vsphere Archives

April 12, 2012November 26, 2023

Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue

This is the third in a five-part series around the recent IBM PureSystems announcements. You can view the earlier post here, and the next post here.

So what about the IBM Virtual Appliance Factory?
Where PureFlex and PureApplication (PureSystems) are the platforms or vehicles for enabling your journey to efficient and effective information services delivery, and PureSystem centre (or center for those of you in the US) is the portal or information center, the IBM Virtual Appliance Factory (VAF) is a collection of tools, technologies, processes and methodologies. The VAF helps developers or ISVs to prepackage applications or solutions for deployment into Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) on Intel and IBM PowerVM virtualized environments that are also supported by PureFlex and PureApplication systems.

VAF technologies include Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Open Virtual Alliance (OVA) Open Virtualization Format (OVF) along with other tools for combing operating systems (OS), middleware and solution software into a delivery package or a virtual appliance that can be deployed into cloud and virtualized environments. Benefits include reducing complexity of working logical partions (LPAR) and VM configuration, abstraction and portability for deployment or movement from private to public environments. Net result should be less complexity lowering costs while reducing mean time to install and deploy. Here is a link to learn more about VAF and its capabilities and how to get started.

So what does cloud ready mean?
IBM is touting cloud ready capability in the context of rapid out of the box, ease of deployment and use as well as easy to acquire. This is in line with what others are doing with converged server, storage, networking, hardware, software and hypervisor solutions. IBM is also touting that they are using the same public available products as what they use in their own public services SmartCloud offerings.

So what is scale in vs. scale up, scale out or scale within?
Traditional thinking is that scaling refers to increasing capacity. Scaling also means increasing performance, availability, functionality with stability. Scaling with stability means that as performance, availability, capacity or other features are increased problems are not introduced or complexity is not increased. For example, scaling with stability for performance should not result in loss of availability or capacity, capacity increase should not be at the cost of performance or availability, should not cost performance or capacity and management tools should work for you, instead of you working for them.

Scaling up and scaling out have been used to describe scaling performance, availability, capacity and other attributes beyond the limits of a single system, box or cabinet. For example clustered, cloud, grid and other approaches refer to scaling out or horizontally across different physical resources. Scaling up or scaling vertically means scaling within in a system using faster, denser technologies doing more in the same footprint. HDS announced a while back what they refer to 3D scaling which embraces the above notions of scaling up, out and within across different dimensions. IBM is building on that by emphasizing scaling leveraging faster, denser components such as Power7 and Intel processors to scale within the box or system or node, which can also be scaled out using enhanced networking from IBM and their partners.

So what about backup/restore, BC, DR and general data protection?
I would expect IBM to step up and talk about how they can leverage their data protection and associated management toolsets, technologies and products. IBM has the components (hardware, software) already for backup/restore, BC, DR, data protection and security along with associated service offerings. One would expect IBM to not only come out with a backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving solution or version, as well as ones for archiving or data preservation, compliance appliance variants as well as related themes. We know that IBM has the pieces, people, process and practices, let us see if IBM has learned from their competitors who may have missed data protection messaging opportunities. Sometimes what is assumed to be understood does not get discussed, however often what is assumed and is not understood should be discussed, hence, let us see if IBM does more than say oh yes, we have those capabilities and products too.

So what do these have compared to others who are doing similar things?
Different vendors have taken various approaches for bringing converged products or solutions to the market place. Not surprising, storage centric vendors EMC and NetApp have partnered with Cisco for servers (compute). Where Cisco was known for networking having more recently moved into compute servers, EMC and NetApp are known for storage and moving into converged space with servers. Since EMC and NetApp often compete with storage solutions offerings from traditional server vendors Dell, HP, IBM and Oracle among others, and now Cisco is also competing with those same server vendors it has previously partnered with for networking thus it makes sense for Cisco, EMC and NetApp to partner.

While EMC owns a large share of VMware, they do also support Microsoft and other partners including Citrix. NetApp followed EMC into the converged space partnering with Cisco for compute and networking adding their own storage along with supporting hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware along with third-party ISVs including Microsoft and SAP among others. Dell has evolved from reference architectures to products called vStart that leverage their own technologies along with those of partners.

A challenge for Dell however is that vStart sounds more like a service offering as opposed to a product that they or their VARs and business partners can sell and add value around. HP is also in the converged game as is Oracle among others. With PureSystems IBM is building on what their competitors and in some cases partners are doing by adding and messaging more around the many ISVs and applications that are part of the PureSystems initiative. Rest assured, there is more to PureSystems than simply some new marketing, press releases, videos and talking about partners and ISVs. The following table provides a basic high level comparison of what different vendors are doing or working towards and is not intended to be a comprehensive review.

Who	What	Server	Storage	Network	Software	Other comments
Cisco	UCS	Cisco	Partner	Cisco	Cisco and Partners	Various hypervisors and OS
Dell	vStart	Dell	Dell	Dell and Partners	Dell and partners	Various hypervisors, OS and bundles
EMC VCE	Vblock VSPEX	Cisco	EMC	Cisco and partners	EMC, Cisco and partners	Various hypervisors, OS and bundles, VSPEX adds more partner solution bundles
HP	Converged	HP	HP	HP and partners	HP and partners	Various hypervisors, OS and bundles
IBM	PureFlex	IBM	IBM	IBM and partners	IBM and partners	Various hypervisors, OS and bundles adding more ISV partners
NetApp	FlexPod	Cisco	NetApp	Cisco and partners	NetApp, Cisco and partners	Various hypervisors, OS and bundles for SAP, Microsoft among others
Oracle	ExaLogic (Exadata database)	Oracle	Oracle	Partners	Oracle and partners	Various Oracle software tools and technologies

So what took IBM so long compared to others?
Good question, what is the saying? Rome was not built-in a day!

Click here to view the next post in this series, ok, nuff said for now.

Here are some links to learn more:
Various IBM Redbooks and related content
The blame game: Does cloud storage result in data loss?
What do you need when its time to buy a new server?
2012 industry trends perspectives and commentary (predictions)
Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
The function of XaaS(X) Pick a letter
Hard product vs. soft product
Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
Part I: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
Part II: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
Part IV: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
Part V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

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

April 12, 2012January 18, 2021

Part II: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue

This is the second in a five-part series around the recent IBM PureSystems announcements. You can view the earlier post here, and the next post here.

So what are the speeds and feeds of a PureFlex system?
The components that make up the PureFlex line include:

IBM management node (server with management software tools).
10Gb Ethernet (LAN) switch, adapters and associated cabling.
IBM V7000 virtual storage (also see here and here).
Dual 8GFC (8Gb Fibre Channel) SAN switches and adapters.
Servers with either x86 xSeries using for example Intel Sandy Bridge EP 2.6 GHz 8 core processors, or IBMs Power7 based pSeries for AIX. Note that IBM with their blade center systems (now rebadged as part of being PureSystems) support various IO and networking interfaces include SAS, Ethernet, Fibre Channel (FC), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and InfiniBand using adapters and switches from various partners.
Virtual machine (VM) hypervisors such as Microsoft Hyper V and VMware vSphere/ESX among others. In addition to x86 based hypervisors or kernel virtual machines (KVM), IBM also supports its own virtual technology found in Power7 based systems. Check IBM support matrix for specific configurations and current offerings.
Optional middleware such as IBM WebSphere.

Read more speeds and feeds at the various IBM sites including on Tony Pearson’s blog site.

So what is IBM PureApplication System?
This builds off and on PureFlex systems as a foundation for deploying various software stacks to deliver traditional IT applications or cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software as a Service (SaaS) and Application as a Service (AaaS) models. For example cloud or web stacks, java, database, analytics or other applications with buzzwords of elastic, scalable, repeatable, self-service, rapid provisioning, resilient, multi tenant and secure among others. Note that if are playing or into Buzzword bingo, go ahead and say Bingo when you are ready as IBM has a winner in this category.

So what is the difference between PureFlex and PureApplication systems?
PureApplication systems leverage PureFlex technologies adding extra tools and functionality for cloud like application functionality delivery.

So what is IBM PureSystems Centre?
It is a portal or central place where IBM and their business partner solutions pertaining to PureApplication and PureFlex systems can be accessed for including information for first installation support along with maintenance and upgrades. At launch, IBM is touting more than 150 solutions or applications that are available or qualified for deployment on PureApplication and PureFlex systems. In addition, IBM Patterns (aka templates) can also be accessed via this venue. Examples of application or independent software vendor (ISV) developed solutions for banking, education, financial, government, healthcare and insurance can be found at the PureSystems Centre portal (here, here and here).

So what part of this is a service and what is a product?
Other than the PureSystem center, which is a web portal for accessing information and technologies, PureFlex and PureApplication along with Virtual Appliance Factory are products or solutions that can be bought from IBM or their business partners. In addition, IBM business partners or third parties can also use these solutions housed in their own, a customer, or third-party facility for delivering managed service provided (MSP) capabilities, along with other PaaS and SaaS or AaaS type functionalities. In other words, these solutions can be bought or leased by IT and other organizations for their own use in a traditional IT deployment model, private, hybrid or public cloud model.

Another option is for service providers to acquire these solutions for use in developing and delivering their own public and private or hybrid services. IBM is providing the hard product (hardware and software) that enables your return on innovation (the new ROI) to create and deliver your own soft product (services and experiences) consumed by those who use those capabilities. In addition to traditional financial quantitative return on investment (traditional ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO), the new ROI complements those by adding a qualitative aspect. Your return on innovation will be dependent on what you are capable of doing that enables your customers or clients to be productive or creative. For example enabling your customers or clients to boost productivity, remove complexity and cost while maintaining or enhancing Quality of Service (QoS), service level objectives (SLOs) and service level agreements (SLAs) in addition to supporting growth by using a given set of hard products. Thus, your soft product is a function of your return on innovation and vise versa.

Note that in this context, not to be confused with hardware and software, hard product are those technologies including hardware, software and services that are obtained and deployed as a soft product. A soft product in this context does not refer to software, rather the combination of hard products plus your own developed or separately obtained software and tools along with best practices and usage models. Thus, two organizations can use the same hard products and deliver separate soft products with different attributes and characteristics including cost, flexibility and customer experience.

So what is a Pattern of Expertise?
Combines operational know how experience and knowledge about common infrastructure resource management (IRM), data center infrastructure management (DCIM) and other commonly repeatable related process, practices and workflows including provisioning. Common patterns of activity and expertise for routine or other time-consuming tasks, which some might refer to as templates or workflows enable policy driven based automation. For example, IBM cites recurring time-consuming tasks that lend themselves to being automated such as provisioning, configuration, and upgrades and associated IRM, DCIM and data protection, storage and application management activities. Automation software tools are included as part of the PureSystems with patterns being downloadable as packages for common tasks and applications found at the IBM PureSystem center.

At announcement, there are three types or categories of patterns:

IBM patterns: Factory created and supplied with the systems based on experiences IBM has derived from various managers, engineers and technologist for automating common tasks including configuration, deployment and application upgrades and maintenance. The aim is to cut the amount of time and intervention for deployment of applications and other common functions enabling IT staff to be more productive and address other needs.
ISV patterns: These leverage experience and knowledge from ISVs partnered with IBM, which at time of launch numbers over 125 vendors offering certified PureSystems Ready applications. The benefit and objective are to cut the time and complexity associated with procuring (e.g. purchasing), deploying and managing third-party ISV software. Downloadable patterns packages can be found at the IBM PureSystem center.
Customer patterns: Enables customers to collect and package their own knowledge, processes, rules, policies and best practices into patterns for automation. In addition to collecting knowledge for acquisition, configuration, day to day management and troubleshooting, these patterns can facility automation of tasks to ease on boarding of new staff employees or contractors. In addition, these patterns or templates capture workflows for automation enabling shorter deployment times of systems and applications into locations where skill sets do not exist.

Here is a link to some additional information about patterns on the IBM developerWorks site.

Click here to view the next post in this series, 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

April 12, 2012May 24, 2020

Part I: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue

This is the first in a five-part series around the recent IBM PureSystems announcements. You can view the next post here.

For a certain generation of IBM faithful or followers the recently announced PureFlex and PureApplication systems might give a sense of DejaVu perhaps even causing some to wonder if they just woke up from a long Rip Van Winkle type nap.

Yet for another generation who may not yet be future IBM followers, fans, partners or customers, there could be a sense of something new and revolutionary with the PureFlex and PureApplication systems (twitter @ibmpuresystems).

In between those two groups, exist others who are either scratching their heads or reinvigorated with enthusiasm to get out and be able to discuss opportunities around little data (traditional and transactional) and big data, servers, virtualized, converged infrastructure, dynamic data centers, private clouds, ITaaS, SaaS and AaaS, PaaS, IaaS and other related themes or buzzword bingo topics.

Let us dig a little deeper and look at some So What types of questions and industry trends perspectives comments around what IBM has announced.

So what did IBM announce?
IBM announced PureSystems including:

PureFlex systems, products and technologies
PureApplication systems
PureSystems Centre

You can think of IBM PureSystems and Flex Systems Products and technology as a:

Private cloud or turnkey solution bundle solution
Platform deploying public or hybrid clouds
Data center in a box or converged and dynamic system
ITaaS or SaaS/AaaS or PaaS or IaaS or Cloud in a box
Rackem stack and package them type solution

So what is an IBM PureFlex System and what is IBM using?
It is a factory integrated data and compute infrastructure in a cabinet combing cloud, virtualization, servers, data and storage networking capabilities. The IBM PureFlex system is comprised of various IBM and products and technologies (hardware, software and services) optimized with management across physical and virtual resources (servers, storage (V7000), networking, operating systems, hypervisors and tools).

PureFlex includes automation and optimization technologies along with what IBM is referring to as patterns of expertise or what you might relate to as templates. Support for various hypervisors and management integration along with application and operating system support by leveraging IBM xSeries (x86 such as Intel) and pSeries (Power7) based processors for compute. Storage is the IBM V7000 (here and here) with networking and connectivity via IBM and their partners. The solution is capable of supporting traditional, virtual and cloud deployment models as well as platform for deploying Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) on a public, managed service provider (MSP), hosting or private basis.

Click here to view the next post in this series, 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

August 10, 2011March 7, 2022

VMware vSphere v5 and Storage DRS

Here is a link to a recent guest post that I was invited to do over at The virtualization Practice (TVP) pertaining to the recent VMware vSphere 5.0 announcement. A theme of the vSphere 5.0 launch is reducing complexity, enabling automation, and supporting scaling with confidence for cloud and virtual environments. As a key component for supporting cloud, virtual and dynamic infrastructure environments, vSphere V5.0 includes many storage related enhancements and new features including Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (SDRS).

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

May 26, 2010January 1, 2022

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

November 23, 2009January 23, 2019

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

November 4, 2009January 23, 2019

Poll: EMC and Cisco Acadia VCE, what does it mean?

EMC and Cisco recently announced their new Acadia VCE coalition along with Intel and VMware.

As part of the VCE the collation or joint venture is also providing to market pre-acted vblocks that include Cisco servers power by Intel and network switches, EMC storage and management tools (Inonx and RSA for security), VMware vsphere virtualization along with pre-post sales services.

How does this move from a technology, packaging, integration as well as business or alliance perspective change the server, storage, networking, hardware, software and services game?

Whats your take?

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – StorageIO, Author “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (CRC)

October 24, 2008May 17, 2021

Vendors Who Dont’ Want to Be Virtualized?

Storage I/O trends

This past week I did a couple of keynote and round table discussions in Plano (Dallas) at Jaspers and in Boston at Smith and Wollensky with a theme of BC/DR for Virtualized environments. In both locations, where we had great participate involvement and discussions, audience members discussed the various merits and their experiences with server virtualization, and one of the many common themes was vendors whose do not support their vertical applications in virtualized environments.

Say it so Joe (or Jane), especially with so many vendors tripping over themselves to show how their software can be stuffed into a VM in order to jump on the VM bandwagon. How could it be so that some vendors dont’ want to be virtualized?

It’s true, there are some independent software vendors (ISV) whose vertical packages are commonly deployed in environments of all size who do not for various reasons want nor support their software running in a virtualized environment.

The reasons some vendors of vertical specific applications do not support their software in virtualized environments can vary from quality of service (QoS), performance, contention and response time or availability concerns, desire to continue selling physical servers and other hardware with their applications, to the desire to keep their application on a server platform that they can control the QoS by insuring that no other applications or changes are made to the server and associated operating system environment.

Yet another example can be that the vendor has simply not had a chance to test or, to test in various permutations and thus take the route of not supporting their solutions in a virtualized, or, what they may perceive as in a consolidated environment.

This is in no way a new trend as for decades vendors of vertical software have often take a stance of not allowing other applications to be installed on a server where their software is installed in order for them to maintain QoS and service level agreement (SLA) levels and support guarantees.

In some cases such as specialized applications including hospital patient care or related systems, this can make sense as well as perhaps complying with regulatory requirements. However there are plenty of other applications where vendors drag their feet or resist supporting virtualized environments without realizing that not all virtualized environments need to be consolidated. That is, a stepping stone or baby step can be to 1st install their software on a VM that has a dedicate physical machine (PM) to validate that their are no instabilities or QoS impacts of running in a VM.

After some period of time and comfort levels, then the application and its associated VM could be placed along side some other number of VMs in an incremental and methodical manner to determine what if any impacts occur.

The bottom line is this, not all applications and servers lend themselves to being consolidated for various reasons, however, many of those applications and servers can be virtualized to enable management transparency including facilitating movement to other servers during upgrades or maintenance as well as BC/DR (e.g. life beyond consolidation), a topic that I cover in more detail in my new book “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (Auerbach).

Likewise, there are some applications that truly for security, QoS, availability, politics, software or hardware dependencies or compatibility among other reasons that should be left alone for now. However there are also many applications where vendors need to re-think or look at why they do not support a virtualized server environment and better articulate those issues to their customers, or, start the testing and qualifications as well as put together best practices guides on how to deploy their applications into virtualized environments.

Thanks for all of those who ventured out this week in Plano and Boston and participating in the discussion, look forward to seeing and hearing from you again in the not so distant future.

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

October 14, 2008January 30, 2020

CMG, Enabling “The Green and Virtual Data Center”

Storage I/O trends

Last week I was invited to by Tom Becchetti and the Minneapolis CMG folks to keynote at their session hosted at the Brocade facity in Minneapolis along with other speakers from Brocade, IBM, Teamquest and Sun.

The theme of my talk was “The Green and Virtual Data Center and The Importance of Metrics” which can be downloaded here.

I have been a member of CMG for many years as a former performance and capacity planning analyst when I worked in IT organizations and having presented at many CMG events around the world. While CMG has been around for many decades and has seen its share of ups and downs. With a current focus on boosting use, maximizing resource usage, improving service delivery and performance while using less energy in smaller footprints, now is the perfect opportunity for CMG to re-invent itself and show relevance as the organization that knows how to measure, watch, model and manage resource usage and service delivery effectiveness across different technology domains including servers, storage, networks, applications, operating systems and facilities. There is a golden opportunity for CMG members to step up and leverage their skills across different technology domains working with others to establish metrics, models and baselines.

In my new book, “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (Auerbach) I include a chapter on metrics and measurement as well as many other topics and themes that tie into the notion of effective and efficient data centers need to carry out Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) which is also a chapter in the book, that includes performance and capacity planning across technology domains.

Watch for more on this topic.

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

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Multiple – Tiered Hypervisors for Server Virtualization

Server Virtualization Hypervisor Trends

Tiered Virtualization Hypervisor Management

Learn more

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