive. I still have hundreds of GBytes free or available for use, however I also am able to cary more reference data or information than in the past. In addition to more reference data including videos, audio, images, slide decks and other content, I have also been able to keep more versions or copies of documents which has been handy on the book project. Data that changes gets backed up D2D as well as to my cloud provider including while traveling. Leveraging compression and dedupe, given that many chapters or other content are similar, not as much data actually gets transmitted when doing cloud backups which has been handy when doing a backup from a airplane flying over the clouds. A wish for the XT type of HHDD that I have is for vendors such as Seagate to add Self Encrypting Disk (SED) capabilities to them along with applying continued intelligent power management (IPM) enhancements.

Why do I like the HHDD?
Simple, it solves both business and technology challenges while being an enabler, it gives me a balance of performance for productivity and capacity in a cost effective manner while being transparent to the systems it works with.

Here are some related links to additional material:
Data Center I/O Bottlenecks Performance Issues and Impacts
Has SSD put Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) On Endangered Species List?
Seagate Momentus XT SD 25 firmware
Seagate Momentus XT SD25 firmware update coming this week
A Storage I/O Momentus Moment
Another StorageIO Hybrid Momentus Moment
As the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) continues to spin
Has SSD put Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) On Endangered Species List?
Funeral for a Friend
As the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) continues to spin
Seagate Momentus XT product specifications
Seagate Momentus XT product manual
Technology Tiering, Servers Storage and Snow Removal
Self Encrypting Disks (SEDs)

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and coming summer 2011 Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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Industry Trends and Perspectives: Tiered Hypervisors and Microsoft Hyper-V

Storage I/O trends
This is part of an ongoing series of short industry trends and perspectives blog posts briefs.

These short posts complement other longer posts along with traditional industry trends and perspective white papers, research reports, solution brief content found at www.storageio.com/reports.

Multiple – Tiered Hypervisors for Server Virtualization

The topic of this post is a trend that I am seeing and hearing about during discussions with IT professionals of the use of two or more server virtualization hypervisors or what is known as tiered Hypervisors.

Server Virtualization Hypervisor Trends

A trends tied to server virtualization that I am seeing more of are that IT organizations are increasingly deploying or using two or more different hypervisors (e.g. Citrix/Xen, Microsoft/Hyper-V, VMware vSphere) in their environment (on separate physical server or blades).

Tiered hypervisors is a concept similar to what many IT organizations already have in terms of different types of servers for various use cases, multiple operating systems as well as several kinds of storage mediums or devices.

What Im seeing is that IT pros are using different hypervisors to meet various cost, management and vendor control goals aligning the applicable technology to the business or application service category.

Tiered Virtualization Hypervisor Management

Of course this brings up the discussion of how to manage multiple hypervisors and thus the real battle is or will be not about hypervisors, rather that of End to End (E2E) management.

A question that I often ask VARs and IT customers if they see Microsoft on the offensive or defensive with Hyper-V vs. VMware and vice versa, that is if VMware is on the defense or offense against Microsoft.

Not surprisingly the VMware and Microsoft faithful will say that the other is clearly on the defensive.

Meanwhile from other people, the feelings are rather mixed with many feeling that Microsoft is increasingly on the offensive with VMware being seen by some as playing a strong defense with a ferocious offense.

Learn more

Related and companion material:
Video: Beyond Virtualization Basics (Free: May require registration)
Blog: Server and Storage Virtualization: Life beyond Consolidation
Blog: Should Everything Be Virtualized?

That is all for now, hope you find this ongoing series of current and emerging Industry Trends and Perspectives interesting.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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What is the Future of Servers?

Recently I provided some comments and perspectives on the future of servers in an article over at Processor.com.

In general, blade servers will become more ubiquitous, that is they wont go away, rather become more common place with even higher density processors with more cores and performance along with faster I/O and larger memory capacity per given footprint.

While the term blade server may fade giving way to some new term or phrase, rest assured their capabilities and functionality will not disappear, rather be further enhanced to support virtualization with VMware vsphere, Microsoft HyperV, Citrix/Zen along with public and private clouds, both for consolidation and in the next wave of virtualization called life beyond consolidation.

The other trend is that not only will servers be able to support more processing and memory per footprint; they will also do that drawing less energy requiring lower cooling demands, hence more Ghz per watt along with energy savings modes when less work needs to be performed.

Another trend is around convergence both in terms of packaging along with technology improvements from a server, I/O networking and storage perspective. For example, enhancements to shared PCIe with I/O virtualization, hypervisor optimization, and integration such as the recently announced EMC, Cisco, Intel and VMware VCE coalition and vblocks.

Read more including my comments in the article here.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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Should Everything Be Virtualized?

Storage I/O trends

Should everything, that is all servers, storage and I/O along with facilities, be virtualized?

The answer not surprisingly should be it depends!

Denny Cherry (aka Mrdenny) over at ITKE did a great recent post about applications not being virtualized, particularly databases. In general some of the points or themes we are on the same or similar page, while on others we slightly differ, not by very much.

Unfortunately consolidation is commonly misunderstood to be the sole function or value proposition of server virtualization given its first wave focus. I agree that not all applications or servers should be consolidated (note that I did not say virtualized).

From a consolidation standpoint, the emphasis is often on boosting resource use to cut physical hardware and management costs by boosting the number of virtual machines (VMs) per physical machine (PMs). Ironically, while VMs using VMware, Microsoft HyperV, Citrix/Xen among others can leverage a common gold image for cloning or rapid provisioning, there are still separate operating system instances and applications that need to be managed for each VM.

Sure, VM tools from the hypervisor along with 3rd party vendors help with these tasks as well as storage vendor tools including dedupe and thin provisioning help to cut the data footprint impact of these multiple images. However, there are still multiple images to manage providing a future opportunity for further cost and management reduction (more on that in a different post).

Getting back on track:

Some reasons that all servers or applications cannot be consolidated include among others:

  • Performance, response time, latency and Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Security requirements including keeping customers or applications separate
  • Vendor support of software on virtual or consolidated servers
  • Financial where different departments own hardware or software
  • Internal political or organizational barriers and turf wars

On the other hand, for those that see virtualization as enabling agility and flexibility, that is life beyond consolidation, there are many deployment opportunities for virtualization (note that I did not say consolidation). For some environments and applications, the emphasis can be on performance, quality of service (QoS) and other service characteristics where the ratio of VMs to PMs will be much lower, if not one to one. This is where Mrdenny and me are essentially on the same page, perhaps saying it different with plenty of caveats and clarification needed of course.

My view is that in life beyond consolidation, many more servers or applications can be virtualized than might be otherwise hosted by VMs (note that I did not say consolidated). For example, instead of a high number or ratio of VMs to PMs, a lower number and for some workloads or applications, even one VM to PM can be leveraged with a focus beyond basic CPU use.

Yes you read that correctly, I said why not configure some VMs on a one to one PM basis!

Here’s the premise, todays current wave or focus is around maximizing the number of VMs and/or the reduction of physical machines to cut capital and operating costs for under-utilized applications and servers, thus the move to stuff as many VMs into/onto a PM as possible.

However, for those applications that cannot be consolidated as outlined above, there is still a benefit of having a VM dedicated to a PM. For example, by dedicating a PM (blade, server or perhaps core) allows performance and QoS aims to be meet while still providing the ability for operational and infrastructure resource management (IRM), DCIM or ITSM flexibility and agility.

Meanwhile during busy periods, the application such as a database server could have its own PM, yet during off-hours, some over VM could be moved onto that PM for backup or other IRM/DCIM/ITSM activities. Likewise, by having the VM under the database with a dedicated PM, the application could be moved proactively for maintenance or in a clustered HA scenario support BC/DR.

What can and should be done?
First and foremost, decide how VMs is the right number to divide per PM for your environment and different applications to meet your particular requirements and business needs.

Identify various VM to PM ratios to align with different application service requirements. For example, some applications may run on virtual environments with a higher number of VMs to PMs, others with a lower number of VMs to PMs and some with a one VM to PM allocation.

Certainly there will be for different reasons the need to keep some applications on a direct PM without introducing a hypervisors and VM, however many applications and servers can benefit from virtualization (again note, I did not say consolation) for agility, flexibility, BC/DR, HA and ease of IRM assuming the costs work in your favor.

Additional general to do or action items include among others:

  • Look beyond CPU use also factoring in memory and I/O performance
  • Keep response time or latency in perspective as part of performance
  • More and fast memory are important for VMs as well as for applications including databases
  • High utilization may not show high hit rates or effectiveness of resource usage
  • Fast servers need fast memory, fast I/O and fast storage systems
  • Establish tiers of virtual and physical servers to meet different service requirements
  • See efficiency and optimization as more than simply driving up utilization to cut costs
  • Productivity and improved QoS are also tenants of an efficient and optimized environment

These are themes among others that are covered in chapters 3 (What Defines a Next-Generation and Virtual Data Center?), 4 (IT Infrastructure Resource Management), 5 (Measurement, Metrics, and Management of IT Resources), as well as 7 (Servers—Physical, Virtual, and Software) in my book “The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) that you can learn more about here.

Welcome to life beyond consolidation, the next wave of desktop, server, storage and IO virtualization along with the many new and expanded opportunities!

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved