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Inside VMware's 'Virtual Datacenter OS'
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Sep 20, 2008 09:17 AM
from the closer-look dept.
from the closer-look dept.
snydeq writes "Neil McAllister cuts through VMware's marketing hype to examine the potential impact of VMware's newly pronounced 'virtual datacenter OS' — which the company has touted as the death knell for the traditional OS. Literally an operating system for the virtual datacenter, VDC OS is an umbrella concept to build services and APIs that make it easier to provision and allocate resources for apps in an abstract way. Under the system, McAllister writes, apps are reduced to 'application workloads' tailored through vApp, a tool that will allow developers to 'encapsulate the entire app infrastructure in a single bundle — servers and all.' The concept could help solve the current bugbear of programming, parallel processing, McAllister concludes, assuming VMware succeeds."
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IT: VirtualBox 2.1 Supports 64-Bit VM In 32-Bit Host 374 comments
Stephen Birch writes "Following closely behind the mid-November 2.06 release of VirtualBox, Sun Microsystems has released version 2.1. This has a number of new features, but one of the most interesting is the ability to run a 64-bit VM inside a 32-bit host. Another useful feature is integrated host-based networking; no more fiddling around with network bridges. Sun is really giving VMWare a run for their money."
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Nothing to sell here, move along (Score:4, Insightful)
So it's not just vaporware, it's an "umbrella concept" that will be built into future products.
Re:Nothing to sell here, move along (Score:5, Funny)
Well, since there were complains from the /. community about vaporware (if not an actual product) and slashvertizements (if an actual product) we thought it would be an improvement to avoid these and hence introduce the "umbrella concept".
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
So it's not just vaporware, it's an "umbrella concept" that will be built into future products.
In other words, it's plasmaware!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
well clouds are made of vapor...
We've come full circle (Score:5, Interesting)
The real nut of my questions is, what would we need to add to more conventional OS's (linux) to get the job done? For my money, the biggest problem is package interdependencies. IMHO much VM usage is actually just to address that issue. We need package management that isolates applications from each other, giving the appearance of a custom chroot environment for each, while silently sharing resources (such as .so's) that just happen to be the same in multiple applications.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks, it sounds very interesting. Do the virtuozzo containers all share OS files (libraries) to the extent possible? One of my main problems with VMWare is that a VM itself takes so much disk space that it takes a long time to work with (copy, archive etc) and I can't fit many on my laptop. Somewhat paradoxically, it must be possible to snapshot an application with its entire environment so you have a known working version.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my main problems with VMWare is that a VM itself takes so much disk space that it takes a long time to work with (copy, archive etc) and I can't fit many on my laptop. Somewhat paradoxically, it must be possible to snapshot an application with its entire environment so you have a known working version.
If I'm understanding you correctly, the solution you are after is already offered by VMware:
http://vmware.com/products/thinapp/ [vmware.com]
Make sure to check the features tab for a more summarized and technical overview of what exactly ThinApp does and is capable of. Unfortunately, ThinApp is currently Windows only; I have no idea if they are intending to support Unix OS's in the future.
Is this the sort of functionality you are thinking about? Apologies if I've misintepreted your comment.
It's just that all current OS's are lacking (Score:4, Insightful)
Except from IBM of course.
vmware is simply the logical extension of what the OS should be doing anyway.
or put another way.
Those who don't buy IBM kit are condemned to reimpliment (badly, and for the rest of their lives) what IBM have been doing for decades.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
IBM: the only company who can pack mainframe complexity into 2U.
No, thanks. Give me Sun over IBM ANY day of the week. Every time I have to deal with IBM/AIX, I wind up with a headache.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Those who don't buy IBM kit are condemned to reimpliment
> (badly, and for the rest of their lives) what IBM have been
> doing for decades.
First, the troll rating is utterly unjustified. Mod parent up.
IBM is not without its own faults. Perhaps less so now than in the 1970s and 80s when the push for PCs took root, but it has its own weaknesses. Even taking that into account it _is_ ridiculous to see the Wintel world groping toward the kind if high availability and virtualization that IBM, DEC, CD
Re:We've come full circle (Score:4, Informative)
They are not replacing Linux. You still run your what you want on Linux, but do you run everything on ONE Linux box? If yes, you're not a good candidate for a Datacenter OS. If you run many servers, then there is almost definitely room for efficiency in that structure.
Rather than dedicating the full bare hardware to your App, you deploy as a VM in your Virtual Datacenter ( mini cloud ). The DCOS takes care of managing the resources, things like:
- Moving your server VM from compute node to compute node to automatically balance load and optimize performance,
- Move VMs to work around failures, allow hardware upgrades, etc. without downtime.
- Expand capacity by dropping another compute node into the cloud (the big difference between the old mainframe world and the new DCOS. This scales easily with cheap powerful nodes)
- Move the machine images around your storage infrastructure, to allow for management, maintenance, upgrade, expansion, etc.
- Provide recovery and even fault tolerance of hardware. Servers can automatically move and re-start on hardware failure; or they can even run in lockstep to maintain full operation through a node failure.
This is VMware's big lead (and big need to leverage, as the revenue from the hypervisor layer dries up). They provide the management layer that enables all the above, and they keep improving it. From a central GUI, I can manage all my VMs, manage the compute resources as a cluster.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not exactly. VDC-OS does actually replace Windows and/or Linux. Think of it as a Linux kernel, and instead of InitV startup your app starts up. You don't maintain users and directories or storage or even log into a shell. The OS is reduced to just enough to run 1 application and only 1 application.
This OS/App bundle is created with a basic config file and is then started just like you'd start a virtual machine on an ESX server or server cluster. ESX can then handle the migration and resources of all th
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure if you're talking about the hypervisor OS, or what.. Yes, ESXi is a very thin OS, but the servers / applications run in a VM which needs a standard OS. This is VMware's "Virtual Appliance" concept. The OS should be a really minimal stripped down build, usually Linux based, but it is a real OS.
The VDC-OS is just the underlying ESXi thin hypervisor, with VirtualCenter managing the resources. This is what VMware has been doing for quite a while now, the new name is partly some new feat
Yawn (Score:2)
This is a sticking plaster for the lousy PC architecture which today is being forced into places it was never designed for. Read up on what IBM and Tandem were doing back in the 70s and 80s which hardware that was designed for this.
This isn't hot new tech, its putting lipstick on a turd so companies can save a few pennies.
Re: (Score:2)
I have and it's the difference between a baby crawling and the star ship enterprise's warp drive. Sure they are both forms of transportation, but one does a lot more. And while PC hardware may not have been designed for virtualization, it has been redesigned for it.
(Open) Solaris (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Have you considered doing minimal Linux installs inside your VMWare? This way you can store more VMs on one machine. /usr from the host O/S to the guest O/S through NFS or the like, also saving disk space.
You can also take the BSD approach and share your
Xen on Linux already gets rid of a few layers by implementing paravirtualization.
If you combine all 3 measures, you can host several high-performance VMs one a relatively small machine.
Personally, I would simply buy a bigger disk and more RAM, because that $
Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
FTFA: "In short, if done properly, a meta-operating system based on networked virtual machines could streamline software development, make IT more flexible, and save customers money."
It is hard to argue with a truism. But what does "done properly" entail?
Re:Summary (Score:5, Funny)
In this case, if you ONLY use VMWARE products throughout your organization, then you have configured your systems properly.
Parent
I cant get them to use it now! (Score:3, Interesting)
Getting traditional "silo" orientated programmers to use distributed computing is hard now!
This server is for chocolate, this one for peanut butter... don't let them touch!
Even GRID enabled software like Informatica is hard to get them to understand. Don't worry where it runs, don't try to segregate workloads... the software is smarter than you!
Let it do it's damn job.
THAT is why VMWare is on the right track with this (Score:4, Insightful)
And (for many of them) it's never going to get any easier.
It is too easy for them to just think of "one program, one OS, one machine".
Their app takes all the resources it sees from the OS it sees on the machine it sees.
So VMWare "solves" this by making it easy (for a price) for each app to believe that it has it's own machine. So the programmers can keep working they've always worked.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Wish I had mod points this post is very relevant to the resistance to VM where I am now.
done already (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
encapsulation and abstraction (Score:4, Interesting)
I have used VDC OS. Ultimately it is just a convergence of the existing technologies Vmware has already been developing, upgraded to a new level. I can say, it is very, very nice and clean.
What it gives a data center manager is abstraction and ease of use. The physical way everything is deployed one-off into a datacenter, you need a new application, it involves buying new servers, racks, power and whatnot. If you need to move those servers to another center, or deal with business continuance and disaster recovery, it is a new discrete project.
With VDC, no more. You build all of that into the datacenter "OS", and when a new application comes along they are put into the VDC OS and they inherit everything, not just HA but BC, DR and all of the ease of use. If they don't want BC or DR, they don't pay into that bucket.
Need to move a Datacenter? Use the DR solutions in VDC OS, and you can do it in the middle of the day without your users noticing more than a slight 5-minute bump (or so--largely to let the network routes update).
VMware is so far beyond everybody else in the virutalization industry, it is almost comical to hear other people shout the battle cry of 'Xen' or 'Hyper-V'. Those are nice toys, but the surrounding tools are klunky and almost non-functional, leaving just the hypervisor. What VMware is trying to say with "VDC OS" is that the game already left the hypervisor, that is why everybody is all but giving the hypervisor away for free now.
I may sound like a fanboy, but after having worked in the datacenter for 15+ years I can say this technology really works, and its about time. We can now move the datacenter from the hobbiest market it has been in up to now, into the dialtone it should be.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I have to disagree with AC that "vmware is the only solution", 6 months ago we evaluated both vmware (which we had been using in dev and test for years) and the Citrix Xen product and decided to go for Xen for our production systems based upon performance we saw (yes yes YMMV) cost, and the open nature of the API. The problem was finding a strong partner/integrator to help us swing our server estate from physical to virtual in the time allotted.
So far the systems have been solid, and required only a couple
Re:encapsulation and abstraction (Score:5, Insightful)
6 months ago we evaluated both vmware (which we had been using in dev and test for years) and the Citrix Xen product and decided to go for Xen for our production systems based upon performance we saw (yes yes YMMV) cost, and the open nature of the API. The problem was finding a strong partner/integrator to help us swing our server estate from physical to virtual in the time allotted.
Then you missed the GP's point. If XenSource (Citrix XenSource : VMware VI as Xen : ESX) satisfies your needs, then you aren't doing anything for which you need a datacenter OS. (And if you evaluated anything more expensive than the cheapest VMware offering, you botched your product search too.)
For server consolidation and bare-bones start/stop management, there is not much difference between VMware, Xen, and Hyper-V. They all have roughly the same performance; ESX degrades least when overloaded and there's a small premium for an ESX cluster because of it. Go to the next tier where you need automated load-balancing, automated availability solutions, and automated backup, and VMware is the only game in town. (Short of IBM mainframes.)
Server consolidation != datacenter OS, despite the "me too!" claims of MSFT and Citrix. MSFT's roadmap puts them in the same ballpark in 2-3 years, Citrix 3 years back on the VMware roadmap, and VMware is there right now.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I see VDC OS as a possibly bigger headache for those of us in security. Where I work, we already have issues with the ESX systems. VMWare's virtual switches are more akin to virtual hubs. Efficiently segregating the individual servers from each other within the same virtual network is difficult if not impossible.
Some solutions may be coming up for this. We've talked to Checkpoint and Reflex about their technologies to address these issues. Even so, I can't help but think that virtualization providers a
Re:encapsulation and abstraction (Score:4, Funny)
With VDC, no more. You build all of that into the datacenter "OS", and when a new application comes along they are put into the VDC OS and they inherit everything, not just HA but BC, DR and all of the ease of use. If they don't want BC or DR, they don't pay into that bucket
Yeah, but what about TR, WD, RF, and GH? Not to mention NR, SS, and BD? How could they leave thouse out - I mean WTF?
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
To clear up the acronym soup a little:
HA = High Availability
Technology that aims to ensure (high) availability of virtual machines across a virtualised cluster through intelligent monitoring of VM's and cluster resources.
http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/vc/ha.html [vmware.com]
DR = Distributed Resource Scheduler (I assume that's what parent meant)
Provides much more advanced and fine-grained control of the available resources in a virtualised cluster.
http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/vc/drs.html [vmware.com]
BC = Consolidated Backup (
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think it is, actually.
We've got some VMware guys at my job doing a proof of concept for us. (I work for one of those big companies where people hear the name and that cha-ching noise happens in their head.)
Each VM has its own MAC address, and the virtualization layer includes a network switch. So long as the switch knows where to send the packets, and the other end of the TCP connection is willing to tolerate a few moments of silence while the VM moves, it should work.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yep - the "cutover" happens faster that the TCP timeout window. The connection stays alive, and even if a packet is lost it simply gets resent when the ACK goes missing.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, VMware provides a technology for its datacenter level products called VMotion that does exactly that, moving VM's between physical virtualised servers in a cluster while preserving all active networking connections.
I don't know the specifics of how it works and manages that feat, but I have seen tech demos that show it in action. I watched one a while ago published by Dell showing a VMotion task in progress, I'm sure you can find it on the web somewhere with some digging around.
Regardless, it does work
Network security in a "virtual datacenter OS" (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm OpenMosix (Score:3, Interesting)
All of IBM's old ideas are new again (Score:4, Insightful)
VM? LPAR? Parallel Sysplex? Haven't IBM mainframes been doing this since the '70s (okay, Parallel Sysplex has only been since the '90s)?
No doubt a "cloud" of UNIX boxes is harder to marshall than a couple of zSeries though.
Re:All of IBM's old ideas are new again (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe, but IBM mainframes don't use cheap off the shelf components that you can pick up at the local Fry's. You can build a small VMware cluster with HA, DRS, etc for a few thousand bucks. How much is an IBM mainframe these days?
Once you have that VMware cluster you can run your choice of 70+ operating systems and millions of apps on it. Can you run Exchange on a mainframe? Sieble? Your existing billing and accounting app?
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Once you have that VMware cluster you can run your choice of 70+ operating systems and millions of apps on it. Can you run Exchange on a mainframe? Sieble? Your existing billing and accounting app?
Well, you can run whatever runs on Linux on top of a mainframe. And if you're a Fortune 500 corporation, chances are your existing billing and accounting applications are *already* running on a mainframe. That is, after all, what the old girl is built for.
Re:All of IBM's old ideas are new again (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you can run whatever runs on Linux on top of a mainframe.
Only if you recompile those apps to run on the special versions of Linux that run on mainframes. Let's see: I can recompile my app to run on some weird offshoot of Linux on expensive, proprietary hardware or I can take it and "P2V" it onto VMware running which ever flavor of mainstream Linux I prefer? Oh, and I can P2V my Windows apps onto that same VMware cluster? And all that for a fraction of the price? Sold.
Just to be clear I'm not saying that the mainframe has no place in the modern datacenter, I'm just saying that VMware is a better fit in many situations. (And it's certainly an order of magnitude cheaper.)
And if you're a Fortune 500 corporation, chances are your existing billing and accounting applications are *already* running on a mainframe. That is, after all, what the old girl is built for.
Not sure where the F500 argument came from, but since 486 out of those 500 already use VMware I think they're already sold. (All 100 of the F100, BTW.) http://www.vmware.com/customers/ [vmware.com]
In any case, my original point remains. Mainframes are expensive and proprietary whereas VMware is cheap and offers the flexibility to run whatever app on whatever OS you choose. This new VDC-OS stuff just builds on an already good thing. We'll be happy to renew our ELA when it comes up next year.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah , they have (Score:2)
But people in IT rarely read up on their own history so think everything they haven't seen before is cutting edge tech.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What about Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
And after a few years when Microsoft follows VMWare, we'll have Microsoft DataCenter OS, abbreviated MS-DOS.
This is the real deal (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I work for VMware, and I just came back from VMworld in Vegas (exhausted BTW).
In all my 5 years in the company, I must say that this is the most comprehensive re-thinking of the long-term strategy for virtualization I've seen to date. It brings a new sense of direction that matches where the markets are going.
I agree with most of the comments in this thread regarding the benefits of the VDC-OC, but this is just one part of this picture. IMHO, the biggest change is the "Federation with the Cloud" strategy, where a company may choose to use, move or spawn new or existing workloads directly into a service provider on-demand, maintaining the SLAs (from security to capacity) and then bring them back to the internal cloud if needed.
I mean, go a talk to a CFO or a COO, and they'll [most of the time] politely complain about IT being expensive, and not fast enough to react to the changes the company needs. Shared services are still seen as optional and many business units still prefer to implement their own thing. With this model, IT becomes a true utility, with a pay-as-you-go menu that implements a coherent chargeback model that will bring a smile to the guys in dark suits.
Even if VMware doesn't succeed in these efforts, the genie is out of the bottle and somebody else will make it happen.
Really interesting times to be in IT.
Trigence already does this -- really well (Score:2)
pronounced? (Score:2)
I always wondered how you pronounced 'virtual datacenter OS.'
Now, I wonder if they'll ever announce this as a product.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it's a perfectly cromulent use of "pronounced".
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed on an IBM Mainframe you could run any number of VM's of various flavors and they were all under the control CMS and life was very very good indeed, but those days are ....
Ohh yeah, they are still here! VMWare is just re-inventing a very well designed wheel that has been rolling for the last few decades so what is the point?
Is it just a reincarnation of the Not Invented Here syndrome, yet again?
Well it goes like this... (Score:2)
Mainframes in the late 80s suddenly became big , nasty and old fashioned systems and desperately untrendy. The PC and unix boxes suddenly became the system de jour and all the supposed hot new talent went in that direction. Unfortunately , not being very good at reading history they had zero clue as to what mainframes actually got up to and so its taken them this long to effectively re-invent the wheel. So endeth this tale.