Toolbox.com Live Chat
Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide
Virtualization and Service
Management for the Data Center
Transcript of original session on May 4
th, 2010
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
About the Live Chat
Infrastructure-wide virtualization offers great potential for dramatic capital and operational cost reduction and infrastructure agility improvements. Virtualization across servers, storage, networks and applications prepares the infrastructure for the continuous need for change. It enables breakthrough agility to address spikes in demand and, when coupled with IBM service management technologies, provides visibility, control and automation of physical and virtual resources across heterogeneous resources and platforms to help speed deployment of Cloud-based services. Learn how infrastructure-wide virtualization with integrated service management enables organizations to reach a new level of optimization to help standardize processes, simplify operation and speed innovation.
About Pratik Gupta
Pratik Gupta, has over 20 years experience in the IT industry. He is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Virtualization Management Architect in the office of the CTO, Tivoli Software IBM Corporation. Pratik is responsible for architecture and technical strategy related to Virtualization Management.
About IBM
IBM is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Moderator: Thank you for joining today’s chat. We will be starting in a few minutes.
Moderator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for participating in the Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and
Service Management for the Data Center chat today. My name is Kyle Ickes. As the moderator of this chat session, I’m here to facilitate the flow of questions and ideas between today’s presenter and all participating members.
Moderator: Before we get started, please introduce yourself with your name, title and location. Reena: Hi, I'm Reena a product manager in AZ
Romeo Ninov: Romeo Ninov, UNIX expert, IBM IDC Brno
Hariraj58: Venkatesh Harirajan, Project Manager, IBM India, Bangalore, India Cindy: Cindy Vogel, Project Coordinator IT Sec Remediation, Plano TX Moderator: Thank you for your introductions.
Moderator: There is one last introduction before we get started. I would like to introduce Pratik Gupta. Moderator: Mr. Gupta has over 20 years experience in the IT industry. He is an IBM Distinguished
Engineer and Chief Virtualization Management Architect in the office of the CTO, Tivoli Software IBM Corporation. He is responsible for architecture and technical strategy related to Virtualization
Management.
Moderator: Now that we know one another a little better, let’s chat about Infrastructure-Wide
Virtualization. Please submit your questions now.
Dushyant: What is the future of Virtualization in the IT industry and why are people adopting
virtualization?
Pratik Gupta: Hi Dushyant, Virtualization has been around for at least 40 years on the mainframe and a
few decades on POWER (AIX based systems). More recently, the x86 processor enhancements have allowed production level virtualization on that platform. So Virtualization has been prevalent on non x86 platforms for a long while and now it is on x86 as well. It is here to stay.
Pratik Gupta: They are adopting virtualization because of its benefits like higher utilization, lower capital
expense (fewer severs to buy), lower energy cost, and greater flexibility (it is easier to provision and do workload mgmt and other operations on virtual systems).
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Hariraj58: Q. How Software Licensing policy works from different vendors like VMware, RedHat and
Microsoft on Virtualized Hosts and Storage Devices? If it is processor based, then is it right to say, we have to pay twice the cost for Dual Processor based Virtual Hosts? In case of Guest OS and eBusiness Applications that are being installed and running on every virtual host, how one can reduce software license cost in addition to saving on power, cooling and space etc? This answer will help us in reducing the total cost of ownership for our clients.
Pratik Gupta: Licensing in a virtual environment is a complex topic. Different software vendors have
different polices.
Pratik Gupta: Some require licensing based on the physical sever, while others based on maximum
cores allocated while others don’t support it at all.
Pratik Gupta: IBM has Sub-Capacity licensing that changes based on the cores (max) allocated to the
Virtual system and not on the whole physical server.
Romeo Ninov: My question is how IBM and especially Mr. Gupta see integration between software
based and hardware based virtualization
Pratik Gupta: Virtualization is taking place at many levels: Storage, Network, Server, Operating
Systems, Applications.
Pratik Gupta: A good solution design looks at the workloads and takes advantage of the appropriate
technology.
Pratik Gupta: So e.g. the x86 hypervisors are using the hardware VT technology in Intel processors
effectively to virtualize OS.
Pratik Gupta: Certain solutions are better put on OS containers.
Craig: How would you recommend starting on the virtualization journey? Where should an organization
start?
Pratik Gupta: Craig, The first step is to understand your workloads. The type of system including
virtualization technology you choose, the management tools you need depend on that.
Pratik Gupta: From a platform perspective, if you have a workload that is "scale up" i.e. as demand
increases, the only way to scale is to provide it with more CPU and Memory and IO and you cannot create many instances of it (clusters), or if you have workload that has very high IO demand (Net or storage) then you are better off picking a bigger platform like POWER or SystemZ. In fact most
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
it has relatively low IO requirements then x86 platform will do. Pick your storage and network infrastructure on your data proximity and throughput requirements.
Pratik Gupta: Next you need to determine how important the application is to your organization. For
critical services, you will need Service Management capabilities. One that gives you visibility into the application, structure monitors the components of a service and provisions and configures the application and virtual images as needed and presents this information on a business dashboard so that you can focus on important issues in delivering IT service. Basic hypervisor tools that are available provide you a resource view only not a service view.
Romeo Ninov: Containers as they exist in other UNIX OSes?
Pratik Gupta: Romeo, yes I mean you can virtualize at the VM level using say Xen, VMware, POWER
VM or at the OS layer as in Containers, WPARS
Pratik Gupta: But you need to do that based on your workload, usage and scale requirements Pratik Gupta: Other issues also play in this decision e.g. license
Madhurranjan: What are challenges that organizations face when they start the transformation? Pratik Gupta: Madhurranjan, When you move from Physical to virtual systems (see answer above on
how to think about this). The first problems administrator face is visibility and problem debugging. i.e. someone called and said that the application is not running or does not have good
performance….because in virtual systems, there is a new layer of software called the hypervisor, and VMs can move
Pratik Gupta: So it is important to be able to show what application is running on which VM and on
which server the VM is running and what other VMs are connected to it and what are the Virtual IO adapter rates specially as compared to when it was running ok.
Pratik Gupta: IBM Service Management tools are specially designed to show this and allow you to solve
your availability and performance management problems in a virtual infrastructure. IBM Tivoli Monitoring and IBM Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager. By the way, all these tools manage IBM and non IBM Platforms.
Pratik Gupta: The next problem is of VM image sprawl. Without adequate Image Management and IT
processes, you end up having lots of Virtual Images and it becomes very difficult to track which image is old, new, who owns them, is it patched. Again, there are very few tools in the industry who have
addressed this. IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager has a full Image Library that allows you to manage all your virtual images
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Pratik Gupta: the next problem they face is a combination of workload optimization, availability, security
based on the applications and there are IBM tools in the Service Management portfolio that solve each of these problems.
Moderator: If you have any questions you would like to ask, please feel free to do so at any time. Hariraj58: What is future of Virtualization of Desktops and Printers under LAN/WAN setup and how it
can improve the quality of Services in IT Industry?
Pratik Gupta: There is a major transformation taking place in Virtual Desktops as well.
Pratik Gupta: A larger number of organizations are finding that they can reduce the cost of IT delivery
and provide better management by moving to virtual desktops for a certain subset of the users
Pratik Gupta: Patching, Compliance, Backup, upgrades are all more reliable in a virtual desktop
environment. But it is not for all use cases. E.g. a disconnected user who has to travel and do a lot of off line work.
Hariraj58: Can you please explain how the technology works for Virtualization of Desktops and Printers
etc?
Pratik Gupta: The most common method is to host a virtual machine on a server that corresponds to the
desktop and the user connects to the screen of the VM using a protocol such as RDP. There are smart terminals that support these protocols
Pratik Gupta: So effectively, you are running a large number of desktops on servers and the user just
has a terminal that provides Keyboard, mouse and screen. This works for desktop OSs like Windows or Linux
Pratik Gupta: The real advantage is that now you can optimize CPU, Storage and patch the virtual
images of the desktops. A regular desktop is < 5% utilized with this you need less hardware
Romeo Ninov: Its looks like no so much different that X terminals :)
Pratik Gupta: Absolutely, it is very similar and now the windows world can take advantage of this. Pratik Gupta: But the difference is that now you have a whole bank of virtual systems running and they
get the advantage of higher utilization, VM mobility and availability
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Pratik Gupta: Security is critical in a virtual environment -both servers and desktops.
Pratik Gupta: So there are tools like IBM Virtual Server protection for VMware that protect all the VMs
on a server
Pratik Gupta: There are solutions that zone the environment and provide isolation of server, storage and
networks
Hariraj58: Ok, thank you Pratik Gupta. Though VMware is the leading Virtualization Technology Vendor,
recently RedHat had also come with their product RHEV, Xen etc. Company which is doing such transformation of their Data-Centre from Physical to Virtual, should rely on which Vendor?
Pratik Gupta: In this case you mentioned x86 vendors only. So I am assuming you have done the
workload analysis and are now looking at the x86 workloads
Pratik Gupta: In terms of the hypervisor, all these are converging on similar capability
Pratik Gupta: in terms of performance, VM mobility etc. Although VMware has a bit of a head start,
Hyper-V is catching up and Xen has been used in Clouds effectively and Open source like KVM has a lot to promise
Pratik Gupta: In the end the decision for solution should be based on the management you will need to
do. i.e. the hypervisor choice may not matter and you should keep your options open.
Pratik Gupta: but spend your time and resources on good management as that will give you the needed
ROI.
Pratik Gupta: All hypervisors will give you CAPEX reduction Hariraj58: Ok, thanks Pratik
Romeo Ninov: What about clouds and zSeries, can they "live" together?
Pratik Gupta: Romeo, absolutely. System Z supports a cloud delivery model and we have a number of
customers who are implementing this.
Pratik Gupta: You need the right set of automation tools and you can use your System Z as a cloud
Platform. Tivoli Service Automation Manager is the tooling you need.
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Joel Rosas: What are the major differences between to-physical server migration and
physical-to-virtual server migration using IBM Server virtualization solutions?
Pratik Gupta: Joel, There are many ways of migrating applications. IBM provides services and tools to
do this.
Pratik Gupta: You may choose to consolidate workloads from many smaller physical systems to a larger
physical system.
Pratik Gupta: You may choose to move from Physical to virtual. In the POWER and System Z case, the
image you use e.g. mksysb Image is same. In case of x86, there are Tools like TPM for Images that do the conversion from Physical to Virtual and Back and Virtual to Virtual.
Benjamin: How does IBM plan to lead in the virtualization and service management area? Pratik Gupta: IBM has market leading tools in Service Management and also been the leader in
virtualization (having invented it for mainframe). The IBM Service Management portfolio is one of the strongest in the industry
Pratik Gupta: in providing Virtualization, Control and Automation of Virtual Systems in the context of
your business service.
Z: Vmware is more secure than Hyper-v because they have Msefe and mechanisms of security, or not? Pratik Gupta: So this is a comment on some of the other vendors, there are a number of capabilities I
have seen announced from both vendors.
Pratik Gupta: As you said that VMSafe APIS and the capability VMware is delivering is a good start. Pratik Gupta: For high security and compliance, I would still suggest you use System Z or POWER as
they have many years of security certification.
Pratik Gupta: In addition to the APIs, select the correct Identity, Access, Compliance tools that don’t
depend on the APIs.
Moderator: There are 15 minutes remaining in this chat. If you have any questions you would like to
submit, please do so now.
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Pratik Gupta: Kevin, IBM recommends first understanding the workloads, planning consolidation and
moving the workloads to the correct platforms, picking the right set of tools and more importantly having the correct set of IT best practices in place to manage this environment, Having a clear set of metrics and goals for Both consolidation and CAPEX savings and ongoing management and OPEX savings. In addition, understanding the transformation that is taking place and identifying areas that can benefit from even greater level of automation and standardization and moving them to a cloud delivery model.
Z: Thank you Gupta
Edward: What is your take on the VCE gang?
Pratik Gupta: Edward, while I will not comment on this directly, it points to an important point in
implementing virtualization. That is that you have look at Server, Storage, Network together.
Pratik Gupta: So this means that some players in the industry will form alliances and try and integrate
tools- this takes time and others like IBM have the pre-integrated solutions that have all this -like IBM Cloudburst.
Hariraj58: Mr.Pratik, could you please explain how Virtualization on Storage devices help Organization
to improve their Quality of Data Backup & Recovery Procedures?
Pratik Gupta: Storage virtualization solutions like IBM SVC and backup solutions like Tivoli Storage
Manager provide ability to use storage more efficiently and offload backups to tools outside the server
Pratik Gupta: Thus one does not need to have a backup agent in the VM, one can backup off VM, and
even off server.
Fabricio: Virtualization is mature enough for mission-critical?
Pratik Gupta: Fabricio, Virtualization on Z and POWER has been mission critical for a large number of
years. This is because there are specific capabilities in these hypervisors that are tolerant of hardware and Driver and NIC failures.
Pratik Gupta: on x86, the hypervisors are still maturing. But for certain apps, with the right availability
and performance solutions, you can build mission critical solutions
Pratik Gupta: You need good monitoring, event system, application level availability solutions like Tivoli
Systems Automation in conjunction with good hypervisor based availability solutions and good hardware management
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
Moderator: There are 5 minutes remaining in this chat. If you have any last questions you would like to
submit, please do so now.
Aveen: what are the monitoring and system tools IBM offers to reduce virtualization work load? Pratik Gupta: IBM offers IBM Tivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager for understanding
workload topology, IBM Tivoli Monitoring for monitoring current and historical performance, Tivoli Provisioning Manager for Image management
Pratik Gupta: and provisioning. IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager for measuring usage
allocation and cost accounting
Z: what is the type of architecture used in Z and POWER? It is like Hyper-v or like VMware?
Pratik Gupta: Z and Power have a much different Hypervisor architecture. They allow configuration at
multiple levels, allocation of hardware and dynamic allocation of resources to Virtual machines and LPARS and redundant and isolated IO subsystems.
Pratik Gupta: that allows for greater security, isolation and performance.
Moderator: Well, we're out of time for today's chat. Thank you all for attending the Infrastructure-Wide
Virtualization and Service Management for the Data Center chat and for asking so many great questions.
Moderator: Pratik, do you have any final comments you would like to share?
Pratik Gupta: Thank you for joining me for this Internet chat. I enjoyed this conversation, hopefully you
did too. For further information on IBM virtualization solutions please visit:
Pratik Gupta: HUhttp://www.ibm.com/virtualizationU
Pratik Gupta: HUhttp://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/solutions/virtualization-managementU Pratik Gupta: HUhttp://www.ibm.com/cloudU
Moderator: An e-mail notification will be sent when transcripts of this chat are available.
Moderator: There is also an upcoming IBM Live Chat on May 19th about Convergence of BPM and SOA
Toolbox.com Live Chat: Infrastructure-Wide Virtualization and Service Management
About Toolbox.com
Toolbox.com helps professionals do their jobs better by enabling them to easily share knowledge with experienced peers. The online communities at Toolbox.com include professional networking, blogs, discussion groups, wikis, and a vendor research directory through which executives and professionals collaborate to solve problems, make decisions, and increase workplace efficiency. Through the
community, advertising partners can engage prospects and customers either directly or by integrating their message through a proprietary contextual matching engine. This combination of community and advertising value has made Toolbox.com a leading destination for professionals and a leader in online advertising. Toolbox.com is a division of Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD). For more information, visit HUwww.toolbox.comUH
