The document provides an overview of constructing a vSphere private cloud. It discusses defining the private cloud and how it augments simple virtualization. It covers constructing the key components of a private cloud including processing and memory, networking, and storage. It also discusses justifying the evolution to a private cloud through cost savings and metrics.

1. Constructing a vSphere Private Cloud:Strategies for IT Administrators and Decision Makers Greg Shields, MVP Senior Partner and Principal Technologist www.ConcentratedTech.com

2. Who is this Ponytailed Guy? Greg Shields, MVP Senior Partner, Concentrated Technology Over 15 years of Windows administration and engineering experience. Consultant – Hands-on and Strategic-level… Speaker – TechMentor, Tech Ed, Windows Connections, MMS, VMworld, others… Analyst/Author – Fourteen books and counting… Columnist – TechNet Magazine, Redmond Magazine, Windows IT Pro Magazine, others… All-around good guy… 2

3. WARNING: Prepare Yourself!Conversation Ahead! Everyone’s requirements are different. Everyone’s environment is different. We need to hear about it. We all learn (even me). This is a strategies session. Later sessions are tech- and demo-heavy. Today’s answers to leave with… How do you best construct the environment? What are the common mistakes? How should you connect the pieces?

4. A Private Cloud in Four Parts Part 1: Defining the Private Cloud Part 2: How Private Cloud Augments “Simple” Virtualization Part 3: Constructing the Private Cloud Part 4: Justifying the Private Cloud Evolution

5. Part 1Defining the Private Cloud

6. Lessons from the Past Virtualization has been around in some form since the 1960s. That said, its adoption in the x86 server market did not really take off until the middle of this decade.

7. Lessons from the Past Virtualization has been around in some form since the 1960s. That said, its adoption in the x86 server market did not really take off until the middle of this decade. Multiple virtualization products exist, some you’ve never heard of. Multiple virtualization approaches exist, some you’ve never heard of. In the minds of most IT professionals, the term “virtualization” immediately invokes “hardware virtualization”. This approach is the most commonly used today.

8. Lessons from the Past Virtualization has been around in some form since the 1960s. That said, its adoption in the x86 server market did not really take off until the middle of this decade. Multiple virtualization products exist, some you’ve never heard of. Multiple virtualization approaches exist, some you’ve never heard of. In the minds of most IT professionals, the term “virtualization” immediately invokes “hardware virtualization”. This approach is the most commonly used today. Cloud computing as a concept began at the same time as virtualization. Arguably more mature than many of us want to believe.

9. Where We’re At Back in 2009, Gartner identified “Virtualization” and “Cloud Computing” as two of the top 10 strategic IT technologies. At that time, it predicted that 50% of IT workloads will run inside virtual machines by 2012. It also reported that “Cloud Computing” had reached the apex of the firm’s “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” Cloud Computing expected at that time to be two to five years away from mainstream adoption.

10. Where We’re At Gartner’s 2010 Hype Cycle

11. Where We’re At Gartner’s 2010 Hype Cycle

12. Where We’re At Gartner’s 2010 Hype Cycle

13. My Argument: Virtualization is Old News By the end of 2010, IDC estimates that more than half (51%) of all IT workloads will be virtualized. That number is expected to rise to 69% by 2013.

14. My Argument: Virtualization is Old News By the end of 2010, IDC estimates that more than half (51%) of all IT workloads will be virtualized. That number is expected to rise to 69% by 2013. These numbers surely lead you to the realization that virtualization is yesterday’s news. Today’s real story deals with how best to make it work, and how to gain the biggest benefit out of it. Private Cloudsare one way to get that benefit. Biggest limitation: Defining what a Private Cloud really is…

15. Pop Quiz: What Makes a Private Cloud? Someone define Private Cloud Computing.

16. Pop Quiz: What Makes a Private Cloud? Someone define Private Cloud Computing. A Private Cloud enables… …availability for individual IT services. …flexibility in managing services, as well as deploying new services. …scalability when physical resources run out. …hardware resource optimization, to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your investment. …resiliency to protect against large-scale incidents. …globalization capacity, enabling the IT infrastructure to be distributed wherever it is needed.

17. Thanks, but No, Really...What Really Makes a Private Cloud? A Private Cloud at its core is little more than… A virtualization technology… …some really good management tools… …and their integration with business processes.

18. Thanks, but No, Really...What Really Makes a Private Cloud? A Private Cloud at its core is little more than… A virtualization technology… …some really good management tools… …and their integration with business processes. “While VMs are the mechanism in which IT services are provided, the Private Cloud infrastructure is the platform that enables those VMs to be created and managed based on business drivers.” Source: My new (and free!) book, Private Clouds: Selecting the Right Hardware for a Scalable Virtual Infrastructure http://www.realtimepublishers.com

19. A Private Cloud is Essentially a Resource Pool

20. A Private Cloud is a Further Abstraction from Simple Virtualization

21. A Private Cloud is a Further Abstraction from Simple Virtualization Rather than focusing on virtual machines and virtualizing,a Private Cloud focuses on the resources.

22. Private Cloud: The User’s Perspective A Private Cloud is perhapseasiest explained from theuser’s perspective.

23. Private Cloud: The User’s Perspective The Cloud A Private Cloud is perhapseasiest explained from theuser’s perspective. Users connect intoa local IT Services DeliveryInfrastructure. The Private Cloud They also connect to theInternet for IT services. The Cloud Cloud Services The Private Cloud

24. Why is thisFundamentally Important? Because, at the end of the day, your users should care less about how their IT services are delivered. They can be delivered locally or remotely. As long as those services are delivered securely and in an always-on fashion, users are enabled to accomplish the tasks and activities of business. Its our job to manage what’s in the black box. Availability – Resource Optimization Flexibility – Resource Quantification Scalability – Globalization & Failover

25. Why is thisFundamentally Important? Because, at the end of the day, your users should care less about how their IT services are delivered. They can be delivered locally or remotely. As long as those services are delivered securely and in an always-on fashion, users are enabled to accomplish the tasks and activities of business. Its our job to manage what’s in the black box. Availability – Resource Optimization Flexibility – Resource Quantification Scalability – Globalization & Failover …and, arguably, what’s in “The Cloud” as well.But that’s a topic for another day.

26. Class Discussion Where is Private Cloud Computing most useful today? Where will it become useful in the future?

27. Part 2How Private Cloud Augments “Simple” Virtualization

28. Private Cloud: Availability Live Migration means VMs can run anywhere. IT can no longer think of service availability by individual server. Users need not worry where services are hosted, only that they’re available. The Private Cloud is constructed with the necessary resources to maintain service availability.

29. Private Cloud: Flexibility “Just a few virtual hosts” quickly becomes a Private Cloud as the scale of its hardware increases. A Private Cloud is a collection of resources that can be reconfigured at any time A Private Cloud is always prepared to incorporate new services immediately. IT’s former technical hurdles need are no longer a business agility drag.

30. Private Cloud: Scalability A Private Cloud and its hardware are seamlessly scalable. New hardware should trivially “snap” into the environment. No operations impact. No extra engineering. No delay. There before you need them. More hardware equals more resources the Private Cloud can use.

31. Private Cloud: Resource Optimization A Private Cloud uses its available resources at a maximum level. Hardware utilization is balanced to protect against overuse. Policies ensure resource availability for VM needs. Resource requirements and capacity are plannable.

32. Private Cloud: Resource Optimization A Private Cloud’s Resource Pools are infinitely malleable. “Project X contributed 30% in $$s to buying the hardware, so we’re going to ensure Project X always has 30%.” “ServerA needs more processing power. Let’s supply that power.” “Business Unit Y is about to expand and they anticipate that they’ll need another 20 VMs, we’ll need to expand our environment to suit.” Resource Pools bring rationality to IT’s traditional “guess and check” mentality. Your gut probably doesn’t like this concept. But this is a good thing. Your boss loves it.

33. Private Cloud: Resource Quantification Resources become quantifiable units within the virtual platform. Blade Enclosure 1 supplies 40,480 MHz of processing,256 GB of RAM. Virtual Machine server1 needs 2,048 MHz of processing,4 GB of RAM Resource assignment evolves from “gut feeling” to numerical supply and demand values.

34. Resource Quantification Each hardware component in a Private Cloud contributes a finite level of capacity to the Resource Pool. Servers contribute processing and memory Storage contributes disk space Networking contributes throughput

35. Resource Quantification Each hardware component in a Private Cloud contributes a finite level of capacity to the Resource Pool. Servers contribute processing and memory Storage contributes disk space Networking contributes throughput Virtual machines assert the quantity of resources they need at every point in time. The Private Cloud supplies these resources. You supply the Private Cloud with hardware. It tells you when you need more. You add more, or you restrict VMs (with notable results).

36. Resource Quantification Exceptionally Important:It is the job of the Private Cloud to abstract each of these contributions and assertions into a numerical value. Numerical values represent supply and demand for resources. Hardware adds to resource supply. Virtual machines exert resource demand. “You need a VM? How big?” Quantitatively meeting supply to demand is what Private Cloud computing is all about. This is simple addition and subtraction. This should not be an arcane art.

37. Doing this SuccessfullyRequires The Right Hardware

38. Doing this Successfully Requires the Right Management Solutions Management that spans past just the hypervisor layer. …that can peer into hardware, network, storage layers for resource quantification. …that includes preconfigured templates for deployment into Resource Pools. …that spans The Cloud &The Private Cloud

39. Doing this SuccessfullyRequires the Right Division of Labor IT Architects and External Service Providers define and construct service templates. IT Administrators manage resources. Service Consumers request and deploy templates from the Service Catalog.

40. Part 3Constructing the Private Cloud

41. Private Cloud: The User’s Perspective Users connect intoa local IT Services DeliveryInfrastructure. The Private Cloud They also connect to theInternet for IT services. The Cloud Cloud Services

42. What’s in the Black Box?

43. What’s in the Black Box?

44. Constructing Processing and Memory Step one is identifying howmuch processing and memoryyour IT Services will need. This is an additive process. # Servers *GHz of Processing per Server # Servers *GB of RAM per Server

45. Constructing Processing and Memory Step 1½ is identifying… …growth capacity …burst capacity …cluster reserve capacity VMware recommendationssuggest 75% of capacityas maximum utilizationduring steady state.

46. Constructing Processing and Memory Step 2 is converting those numbersinto specifications for serversor blades. Example: HP Proliant BL460c G6 blade 2x Intel Xeon 2.53GHz processors Up to 192GB (!) RAM Brocade 8GB FC HBA Dual-port 10Gig-E 2x 146GB RAID 0/1 drives (Just as an aside, isn’t it crazy that you can nowbuy a server with more RAM than disk???)

47. Constructing Processing and Memory Example… 2x 2.53GHz processors / blade * 16 blades/enclosure =40,480 Hz to distribute to VMs 32GB RAM / blade * 8 blades/enclosure =256 GB RAM to distribute to VMs.

48. Class Discussion These last few slides have shown us how to measure capacity. But, how can we really measure demand?

49. Constructing Processing and Memory Tools exist today for capturing VM demand. Multiple third-party tools, or… …consider VMware’s Guided Consolidation...

50. Constructing Networking

51. Constructing Networking Six types of virtual networking Workload-to-user networking Workload-to-storage networking Inter-workload networking Virtual environment-to-backups networking Backups-to-archival networking Virtual environment-to-DR networking Combinations of 1Gig-E and 10Gig-E are now becoming the norm. More throughput for higher-demands. Right-size cost to needs.

52. Constructing Networking ManagementSingle, 1Gb (Share with Prod) StorageMulti, 1GbDual, 10Gb ProductionDual or Multi, 1GbDual, 10Gb (w. Stor)

53. Networking Gotcha’s ESX networking is per-host. Ensure that every host is configured correctly. Changing configuration on one will not affect another. ESX network monitoring is per-host. Network conditions on one host do not impact others. …except when VMs are interrelated, although this is outside the ESX layer. Balance network segregation with consolidation. Segregate out traffic by type. Consolidate traffic within type. VLANs are your friend. CRITICAL: Networking is dynamic.

54. Class Discussion What about NIC consolidation? When is it appropriate to use VLANs?

55. Class Discussion What about NIC consolidation? When is it appropriate to use VLANs? PRO: Reduces NIC count requirements PRO: Lowers hardware costs PRO: Reduces network complexity at the ESX layer PRO: Plays perfectly with 10Gig-E PRO: Trivial to configure

56. Class Discussion What about NIC consolidation? When is it appropriate to use VLANs? PRO: Reduces NIC count requirements PRO: Lowers hardware costs PRO: Reduces network complexity at the ESX layer PRO: Plays perfectly with 10Gig-E PRO: Trivial to configure CON: Increases network complexity at the Cisco layer CON: Greater potential for network saturation. Excessive traffic on one VLAN causes problems for all others. CON: Security concerns. Some (obtuse) VLAN exploits believed in the wild. CON: Trivial to misconfigure

57. Constructing Storage

58. Class Discussion What’s the best SAN for virtualization?

59. Constructing Storage Selected SAN medium does not appear to be based on virtual platform construction. Result: You’re probably stuck with what you’ve got. Source: http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/2009-forrester-storage-choices-virtual-server.pdf

60. Five Capabilities to Lookfor in a SAN 1. Disk Redundancy,a.k.a RAID 3. Networking Redundancy 4. Cross-node Disk Redundancy 2. Processing Redundancy

61. Five Capabilities to Lookfor in a SAN 5. Site-to-Site Replication

62. Nice Features Storage-level thin provisioning. This is different (and augments) ESX-level thin-provisioning. Storage-level snapshots. Can be useful for data backup and replication Storage-level volume replication & cloning. Ensure that storage-level management activities are completed on storage processors. Eliminates impact on ESX processors. Trivial scalability. You want to “snap-and-go” additional storage as needed. Yesteryear’s big iron storage is waning in popularityeverywhere except where already invested.

63. But Irrespective, a SANs a SAN. ESX treats most SAN connections pretty much the same. SCSI Block SCSI iSCSI

64. SAN Connections, are aCompletely Different Story Your goal: 100% SAN Uptime. Redundancy in the SAN itself Redundant connections to storage Redundant paths to storage Verification that paths exist on all ESX servers LIVE DRAW: Sketching out a SAN design. Who would like to offer theirs up as an example?

65. Common Storage Bottlenecks

66. Class Discussion How do you resolve these common bottlenecks? Network contention Type and rotation speed of drives Connection redundancy and aggregation Spindle contention Connection medium Administrative complexity

67. Part 4Justifying the Private Cloud Evolution

68. Class Discussion How has virtualization changed your IT processes? How do you expect Private Cloud to further change those processes?

69. Questions to Ask Yourself What are your reasons for virtualizing? Datacenter automation? Speed of service delivery? How many physical servers are virtualized? What is your rate of new servers? What are your expectations for VM consolidation ratios? 5:1 10:1 15:1 Greater?

70. The Classic Cost Savings Reduced purchasing rate for new servers Reduced electricity consumption Both for servers, and for cooling Reduced hardware maintenance and management costs Termination of hardware leases Reduced cost of downtime Reduction in count of OS licenses Reduction in space/power/cooling costs

71. Potentially Unexpected Costs Geometrically increasing rate of new server creation (VM sprawl). New license costs. New hardware costs. Scaling the environment Complexity Internal IT process complexity. Monitoring complexity. Problem resolution complexity. Why-does-processor-overuse-cause-a-network-issue complexity?

72. Quantifiable Success Measurements Maximize hardware utilization Recognize an X:1 consolidation ratio atop virtual hosts. Recognize an X% resource utilization atop virtual hosts. Reduce server sprawl Reduce servers under management by X% Reduce new server purchase rate by X% Consolidate administrative touch points Reduce administration time per server by X% Reduce number of administrators by X% Minimize downtime Reduce workload downtime to X%

73. Finally: How Do You Get There? Remember: A Private Cloud at its core is little more than… A virtualization technology… …some really good management tools… …and their integration with business processes.

74. Finally: How Do You Get There? Remember: A Private Cloud at its core is little more than… A virtualization technology… …some really good management tools… …and their integration with business processes. You’ll need those three things. You’ll also need a set of hardware that is designed with virtualization and Private Cloud computing in mind. “You don’t want to be ‘white boxing’ your virtual environment, do you? That was a bad idea the last time!”

75. Constructing a vSphere Private Cloud:Strategies for IT Administrators and Decision Makers Greg Shields, MVP Senior Partner and Principal Technologist www.ConcentratedTech.com