VMWorld 2007 Recap

svmw

It’s never too late, so here’s my take on VMWorld 2007…

The virtualization conference of the year, VMWorld 2007 certainly did not disappoint. The highlights of newly presented functionality is as follows:


VMware’s new VDI Connection Broker, Virtual Desktop Manager 2 includes some very useful new features such as USB re-direction.


For those familiar with the GUI appliance I built as part of a DR solution, VMware has integrated similar functionality into an upcoming release of Virtual Center. Dubbed, “Site Recovery Manager,” the new addition was presented at the VMWare booth in the Solutions Exchange. The demo was simply a looping video file, but it walked through setting up a secondary site, inputting IP addresses, how it plugs into the storage array (each vendor will need a specific script to issue the remap of LUNs) and testing the scenario. The fact that it integrates, more or less, with the array and a mirrored LUN is very promising. Currently I use a rescan script to handle array failures, but this would allow the LUNs to be pre-mapped and provide very seamless failover. Instead of having to recognize the failure and then take action with a rescan job, my thought is that it could failover in more of a multi-pathing failover scenario. Very impressive. However, the release date was muttered to be Q3 2008.


An upcoming new powerful configuration component of DRS, Distributed Power Management will allow Virtual Center to execute power commands on VI3 hosts.

The concept is that a DRS cluster will efficiently use its power consumption by monitoring its need.

For example, a cluster of 16 VI3 hosts with only enough workload to push 12 VI3 hosts will then power off the 4 unnecessary hosts. The beauty is that 4 servers are now in a low voltage state idling as opposed to the way many servers run 24/7 – with multiple-fans in full glory requiring melted baby seals to supply power. Now the cluster picks up and an additional 2 VI3 host worth of resources are needed. Well, Distributed Power Management would issue a power-on command and the two hosts would be brought online.

Fantastic. I really think the technology industry needs to stop mimicking the auto industry here. In America, our relatively small cars are still closing in on two tons, and instead of utilizing small displacement and highly efficient engines, we’re forced to shove 6 and 8 cylinder engines into the 2 ton cars just to propel them at an acceptable rate of speed. For awhile, server technology has followed the same approach, whereas today, “Green” is becoming en vogue. Regardless of the reasons, this benefits us all. I’ll now step off my soap box…


For those that performed an ESX 2.x —> VI3 upgrade, those in the know used the beloved VMotion with data store replication (a/k/a “dMotion”). This method allow a virtual machine to be VMotion’d from LUN1 to LUN2 with zero downtime, utilizing existing snapshot technology. Well the good news is that this is a very successful method from going from ESX 2.x —> VI3. The bad news is that the dMotion feature is only available for the upgrade path, not from doing a VI3 to VI3 migration when you want to relocate a virtual machine to another LUN. For shame. Well the time is coming when we will be able to do this dMotion for the production world, and it shall be called, Storage VMotion. This will allow for nondisruptive migrations to a different storage platform or LUN should the need arise. There are some differences between dMotion and Storage VMotion. In dMotion the goal is to get a virtual machine off an ESX host and onto a VI3 host. With Storage VMotion, the goal is to simply get the virtual machine onto a different piece of storage. Therefore, the process does not involve VMotion’ing the virtual machine to a new host.

For example, I have a virtual machine that really does almost nothing; it’s utilizing very little IO and very little memory. Your current VI3 host has both FC storage and iSCSI (perhaps provided through an appliance?) and you decide to move the virtual machine onto cheaper disk. No longer do you need to power off the virtual machine and do a cold migration. You will soon be able to migrate the virtual machine to different storage will it remains online. Storage VMotion was apparently the #1 most requested feature from the VMWare Customer Advisory Council, and not surprising.


I have not reviewed any of the products displayed at the vendor booths but I’m currently working with a few vendors to provide kit for my testing and review.

I hope to present reviews of a few different solutions on this site in the coming months.

Look for VMWorld 2008 next year in Las Vegas, and hopefully I will once again be able to give you a preview of what’s to come.

VMWare has also made the presentation from VMWorld 2007 available for download. I recommend the following VMWorld 2007 Presentations for review:


PS_IO43_288099_166-1_FIN_v3.pdf
Top Support Issues & How to Troubleshoot them – Part 1
Cormac Hogan
VMware, EMEA Technical Support

PS_IO46_288210_166-1_FIN_v4.pdf
IO46
Advanced ESX 3.0.x Diagnostics Log Analysis
Mostafa Khalil
VMware, Product Support Engineering

PS_IP42_288740_166-1_FIN_v6.pdf
IP42
ESX Storage Performance – A Scalability Study
Sunil Satnur, Rosie Wacha, Irfan Ahmad
VMware

PS_IP57_287753_166-1_FIN_v2.pdf
IP57
Scripting ESX Servers Install And The Power Of The %Post
Stephen Beaver
Florida Hostpital

PS_TA24_288580_166-1_FIN_v2.pdf
TA24
DRS Deep Dive and Technology: Preview of Distributed Power Management
Minwen Ji
VMware Staff Engineer

PS_TA48_288131_166-1_FIN_v2.pdf
TA48
Advanced VMFS Configuration and Troubleshooting
Mostafa Khalil
VMWare Staff Engineer, Product Support

PS_TA54_288487_166-1_FIN_v4.pdf
TA54
Technology Preview – Storage VMotion
Kit Colbert
VMWare, Staff Engineer

PS_WV16_287752_166-1_FIN_v2.pdf
WV16
Running Windows Active Directory in Virtual Infrastructure 3
Chris Skinner
VMWare, Technical Instructor

PS_WV23_288072_166-1_FIN_v2.pdf
Session WV23
Fast and Easy Disk Workload Characterization on ESX/VI3
Irfan Ahmad
VMWare, R&D Engineer
– Jason Langone

Posted on Sep 26, 11:48 AM by Jason Langone

Commenting is closed for this article.

Commenting is closed for this article.