Vmware Datacenter OS

Vmware 2008; VMware has extended Virtual Infrastructure into a Virtual Datacenter Operating System

The virtual datacenter OS addresses customers’ needs for flexibility, speed, resiliency and efficiency by transforming the datacenter into an “internal cloud” – an elastic, shared, self- managing and self-healing utility that can federate with external clouds of computing capacity freeing IT from the constraints of static hardware-mapped applications.

VmDOS (Back to DOS days) delivers the virtual datacenter OS through the following essential components:

Application vServices guarantee the appropriate levels of availability, security and scalability to all applications independent of hardware and location.
Infrastructure vServices subtract, aggregate and allocate on-premise servers, storage and network for maximum infrastructure efficiency.
Cloud vServices federate the on-premise infrastructure with third party cloud infrastructure.
Management vServices allow you to proactively manage the virtual datacenter OS and the applications running on it.


All I can say is WOW!!!

Welcome to the Cloud Computing ERA!

ESXi FREE

You’ll still need VirtualCenter and VI3 Enterprise licenses for all the cool enterprise-level features like VMotion, DRS, HA, SRM.

ESXi can either be installed or run from an embedded device available in certain servers.

The 32MB footprint gives small businesses an easy way to get into the virtualization world with easy upgrade paths to enterprise-level features.

Great call by someone at Vmware!

Now with all the virtualization going on these days, it's becomming harder to find a spare "real" server to try out ESXi on :(

NetApp 2007 NetApp Innovation Awards Honors Dan Pancamo and Marcus Bui

Myself and Marcus Bui are the proud recipients of the 2007 Netapp Enterprise Infrastructure Innovation award!

In August 2006 we convinced our Vmware teams to switch from a SAN Vmware environment to a Netapp NFS Vmware environment as we quickly realized the potential value that Netapp could play in a Vmware environment.

I truly believe that even Netapp didn't even see their potential role until we proved the value of Netapp's snapshot and replication technology in a vmware environment. Today we run over 1000 VMs on 35 ESX host in two locations all using Netapp filers over NFS.



The NetApp Innovation Awards recognize NetApp customers who have helped their companies, customers, or communities through innovative deployment of NetApp products and solutions.

The Enterprise Infrastructure award distinguishes customers worldwide who have deployed NetApp systems to power data center, workgroup, department, collaborative, or HPC applications that are specifically not Oracle, SAP, SQL Server, or Exchange and who demonstrate innovation with NetApp products. This year’s winner was Invesco, a leading independent global investment management company. By delivering the combined power of its distinctive worldwide investment management capabilities, including AIM, Atlantic Trust, Invesco, Perpetual, PowerShares, Trimark, and WL Ross, Invesco provides a comprehensive array of enduring investment solutions for retail, institutional, and private wealth management clients around the world. Activision, a leading international publisher of interactive entertainment software products, and Reliance Communications Limited, which is rated among “Asia's Top 5 Most Valuable Telecom Companies” and is India's foremost and truly integrated telecommunications service provider, were finalists.

HP Single Filesystem Cluster ExDS9100

HP anounces a highly scalable storage system named ExDS9100 (Extreme Data Storage System). ExDS9100 can scale to 246 petabytes using HP’s C-Class 16 Blades 12.8 cores per unit for an 3.2 GB/second of raw performance all managed with a single management interface.

HP's PolyServe software (acquired in February 2007) is at the heart of the single filesystem.

HP predicts it will cost less than US$2 per gigabyte in a typical configuration.

Storage Networking World 2008 Highlights

Storage Networking World April 7-10, 2008 at Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Florida - the world's largest and foremost storage networking event - is where IT management and professionals learn, network and maximize their company's storage capabilities

Broadcom Demos 10-Gig iSCSI/TCPIP HCA Broadcom iSCSI HBA functionality enables on-chip processing of the iSCSI as well as TCP and IP protocols, which frees up host CPU resources at 10 Gbps line rates and enables an impressive 400,000 IOPS

Xiotech announced intelligent Storage Element (ISE) "virtually eliminate the need for service, scale from one terabyte to one petabyte and dramatically boost performance".

Mellanox accounced 10Gbit FCoE CNA w/Host Offload ConnectX EN Dual-Port 10GigE Single-Chip Adapter with FCoE Enables LAN and FC SAN Consolidation over Ethernet Networks.

More to come...

Intel 10Gbit Nic with VMDq doubles Vmware IO performance

In order to help the I/O congestion associated with the additional VMM software switching in a virtualized environment, Intel has implemented a technology called VMDq in their latest 10Gbit Ethernet NICs and silicon. VMDq is a technology specifically designed to offload some of the switching that was done in the VMM to networking hardware specifically designed for this function. This drastically reduces the overhead associated with I/O switching in the VMM which greatly improves throughput and overall system performance.

Without VMDq, the throughput was 4.0 Gbps; with VMDq, the throughput more than doubled to 9.2 Gbps.

Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch

Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch - purpose built for the Data Center of the future. It is designed to transform data center operations, making the customers experience in the data center more efficient, resilient and lasting. Also, check out the Cisco Nexus 7000 website where you can explore the features and elements of the Nexus 7000 Series in our 3-D Interactive Model and view other videos introducing the Nexus 7000 family.

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Platform is powered by Cisco NX-OS, a state-of-the-art operating system. The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series is purpose-built for the data center and has many unique features and capabilities designed specifically for the most mission-critical place in the network, the data center.

• Zero-Service Disruption Architecture
• Scales beyond 15 Tbps with future support for 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet
• Connectivity management processor (CMP) for integrated out-of-band management access
• Graceful system operations to minimize the effect of upgrades and other software operations
• Comprehensive XML API for total platform control
• Built to support the emerging 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet standards
• Flexible foundation for unified fabrics and unified I/O Virtual Device Contexts (VDCs) to maximize software and hardware resource utilization while providing strong security and software fault isolation
• Lossless fabric architecture to support the requirements of a unified fabric