(For some reason, it’s the name has been pre-pended with a lower-case v…yet?  )

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Over the past few weeks I have been involved in long term planning discussion with the senior IT management from multiple clients.  While I can’t go into details  of these meetings, a few common general trends emerged in these long term virtualization strategies.

First, all of them were roughly at the benchmark of having 30% of their compute workloads virtualized and looking at how to get well beyond that (see my prior post on Breaking the 30% Barrier).  Part of the growth strategy included defining a specific set of applications that are set aside from virtualizing in the next wave, typically somewhere between 10%-30% of the overall computer workloads.   General reasons for this are:

• Organizing things into the next logical set of workloads primed for easy virtualization
• Setting aside the workloads where resistance was being felt toward virtualization to give the business users more time to warm up to virtualization
• Workloads that are “too big” to virtualize (typically because of CPU requirements, storage requirements, or IO requirements; some of these are just misnomers with the current VM scalability limits of vSphere 4)
• workloads where the ISV specifically don’t support the software running in a VM (this is becoming less and less as more ISVs actively embrace virtualization or Enterprise customers flatly tell their ISVs “we’re running it in a VM, get on board”.)

Second, they are all planning on building a specific internal cloud within part of their infrastructure.   This alone isn’t that surprising.  There are specific use cases where a self-service internal cloud solves a lot of problems for the business users, most glaring being dev/test scenarios where lots of dynamic short used workloads are involved and web hosting where the business units (typically marketing) need to be able to react faster to market opportunities and popularity spikes of new products and viral marketing activity.

What is surprising is that when IT started to talk about the ideal end state view of their “non cloud” virtualized environment…it was essentially a cloud.  As Jian Zhen described recently in The Thousand Faces of Cloud Computing Part 4: Architecture Characteristics there are a set of architectural characteristics that describe cloud computing:

• Infrastructure Abstraction
• Resource Pooling
• Ubiquitous Access
• On-Demand Self-Service
• Elasticity

(Note: Jian Zhen changed his list of characteristics in the above post from his initial The Thousand Faces of Cloud Computing post.

The enterprise long term vision for their virtualized computing environment include all of these characteristics with exception of On-Demand Self-Service and in some ways Ubiquitous Access.  On-Demand Self-Service is typically not in their plans because the Enterprises don’t have a key part of this, an internal finance model that allow for charge back of resources used — though most seem to be thinking about that. On-Demand isn’t as needed in this part of the enterprise environment as the workloads are the known sized, planned, enterprise applications that are the classic “Enterprise IT”.   Ubiquitous Access is also something that isn’t being thought of by IT for this part of their environment primarily because access to these workloads is already pre-defined by the workloads themselves: web servers are accessed by web browsers, email is from an email client (whether static or mobile), etc.

And yet, all the other things that Enterprise IT strategist are thinking about fall squarely in the realm of “cloud computing”.  Get the business users to think in terms of capacity and SLAs and abstract all other aspects of the infrastructure from them.  And then drive up the utilization on that infrastructure to maximize their ROI.  Some are still only comfortable driving per physical server utilization up to 50%-60% range while others are damning the torpedoes and want to get as close to 100% as possible.  On an overall basis across the entire infrastructure, you can never reach 100% utilization because not all work loads are that consistent, this is where resource pooling and elasticity come into play.

Thought I do have to argue that Resource Pooling is not the best term to use for what is meant for this characteristic.  Creating and managing pools of resources is included in this specific characteristic, but I think a more accurate term to describe this is as Resource SLAs.  The end users of the environment are buying  a specific amount of resources as a “guaranteed maximums” or as a an “on average maximum”.  The architecture of the cloud needs to ensure that spikes in resource usage by one user are serviced up to their agreed upon limit, but also allow IT to “over subscribe” the environment during the non-spike times.  Then mixing in guaranteed with on average work loads allow the performance spike of guaranteed work loads to be serviced at the cost of the on average work loads should no extra capacity be available.

It becomes a game of how tight of an IT airship do you want to run…

1. Take a Virtualization First policy for all new projects.
2. Convert all low hanging fruit from physical servers to VMs

Within a few years, an organization naturally will achieve virtualization levels approaching 30% based upon a reasonable growth rate.  Eventually the growth rate slows and the challenge then becomes breaking that 30% barrier.

To further increase virtualization within Enterprise IT at a similar growth rate requires an active virtualization plan that addresses:

• Application engineering to stack rank the existing applications and proactively educate application groups to lead them to virtualize with a carrot instead of driving them to virtualize with a stick
• Social engineering within the business units to accept VMs instead of physical servers and adapt their expectations into SLAs
• Organizational engineering within IT to create a Virtualization Center of Excellence that transcends traditional IT silos
• Financial engineering within IT to determine how reclaimed or early retired systems will be accounted for (this especially becomes an challenge when the business units bought the physical servers and their conversion to VMs happens before the end of life of those physical servers.)

This is journey I’m currently undergoing with a few of my clients.  I’ll try to share my expereinces from this journey here in the future.

Then, this past weekend, I heard a radio interview with Jim Lehrer on KQED’s City Arts and Lectures where Lehrer talked a bit about his working style and how it changed in recent years (after his heart attack).  The key thing that Lehrer mentioned was creating a list of what he wants to do and then comparing that to what he did do on a daily basis.

Both of these were a great reminder to me about the things that you want to accomplish.  I have a note card sitting on my desk with three aphorisms printed on it.  The first one is “Your Focus Determines Your Reality”.  Every now and then you need to step back and analyze your focus and look at your reality so you can do a gut check.  Coming across the aforementioned items recently reminded me to do that…

photo by alandberning

Latest herd of virtualization links from the past two weeks:

VMware Specific Links

• The VMM is upside down
• Virtualizing Exchange or SQL Server with VMware? Think twice (misleading title as pointed out by drummonds1974)
• Poll: What is your favorite vSphere new major feature?
• HP, VMware Team Up on Virtualization Management
• OPNET’s ACE Live™ VMon Provides New Application Performance Visibility and Troubleshooting Capabilities in Virtualized Environments
• KB Article: VMotion stops working after upgrading to vSphere 4.0 with a CPU of the host is incompatible error

General Virtualization Links

• Down To Business: This ‘Gateway Recession’ Must Transform IT
• Tech Road Map: Keep An Eye On Virtual I/O
• Intro to Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite (CUCMS)
• EDS’s David Gee on the spectrum of cloud and outsourcing options unfolding before IT architects

While talking about the ESX hosts and the server VMs compared to the desktop VMs, the realization occured that it doesn’t matter what machine you run the VMs on:

“…in theory desktop VMs and server VMs could run on the same physical server.  All those server resources are just there to run a work load, regardless of what the workload is…”

This is where I leaned back in my chair, smiled and said “That’s cloud computing”.

What was glorious about this moment is that here was a desktop architect realizing the power of an internal cloud back in the data center.  Seeing a sign like this tells me that my next 6 months is going to be very busy indeed.

VMware Specific Links

• Bringing Cloud to Enterprise IT
• Update on support for vSphere for SAP productive systems
• Running vSphere within Workstation will take up a lot of memory…
• VMware vSphere™ Communities Discussions
• VMware CTO creates a vast virtualization portfolio (2009 InfoWorld CTO 25 Awards: Stephen Herrod)
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Performance on VMware vSphere (pdf)
• VCP for vSphere 4 Exam Objectives Release
• PowerCLI Update VMware Tools without a reboot (Thanks for the link JJ!)
• vManage: First Native iPhone App to manage your VMware environment
• VMware View Delivers “Follow Me Desktop” for Healthcare Practitioners
  

General Virtualization Links

• Verizon Business Joins the Cloud Computing War
• Ray Ozzie’s cloud hangs over the Valley
• VDI: Monitoring and the End User Experience
  

photo by alandberning

Seems like on a week over week basis, there is a flood of virtualization information that comes across my desktop/inbox/feeds.  Like anything, bits and pieces are valuable to different clients of mine or myself.  While I’ve historically not been a fan of link lists because all too often there is no value add in them, I’ve decide to try and provide a regular link roundup based on the various virtualization bits that I have found most useful.  This won’t be an all emcompasing list, more a filter list based on what I’m working on currently with clients and what are key industry items. Expect this list to come out every week or two, depending on my schedule.

(and no complaining about the percentage of VMware related bits, you all should have seen my disclosures by now.    )

VMware Links

• VMware vSphere 4 Available
  • vSphere Docs Portal
  • Performance Study: Virtualizing Performance Critical Database Applications in VMware vSphere (pdf)
  • VCP Upgrade Options Available until End of 2009
  • Best of Interop – Overall: VMware – VMware vSphere 4
• VMware View 3.1 Available
• VMware Communities Roundtable – Performance Discussions with VMware’s Scott Drummonds
• VIOPS: Library of VMware Icons and Diagrams (ppt download available)

Other Virtualization Links

• Cisco TV:  John Manville on Unified Computing System (and Virtualization)
• Chris Wolf: Oracle Changes its Position on x86 Hypervisor Support (Unfair Licensing Remains)
  • Dennis Howlett: Oracle under fire with x86 hypervisor licensing
• Virtualization Journal: Building a Real-World IaaS Cloud Foundation
  
• AT&T to Deliver Cloud-Based ‘Storage as a Service’ Offer to Enterprise Customers

I’ve had a number of clients already ask me about this portal and working with the new License Keys, so I thought I would help the entire VMware community by creating this quick guide to the new portal.  Keep in mind that the change of licensing in vSphere means that the old VI3 licenses that were associated to a pair of CPUs are converted to License Keys that are associated to a single CPU.  This is the reason why you may see your license counts double.

vSphere License Portal

License Portal vSphere Tabs

When you log into your VMware License Portal, you will still land on the page that allows you to manage your VI3 licenses.  You can switch to your vSphere licenses by clicking on the tab in the upper right corner, or the vSphere link at the top of the table showing your VI3 licenses.

List of vSphere License Keys

On the vSphere License Keys page, you will see a list of the different vSphere 4 licenses you are entitled to.  Expand the row of specific license type to see all keys that are currently available.  The first time you view your vSphere keys, you will most likely have a small number of keys that contain all the CPUs that you purchased.  This is where the ability to Divide and Combine your License Keys comes in.

Dividing License Keys

Selecting vSphere License to Divide

When you click on the Divide button, you can select a License Key that you would like to divide.  You can only divide up one License Key at a time.  Select the key and click Continue.

Dividing Up a vSphere License Key

Now a dialog box will pop up which will allow you to divide up the CPUs from the selected Key.  You can chose to divide the key into 2 or more keys.  Simply select the number of new keys from the drop down list, and then enter the combination of CPUs you want in the new keys.  The information about the order that purchased the original license key is displayed for your reference.  The Total value at the bottom of the screen will show you in real time if you’re new keys have used all the CPUs from the original key.

Confirming Your License Key Division

Lastly, a dialog box will pop up confirming the new license key division you just configured.  There is also a warning that the change you are about to make could affect others.  By clicking Confirm you old license key will be divided up into your selected number of new License Keys.

The division process is what you will use to take your original license key containing all your entitled CPUs and carve out smaller license keys for deployment across your organization.

Combining License Keys

Selecting vSphere Keys to Combine

From your list of License keys, clicking on the combine button will also you to select which existing License Keys you want to combine into a new larger License Key.  Select the specific keys using the check boxes on the right, then click Continue button.

Confirming Your vSphere License Key Combination

Next a confirmation dialog box will appear to confirm these are the keys you want to combine.  Again, a nice and concise warning about affecting other users and your EULA.

Adding Comments to a vSphere License Key

After combining (or dividing) your License Keys, you will see an updated list of vSphere License keys.  By expanding a single license key, you can add additional comments to the license key in the portal.  This is valuable to keep track of who a license may have been created for within your organization.

Searching License History

Searching Your vSphere License Key History

Under the License Key History tab, you will find the ability to search through your list of License Keys.  Most Enterprise customers will end up with hundreds of license keys created by and for multiple groups within their company.  The search capabilities now allow you to search based upon the Event Type associated with a key.  So if you’re looking for history on who divided a key, you can find it.

Conclusion

While not an all inclusive guide to the new vSphere License Portal, hopefully this quick quide will help you get up to speed dealing with the migragion from VI3 to vSphere 4. For a full tutorial on vSphere Licensing, make sure to check out the vSphere Migration – Licensing video.

“Some call it a software mainframe others call it cloud, it depends on when you were born,”

I have heard a number of VMware’s executives use the term “software mainframe” when describing the new VMware Cloud OS, vSphere.  And as Steve indicated in his quote, it’s all about finding a term that resonates with the generation of your audience.

Today I joined in a virtualization discussion between the IT management teams of two Fortune 500 companies.  One of the more timely items that was discussed (with regards to the above article) was the implementing of an internal cloud.  One of the executives described it as a “change-request-less data center” where the business client is abstracted from the technology and given a transparent view of their own utilization within the data center.  Then, an executive from the other company nodded and said “getting back to a mainframe, a software mainframe”.

They were discussing their interpretations of what it meant for their business to have an internal cloud within their data center infrastructure.  And the reality is that it is starting to look more like an easily expandable, multi-vendor, distributed/modular mainframe enabled by software.

I found it interesting that the key aspect that defined an internal or enterprise cloud for these executives was the fact that the transparency of utilization was there (just like for an internet cloud and just like on the mainframe), but that the chargeback for the cost of that utilization may not be there.  Most enterprises don’t have the internal financial systems set up to do chargeback of computing resources.  And for an enterprise to change their internal  financial system is a non-trivial task.

However, levering virtualization technology to build an internal cloud that has the ability to track and report on utilization (even if the cost is null) puts the enterprise into a very powerful position:

• Quicker servicing of their business customers needs
• a simplified infrastructure which reduces operational expenses via automation and standardized IT offerings
• the ability to run the existing computing jobs of the business with little or no modifications
• a self service model which helps reduce operational costs even more
• transparency to the business clients to help them understand how much of the IT infrastructure they are using and socially drive them to use it more consciously
• an environment in which the technology can be managed at any time because it is abstracted from the business users
• and the ability to change their internal financial system in the future without major upgrades to their data center or infrastrcuture.

The software mainframe.  The enterprise cloud.

One of my clients made an interesting comment this week about a new way they are thinking of measuring their data centers.  Anyone dealing with virtualization knows that measuring a data center on square feet or number of physical servers alone is rather meaningless.  We mostly talk about ratios:  VMs per Socket (CPU) or VMs per Core.  But as green initiatives push on I had one client mention the new metric of VMs per Kilowatt hour.

This is interesting because it not only takes into consideration the efficiency of your virtualization solution, but also the power efficiency of your servers, storage, and network.  What is the efficiency at which one can run a data center?  When you get into a cloud computing environment where users pay for what they use, don’t the providers also want to only be paying for what is required?  If companies are now placing notes in their annual reports on their corporate carbon foot print, shouldn’t they also be thinking about defining, measuring and tracking their data center carbon foot print?

This takes one down an interesting thought process that I think I’ve only scratched the surface of.

(Thanks goes out ot Mike P. for pointing me to the above Dilbert strip!)

I found the following items of specific interest:

• Efficiency improvements from hardware-assisted memory virtualization
  • Apache Compile was almost 55% more efficient – of special interest to my client who is looking at virtualizing part of their Rational software development environment, specifically their build servers.
  • Citrix XenApp (aka, presentation server) was 30% more efficient – of interest to my client who is wrapping up the virtualization of their XenApp environment to an ESX Cluster.  with vShpere 4 they may be able to reduce their 40 or so ESX hosts due to greater density of XenApp VMs possible with vSphere 4.
• VMotion performance enhancements show huge reduction in time  (almost 1/5th the time) to vmotion an active VM.  Every client of mine will love this as they all depend on VMotion to administer their virtual machines.
• Fibre Channel VM Boot performance enhancements showing massive reduction in time (again, almost 1/5th the time) to boot 512 VMs from a fibre channel SAN.  My client who is building a virtualized training lab environment and needs to boot 800 VMs in preparation for some training classes will really appreciate this.

With all the performance enhnacmenets in vSphere 4, there really does appear to be something for everyone!

Check out Jeff Browning’s attempt to explain (from a “recovering lawyer’s” point of view) What the Oracle / VMware support statement really means…and why.

As virtualization continues to expand across the datacenter, Oracle applications are a high priority target for virtualization.  This topic comes up from all my customers and is something that I have been involved in discussing mulitple times with each one.  Jeff’s detailed analysis of Oracle’s support statement does a great job of blowing the chaff away.

Here is a quick hit of the server storage best practices that should be of value to all VMware users:

• Deploy a tiered storage approach
• Use a separate LUN for templates
• Standardize LUN sizes within tiers
• Handle exceptions on a case-by-case basis
• Avoid use of extents
• No more than 1 VMFS volume per LUN
• Deploy all virtual discs for a server on the same VMFS volume

For more details check out the VMware Resources for Virtual Storage portal.

These photos are just a sampling of the full set from the vSphere launch that are available on my photography website.  The event took place on in the VMware fitness facility with employees packing the open area between the buildings and on the stairs of nearby buildings.

There was a slight delay in getting these photos up online as I had some personal commitments right after the launch event (my sister was in town visiting…family comes first) followed by this week on the road visiting customers.  There are a few more images that I will post later this week as well as a few videos that I shot during the launch (though the audio is not the best).

My favorite photo from the event is the front row of technology industry leaders who were present for the launch:

Left to right: Pat Gelsinger (Intel), Frank Hauck (EMC), Joe Tucci (EMC), Chad Sakac (EMC…guess he’s not just a virtualgeek but also a bit of a photo geek), Christopher Rence (FICO), Steve Harrod (VMware), John Chambers (Cisco), unknown, James Mouton (HP), Michael Dell (Dell).

(For those who are interested: I was using a Canon 5D mark II with a 70-200mm F2.8 L or 24-70mm F2.8 L lenses.  For the pixel peepers: yes the original images are 21 megapixels and the videos were shot in full 1080p HD.)

Tonight VMware has done their online announcement of vSphere 4.  While some may consider the branding of vSphere 4 as a Cloud Operating System just trendy technology marketing, there are enough new features, enhancements to existing capabilities, API hooks to enable new product add-ons, and partnership activity to have justified the re-branding away from technology to provide enterprises with Virtual Infrastructure to a solution that enables enterprises to operate their own cloud computing enrionment…a Cloud OS.

In case you haven’t read the disclosure like over on the right, I am currently employed by VMware as a Global Solutions Consultant.  This means that I have been talking to global customers about vSphere 4 for quite a while now.  And when it takes two hours to give a product road map that just touches on all the capabilities that a release includes, it’s big enough to be worth the re-branding.

Here is my launch day link roundup to VMware vSphere 4 for Enterprises:

• First Off, the Simulcast of the official launch by VMware Executives and Partner Community (9am PDT on April 21st) [Look for me snapping photos during the event, probably from behind a big white lens...stay tuend for more on that tomorrow]
• vSphere list of Key Features (PDF)
• Summary of VMware product name changes
• vSphere is organized into two main sets of services
  • Application Services
    • Availability
    • Security
    • Scalability
  • Infrastructure Services
    • vCompute (ESX and ESXi are still there as the rock solid foundation)
    • vStorage: What’s New Whitepaper (PDF)
    • vNetwork: What’s New Whitepaper (PDF)
• vSphere editions for Enterprises
• vSphere Pricing, Packaging, and Licensing Whitepaper (PDF)
• vSphere Upgrade Center is now also live…start planning your migration from VI3 to vS4!

For non official teaser screen shots of various parts of vSphere 4, check out Jason Boche’s A random collection of what’s new vSphere eye candy.  I’m sure that there will be dozens of other blog posts in the near future talking about the various new or enhanced aspects of vSphere in wonderful technical glory.  I’ll try to share the best ones that I come across and that my customers post via my Twitter feed.

While vSphere contains enough things to keep every member of an IT staff talking for days, my focus over the next few days (besides discussing various parts of vSphere to my clients) will be to talk about the key aspects of vSphere that I think can help an enterprise continue to drive cost savings while enabling agile service delivery to the business, items like:

• Distributed Resource Scheduling and Distributed Power Management as they relate to an internal cloud
• Distributed Virtual Switching and it’s hooks into Application Services like vShield Zones and VMsafe
• Storage savings features of Thin Provisioning
• Fault Tolerance and the hidden revolution this provides
• Easing the Management burden using vCenter Orchestrator and vCenter Server Linked Mode and new licensing model

Enjoy the launch day festivities…

Tuesday’s announcement completes the triad of announcements over the past month.  First was Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS), their foray into the X86 based blade server computing market but designed around the virtualization and cloud computing needs of the enterprise data center.  Next came EMC’s Symmetrix V-Max (Virtual Matrix Architecture), the storage solution designed to power the virtual data center with scalable inter-connected storage that can even span multiple data centers.  Chad Sakac has posted a great virtualization specific overview on his blog.  Finally comes Tuesday…stay tuned.

(In preperation for tomorrow’s big event, check out hte Informationweek article on Why ‘Private Cloud’ Computing is Real — And Worth Considering.  I found this article to be a good overview on private cloud computing and has a few VMware teasers in it.)

What I haven’t heard is if this will be an additional license fee for Office or not (the way it was described to me made it sound like it was an additional cost to upgrade your current office to run it on a virtualized desktop).

(Note: I’ve pinged numerous contacts familiar with Microsoft licensing and no one else has heard this…)

Since I am in discussions with a number of my clients about desktop virtualization, I’ve gotten some exposure to the ins and outs of Microsoft licensing.  I know that many large enterprises have been pushing Microsoft for a per user licensing model for software applications, and this could very well be just that.  Or is this a sign that Microsoft is concerned that virtual desktops could cut into their profit margins and they are taking a proactive stance to prevent that?

After all, if I have 6000 call center workers spread out around the world in three different time zones and they all need to have MS office on their desktop, today I have to pay Microsoft for 6000 Office licenses.  With virtual desktops I can run 2000 virtual desktops in a data center that all my call center workers access and only have to pay for 2000 Microsoft Office licenses (as one center shuts down another center spins up and re-uses the same virtual desktop).

Microsoft isn’t going to sit by and lose all that revenue.  So hearing about this doesn’t surprise me.  It also won’t surprise me if Microsoft ends up charging more for the Virtualized Edition.  Which leads one to wonder if this is truely a new licensing version or just a virtualization penalty?  Time will tell…

As rumors swirl, Twitter says no rush for business model

A few email later, I run across a humor email (that I’m sure everyone has seen by now) that discusses derivative market explained for laymen. It starts off:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers – most of whom are unemployed alcoholics – to drink now but pay later.

My first raction to Heidi’s business plan is ‘how acinine, she’ll never see any money by loaning drinks to alcholics.’ By now we all know the rest of the story about the derivative markets, banks kept giving Heidi loans based on her debt assets only to never see their money come back.

And now we switch over to the alcholic users of the web 2.0, where everyone can get drunk for free off of their favorite services. So, will Twitter’s VCs and Investors ever see their investement dollars turn into the lucrative cash flow that Heidi’s bankers thought they had? Or will Twitter end up with some risk manager calling in the marker and cause the fall of the micro-blogging derivative markets?

Guess Twitter needs to determine which definition of business they want applied to them:

3. a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing, or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern.

or will they keep focused on features and building more mass market appeal adding more noise to the signal until they reach

11. excrement: used as a euphemism.

Round and round we go…last call, drink up!