Virtualization and Cloud Part 1
Much has been written about Cloud and how it will change everything. Almost everyone finds a way to say that they support Cloud in one way or another. I would like to take a step back and look at Virtualization. I believe that virtualization is one of the key underlying technologies that enable folks to build a Cloud. This may be large public Cloud like Microsoft Azure or a small private cloud running in your data center. So what is virtualization? The definition that I use is the following:
“Virtualization is an approach to deploying computing resources that isolates different layers – hardware, software, data, networks, storage – from each other”
While most folks think of Virtualization as being some kind of Hypervisor it can be much more. Microsoft has the following technologies that are all virtualization technologies based on the above definition.
1. Application Virtualization (App-V)
2. Presentation Virtualization - Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)
3. Desktop Virtualization - VDI and Virtual PC
4. Hyper-V
5. Management of Virtual environments
I include Management as moving to a virtual environment is no good if you cannot manage it. Today I would like to cover Hyper-V and SCVMM. I will cover the other virtualization technologies in future posts.
Server Virtualization
Hyper-V
Hyper-V allows you to virtualize entire computers by running multiple operating systems on a single physical computer. It appears to each guest operating system that it has exclusive use of the computer’s hardware resources. This is because each operating system is running in a separate virtual machine, with all the virtual machines running on the same physical computer. In a non-virtualized environment only one operating system can be running on the computer. Hyper-V provides the ability to run multiple operating systems on a single physical box.
Pros:
· Ability to consolidate multiple server workloads on to a single physical box.
· Ability to easily create highly available workloads and to move the workload from one physical server to another with no down time.
· Ability to create master virtual machine that all new virtual machines use as the base image. You just need to update the master to have all virtual machines update.
· Can shorten the deployment time for new server workloads.
Cons:
· Not all applications work in a virtual environment. Applications that need to access hardware directly are not good candidates for virtualization.
· May require company to purchase new hardware to run Hyper-V
ISV Play:
Supporting Hyper-V is now part of Server 2008 R2 certification. VHD test drive program allows ISV to create virtual appliance that they can give to customers for test and demo of their software. You can make application high availability (HA) without having to write special code to do so as it is easy to use Hyper-V to create HA VMs. VMs can help cut QA time as it is easy to install and rollback changes. If customers are running the applications in a VM they have the ability to provide support with the complete VM for troubleshooting issues. Providing end customer guidelines for how to create VM to run complex workloads can shorten deployment time and save on support costs.
Management of Virtual environments
SCVMM
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) consists of a number of components that work together at different layers to facilitate the provisioning and management of virtualized workloads. Some of the features that SCVMM provides are a library for VMs, ability to convert physical machine to virtual machine, finding suitable physical machine for a virtual workload to run on, and ability to create new VM for a template. SCVMM API is completely built on PowerShell which makes it easy to automate SCVMM tasks.
Pros:
· Centrally manage both Hyper-V and VMWare virtual machines across hosts
· Physical to Virtual Machine Conversion (P2V)
· Intelligent Placement (Selecting appropriate host for Virtual machine based on workload)
· Library (ability to find and maintain image files for virtual machines)
· Fully Scriptable using Windows PowerShell
Cons:
· Cannot manage ZenServer at this time
ISV Play:
If ISV has created management pack for their application they may want to look at using Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) which is a new feature in SCVMM that allows OpsMgr to communicate to SCVMM and adjust, move, or start a new instance of the VM that the application is running in.
References:
Server Virtualization (Hyper-V):
https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-main.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730764.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768520(BTS.10).aspx
https://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM):
https://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/virtual-machine-manager.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764292.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764283.aspx
Other useful links:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897468.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc501231.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualserver/bb676673.aspx
https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/virtualization.aspx
Microsoft Virtualization ISV Step-by-Step Resource Guide:
https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/4/A/34AB39E8-9404-4B1F-B12A-F866AB549D26/Virtualization_ISV_guide_v1.0.pdf
enjoy!