Chris Wolf
Research VP
4 years at Gartner
16 years IT industry
Chris Wolf is a research vice president for Gartner's IT Professionals service. He covers server and client virtualization, cloud computing, data protection, management and classification, disaster recovery, and business continuity. Read Full Bio
by Chris Wolf | September 20, 2011 | 6 Comments
Remember the days of Windows NT Server? I was among the many who mocked it as a serious data center server operating system. Then came Windows 2000 Server, and perceptions began to change. With the release of Windows Server 2003, Microsoft turned the tide of server OS dominance in the data center, placing Microsoft on a path to where the majority of servers would run a Windows OS. What initially seemed like a pipe dream became reality, and I was among many who were wrong about Microsoft’s chances as a dominant server OS vendor.
That takes us to last week’s Microsoft Build conference, where Microsoft demonstrated several significant feature enhancements coming to the next generation of Hyper-V. If you compare Hyper-V maturity to Windows Server OS maturity, this could be the equivalent to Windows Server 2003. Microsoft unveiled many new features that positions Hyper-V as a serious enterprise-grade virtualization platform.
I was most impressed by the improved virtual switch architecture and extensibility features. For years, I had seen the lack of extensibility and monitoring capabilities in the Hyper-V virtual switch architecture as a barrier to supporting multitenant environments. While Hyper-V today can offer unicast isolation for traffic on shared virtual switches and support VLANs, it does not support any type of port spanning or promiscuous monitoring. That made it difficult to monitor and enforce network security in Hyper-V virtual networks, and have made the hypervisor ill-suited for some large enterprise and many cloud IaaS scenarios. Those barriers are removed in Windows 8.
In addition to rich network monitoring and enforcement capabilities, Hyper-V’s extensible switch architecture opens the door for technology partners in the networking and security space to reside in the Hyper-V fabric. Cisco has already announced support for the Nexus 1000V on Windows 8 Hyper-V. I expect other leading players in the networking and security space to follow suit. Juniper, HP, Riverbed, and F5 are good candidates to also offer Hyper-V virtual network appliances. Citrix is already there (i.e., NetScaler VPX for Hyper-V).
One other architectural element of significance is that virtual networking and security requirements are embedded in each Hyper-V VM’s metadata file. So prior to any live migration job, for example, a VM’s underlying third party dependencies are validated on a target host. Keeping relevant network and security metadata with the VM ensures that mobility constraints can always easily be validated before any migration job. These features are significant. Having an extensible network architecture, extensible VM metadata, and extensible management (i.e., via the System Center suite and third party integration) isn’t Microsoft following VMware. It’s leadership. I have communicated extensibility requirements to VMware for years, and I’m happy to see Microsoft stepping up and addressing customer and partner extensibility requirements.
There are numerous feature enhancements in Windows 8 that address scalability, performance, security, storage, and management. Rather than offer a list, these posts offer really good rundowns of the forthcoming improvements:
Finally, I think it’s important to consider the potential industry impact. Paul Maritz is intimately familiar with the Microsoft playbook. He knows exactly what Microsoft is doing in terms of strategy and execution. At this point, the question is whether Hyper-V can realize the same success Microsoft saw with the release of Windows Server 2003. Microsoft doesn’t have to match VMware feature-for-feature. It simply needs a good enough alternative with all of the features that enterprises care about. That being said, changing a hypervisor can be a very costly endeavor. The typical enterprise has invested in operational software (e.g., security, backup, orchestration, capacity management) that directly ties into the vSphere hypervisor. Replacing a hypervisor doesn’t simply mean converting a VM format. There are numerous potential costly implications for operational/management software updates or replacement, training, and process updates. So even if organizations are really excited by Windows 8 Hyper-V, I don’t expect wholesale migrations.
Instead, incremental deployments to a new Hyper-V infrastructure are more likely. That might begin with a refresh of Microsoft’s next generation server applications (e.g., Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint). That early success could lead to further migrations at the refresh interval of other applications. For VMware’s part, it will need to espouse the benefits of staying single hypervisor as part of hybrid cloud architectures, and make the case for the value of homogeneity across its integrated product portfolio.
Does the hypervisor follow the way of the database server, where enterprises rely on both Oracle and Microsoft, for example, for different classes of workloads? Or do organizations stay mostly homogenous? I think that a parallel to the database server market is a possibility, but to be clear, this is far from an apples-to-apples comparison. For example, multiple hypervisors also bring with them added complexity when it comes to supporting business continuity and disaster recovery. Resources may be bound to specific clusters by hypervisor association, making it impossible to simply move a resource to another hypervisor running on systems with spare capacity in order to resolve a performance spike (QA processes typically include the hypervisor, so while V2V conversions/migrations are technically possible, they’re typically not practical for dealing with real time performance issues). For DR, organizations may need to pre-stage multiple hypervisors at a DR site, potentially adding to the cost of infrastructure required to support DR. The intricacies of multi-hypervisor support is a very long discussion, and definitely beyond the scope of this post.
Regardless of where you sit in terms of hypervisor loyalty, you will benefit when Windows 8 ships. Organizations that wish to remain homogenous VMware shops will be able to put more price pressure on VMware during contract renewals. Organizations that wish to be more heterogeneous in their approach to virtualization will benefit from a lower-cost and robust platform from Microsoft, that on paper today looks very promising.
I said quite a bit and did a lot of thinking out loud in this post. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Category: Server Virtualization Tags: microsoft, vmware
by Chris Wolf | September 8, 2011 | 4 Comments
In a recent Gartner field search study, two early internal IaaS cloud adopters noted that if Amazon was the benchmark by which they are measured in terms of cost, then they had to make tough decisions regarding best-of-breed vs. good enough. In particular, the two clients cited whether deploying a third party virtual switch (i.e., Cisco Nexus 1000V) was absolutely necessary, especially if the cost made the internal cloud less competitive with Amazon. These organizations weren’t doing apple-to-oranges comparisons either. They came up with a per-VM cost broken down by both infrastructure and management/operations software. The cost of operational software was added to the Amazon cost to create an apples-to-apples comparison.
Enterprises are having to make tough choices regarding virtualization technology and all associated infrastructure and management products. To deliver cloud services, the enterprise has to be able to provide services quickly, securely, and reliably. In other words, the cloud service should come with the expectation “that it just works.” That’s a tall order for increasingly complex data center infrastructures. At this point, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with VMworld. Let me explain.
VMware made numerous data center and cloud related announcements at VMworld, including:
I’m not here to dissect all of the announcements. For good perspectives on the vCloud Connector and Global Connect announcements, take a look at Lydia Leong’s and Kyle Hilgendorf’s posts. That being said, I wanted to comment on the body of work. VMware’s vCloud web site lists a growing number of provider partners, and many VMware customers I speak to about hybrid cloud state concerns about the need for hypervisor parity. That’s because they include the hypervisor as part of the application QA processes. As a result, they see it as less costly to move a VM between the same hypervisor type. I had blogged about this subject before. Bottom line – for many enterprises seeking mobility between data centers and cloud, VMware has a home court advantage. Other providers (e.g., Amazon) maintain the advantage for applications deployed straight to the cloud, with the enterprise having no intention to pull them back in.
VMware’s hybrid cloud strategy is quickly evolving, many customers are onboard with it, and at the same time, those customers are starting to question where they can save costs. Competitors such as Microsoft have their own thoughts on cost. Assuming organizations maintain a homogenous VMware IaaS cloud, that means that instead of trying to cut costs at the hypervisor/virtual infrastructure layer, they’ll look elsewhere. Again, if Amazon is the benchmark, the enterprise has to be sensitive to cost.
To VMware’s credit, they have been more transparent with partners regarding their strategic direction. There is no question that storage, networking, security, and management features that VMware considers essential to hybrid cloud infrastructure will be in the vSphere platform. I had lengthy discussions with two security vendors at the show, and they were comfortable in how they would innovate around vSphere moving forward. I got the same impression from the storage vendors I met with.
Today we have two general classes of cloud IaaS platforms: commodity “I don’t care” infrastructure, and enterprise “I do care” infrastructure. Enterprises use commodity infrastructure (e.g., AWS) for some workloads and enterprise (e.g., vSphere) for others (I know; it’s not that black-and-white. Stay with me). With an increasing number of features (VXLAN is the latest example) going into the hypervisor, one could say that VMware is creating a third tier – call it a “good enough enterprise tier,” or whatever you like. That tier, in my opinion, will try to compete with both the “I don’t care” and “I do care” infrastructure options. It will be lighter on third party value-adds and heavy on VMware products. This should concern some VMware technology partners. Their job is to convince customers that any “good enough” tier really isn’t good enough without their value-add.
If you’re a customer, you should be thrilled. Amazon has put down the gauntlet on cost, and the industry has to follow. VMware and other virtualization vendors (XenServer Intellicache is a good example) are commoditizing select infrastructure features that previously had come at a premium. This means that infrastructure software and hardware vendors have to step up their game. They have no choice but to innovate. At the same time, they have to be increasingly cognizant to the fact that “good enough” is becoming a more serious competitor.
At VMworld, VMware showcased a vision for a highly robust IaaS platform. We’re in a significant state of transition, and there will be some major winners and losers. If we go forward 10 years and VMware is the winner, then who are the losers? Or is VMware heading down the wrong path? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Category: Cloud Server Virtualization Tags: citrix, microsoft, vmware, vmworld
by Chris Wolf | September 6, 2011 | 7 Comments
VMware recorded a pretty humorous video that was unveiled at this week’s VMworld North America conference. A few minutes into the music video, VMware folks are literally shown dancing on Citrix’s doorstep (outside the Citrix office in Santa Clara). While this could be taken as a simple competitive prank, multiple conversations I’ve had with VMware’s end user computing team led me to believe that the dance was more of a metaphor for VMware’s confidence in their product portfolio. At the Gartner Catalyst North America 2011 conference, VMware announced that View 5.0’s PCoIP protocol enhancements would reduce bandwidth by up to 75%. Citrix’s Tal Klein quickly responded with his own take. Gartner is reserving judgment on the noted improvements until we complete our own thorough analysis and speak with early adopters in the field.
That being said, VMware is clearly trying to send Citrix a message. For the past couple of years, Citrix has had VMware on the defensive regarding endpoint clients and WAN support. Gartner’s own View 4.5 assessment also noted that View could not support the WAN requirements (e.g., >150 ms latency) common in many large enterprises. With View 5.0, VMware is taking a position that the last remaining holes in its architecture have been addressed: low bandwidth/high latency WAN support, and endpoint clients (e.g., iPad, Android, and Mac). I have been running View 5 in my lab for the past couple of weeks and have connected to my virtual desktop from my iPad at various locations and over various networks (e.g., conference Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G), and the performance has been solid.
Desktop virtualization strategy requires more than a few checkboxes, and VMware clearly gets that too. In previous years, VMware had not done a good enough job of articulating a complete vision to prospective customers.Most organizations realize that investments in technologies like virtual desktops require long term commitments. So many organizations are not basing purchasing decisions exclusively on what is available today. VMware needed to better articulate its strategy and roadmap, and they did it at VMworld.
The problem we are trying to solve is relatively straightforward – connect users to applications and data. However, we now have a lot more moving parts than we used to. Application delivery can come in many forms, including local installation, application virtualization, virtual desktops, server-based computing, and software-as-a-service (SaaS). In addition, user expectations have changed to where they expect to access applications and data from a variety of devices. So we’re no longer simply delivering applications to devices’; we’re delivering them to people. Inside Gartner, we often call this people centric computing. To many vendors in the space, this paradigm shift spells opportunity.
Here’s another example, I recently talked with an IT architect who asked me:
Why would our users need Dropbox when we give them WebDAV?
My response: “That’s exactly why they’re using Dropbox.”
At VMworld, VMware announced Project Octopus, which is intended to provide a true enterprise alternative to Dropbox and similar services. Project AppBlast is another innovation that was announced, which will provide access to Windows applications from any HTML 5 compatible web browser. That will also include access to applications on physical PCs. AppBlast is significant in that VMware is trying to provide an alternative to Citrix’s XenApp, while at the same time offer an on-ramp to VMware’s desktop virtualization offerings. Want your desktop apps on any device? AppBlast. Want your desktop “always-on” and highly available? VMware View.
Project Octopus will directly compete with Citrix’s “Follow-Me Data,” but the competition is really services like Drobox and Box.net. Many users are consuming those services outside of corporate IT. The winner needs to support the user’s devices of choice while offering the security and compliance features mandated by the typical enterprise.
The mobile space cannot be ignored either. VMware’s long awaited Horizon Mobile (formerly called MVP – Mobile Virtualization Platform), was also announced. LG and Samsung were part of the initial announcement. Carriers like this option because it allows them to sell two contracts while only having to subsidize a single phone. Of course, usability will be key. Also, keep in mind that this can extend beyond mobile phones to tablets as well. Of course any mobile/tablet offering that doesn’t include iPhones/iPads will remain limited in reach. Today, we really can’t say we support “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).” It’s more like “Bring Your Own Company Approved Device.” Bottom line – it’s a start, and VMware is clearly showing leadership in this space.
Citrix is innovating and acquiring solid solutions (e.g., Kaviza and RingCube) at a furious pace. One thing is for sure – they are not letting off the gas. For awhile, I was convinced that VMware would be OK settling for second place. Now I’m starting to question that. The VMworld announcements, including significant enhancements in View 5.0, a maturing Horizon App Manager solution that seamless connects users to SaaS applications, and forward-looking solutions like Octopus, AppBlast, and Horizon Mobile point to a solution set that’s hitting its stride. Citrix is hitting hard, but VMware’s emerging product portfolio combined with their video indicate they’re ready to punch back. What do you think?
Category: Client Virtualization Tags: citrix, vmware, vmworld
by Chris Wolf | July 20, 2011 | Comments Off
Kyle Hilgendorf and I will be hosting a Twitter Town Hall at next week’s Gartner Catalyst Conference. Attendees at the conference will be able to participate in the open Q&A and white boarding session. In addition, we’re looking for folks to submit questions via Twitter as well. The topic is a good one – we’re talking about VM and cloud mobility. We spent a lot of time this year with early internal/private cloud adopters and learned a lot about problems end user organizations have with mobility. We’ll be sharing those finding not only in our Catalyst sessions, but in the Twitter town hall as well. I hope to see you there (physically or virtually).
Here are the details…
———————————-
Analyst Chat invitation
@Gartner_inc will be hosting an “Analyst Chat” via Twitter during Gartner’s Catalyst Conference.
When: Wednesday, July 27th at 5:30pm PT.
Where: Aqua 302
Details: Join Chris Wolf (@cswolf) and Kyle Hilgendorf (@kylehilgendorf) to discuss VM and Cloud Mobility – What You Should Worry About. This discussion will cover:
· Important considerations: Converting the VM is the easy part!
· Architectural and product pitfalls that directly impact mobility options
· What options do current cloud providers and server virtualization vendors offer?
· What independent software options exist?
· How will this market mature and how long will it take?
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Migrating VMs to and from the public cloud is not for the faint of heart. Yet organizations have compelling arguments for VM to cloud (IaaS) mobility. A market is emerging around cloud brokers and orchestrators, but it is very immature. What are the key aspects when considering moving VMs to or from IaaS cloud providers, or even between your own private data centers? Why isn’t it as simple as converting the VM file format?
To participate and track the conversation, Twitter users should key into #CAT11. We would encourage you to share comments, insights, and questions to help further discuss VM and cloud mobility. This chat will be open to all, look forward to seeing you on Twitter.
Guidelines:
· Use #CAT11 to tap into the discussion.
· New question/topic every 10 minutes
· DM questions to @Gartner_inc without hashtag
Category: Cloud Virtualization Tags: cat11
by Chris Wolf | May 10, 2011 | Comments Off
The speaker line-up for Catalyst 2011’s user-centric computing track has been finalized and I wanted to take a moment to share it with you. A prominent CTO has called Catalyst “the most intellectual conference in all of IT,” and if you haven’t attended Catalyst before, there are plenty of great reasons to get there this year. We have extensive coverage of server- and client-virtualization, cloud computing,and many other hot topics. The rundown of sessions in the user-centric computing track is listed below. I hope to see you there!
Application Delivery in a People-Centric World
Chris Wolf
A common theme has emerged among many organizations planning their next-generation desktop strategy—applications should be deployed to people, not devices. Device-centric application delivery often results in a user tethered to a device, with that user’s productivity determined by the availability of a single compute device, such as a desktop or laptop. Moving away from device-centric computing is no easy task, but can result in significantly better business continuity, security, and operational efficiency, not to mention increased user productivity. Today, many organizations have more questions than answers regarding the way forward. Fundamentally changing the organization’s application delivery and support model cannot be done overnight, but instead requires a commitment to numerous strategic and tactical initiatives. This session doesn’t offer a magic bullet to get you to a people-centric support model, but does offer practical guidance derived from the experiences of leading and bleeding edge organizations.
Protocol Wars: What Matters?
Sumit Dhawan – Citrix, Jon Rolls – Quest Software, Vittorio Viarengo – VMware
The remote display protocol has been the source of considerable debate among desktop virtualization vendors, with protocol performance and features often a tipping point in many product decisions. This lively debate looks to answer the question of “What matters?” in terms of protocol feature set. Leading experts from Citrix Systems, Quest Software, and VMware will be on stage to not only challenge the assertions of their peers, but also to answer your most pressing questions.
Making Sense of Desktop Virtualization
Dustin Fennell, VP and CIO, Scottsdale Community College
Desktop virtualization as a strategic application delivery platform promises a number of compelling benefits, but it can be difficult to translate these promises into successful (and reliable) deployments. In addition, successful desktop virtualization implementations leverage many different strategies and technologies and go well beyond simply virtualizing the desktop. This session provides attendees with an overview of the different technologies that can be leveraged to provide a comprehensive end-to-end virtual solution. Moreover, strategies for success and realized benefits will be identified based on a long-term real-world successful virtual desktop implementation.
Attendees will leave this session with the following:
- An understanding of the different virtualization technologies the make up a comprehensive end-to-end virtual computing environment
- Strategies for success that have been proven by a successful virtualization project
- Examples of realized benefits from a real-world desktop virtualization project
Desktop Virtualization: Lessons Learned
Elio Benincasa, AVP, Infrastructure Management, Manulife Financial
IT groups have used various technologies to meet the challenge of an increasingly demanding workforce. Over the last few years desktop virtualization has matured allowing IT groups to provide more stable and reliable infrastructure for the delivery of applications to the business. John Hancock Life Insurance has taken advantage of this technology to enhance our remote application delivery capabilities. This session will highlight our Virtual Desktop Infrastructure approach: the challenges addressed, the benefits realized, and future possibilities.
Opposing Views: Meeting the Needs of Tomorrow’s Workforce
Chris Fleck – Citrix; Noah Wasmer – VMware
Mobility and user-centric computing have placed us at a crossroads. Users want to access their business applications from a variety of endpoint devices. However, an application that may run great on one device (e.g., laptop) may offer a miserable user experience on a mobile device such as an iPhone. In an ideal world, IT would have the capability to deliver “just enough app” to a given device, and do it dynamically. While vendors agree on the notion of delivering just enough app, opinions vary on how to do it. This session presents opposing viewpoints from two of the brightest industry luminaries within Citrix and VMware. Both speakers will present their views in intense 10 minute mini-sessions, allowing ample time for audience Q&A.
User Centric Computing is Everyone’s Problem: Expert Panel Roundtable
Chris Wolf, Nik Simpson, Eric Siegel, Michael Disabato, Phil Schacter
Transitioning from a device-centric to a user-centric application delivery model impacts all areas within the IT organization. In this session, a panel of experts in topics such as infrastructure, networking and telecom, mobility, and security will share insights mined from industry best and worst practices. Close coordination among traditional IT silos is key to user-centric computing success, and this session will provide insights on how to succeed in a very complex evolution in how IT supports end users. The session concludes with ample time for attendees to present their most challenging integration questions to the panel of experts.
Category: Client Virtualization Virtualization Tags: citrix, quest, vmware
by Chris Wolf | April 12, 2011 | 5 Comments
Today VMware announced the launch of Cloud Foundry – a cloud service that makes it easy for developers to get started with VMware’s Open Platform-as-a-Service (Open PaaS) offerings. VMware CTO Steve Herrod offered good insight into VMware’s plans for Cloud Foundry in this post. In case you missed it, last week Steve Herrod blogged about VMware taking over operations for EMC’s Mozy cloud-based data protection service.
So in the past week, VMware has quietly announced that it will host two cloud service offerings. I say “quietly” because there were no press releases or the usual fanfare. VMware has long positioned itself as an enabler for cloud service offerings. One can clearly say that today they still are. Cloud Foundry is a beta service that for now, is free. In the case of Mozy, VMware runs operations for the cloud data protection service, but doesn’t actually sell it (that responsibility stays with EMC).
With the past two announcements, you could say that VMware isn’t stepping on the toes of its provider partners, but it is standing so close to their toes that it is making them uncomfortable. VMware’s not a provider in the traditional sense today, but they are building an infrastructure and operational processes that can allow them to become a provider at the flick-of-a-switch. To me, the last two announcements equate to simple math.
Mozy + Cloud Foundry = Insurance
Right now VMware is moving forward as an enabler to cloud service providers and is doing well selling infrastructure and associated management software. By hosting some of their own cloud services, VMware can now test and perfect new innovations at an enterprise scale – all before releasing new software to end user organizations and provider partners. With Cloud Foundry, VMware is making a significant investment to further seed the Open PaaS community with expectations that it can grow to rival Microsoft’s .NET platform and Azure.
In the future, if there is massive consolidation in the cloud provider market due to economies of scale, the few providers left standing may determine that they no longer need VMware. If that happens, VMware needs insurance to ensure its survival in an increasingly cloudy world. In addition, it’s no secret that rivals Microsoft, Citrix, and Oracle are optimizing their hypervisors and application stacks to work better on their own products than rival hypervisors. As I’ve said before, VMware can’t remain primarily as a platform for Windows applications in an area where Microsoft is a direct competitor. That story always ends the same. So the success of Open PaaS is very strategic to VMware because in my opinion VMware needs a strong application platform to compete against the likes of Microsoft and Oracle long term.
Maybe I’m wrong here and all VMware will ever be is an enabler for cloud services. If you just consider Cloud Foundry, you might be able to draw that conclusion. When you combine the Cloud Foundry announcement with the recent Mozy announcement, it’s easy to see that VMware is building more in-house provider expertise that will strengthen its products. However, that expertise could easily evolve into a provider business if market demands warrant.
Category: Cloud Server Virtualization Tags: vmware
by Chris Wolf | February 10, 2011 | 12 Comments
Many customers I talk to are interested in supporting a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) delivery model. A thought frequently echoed by customers is that allowing users to access their applications on their terms improves mobility and leads to greater productivity. In addition, when personal devices become little more than a tool to access IT applications centrally stored in the data center or in the cloud (e.g., SaaS), we also realize the following benefits:
- Security: Data is physically secured within the data center instead of locally stored on a client endpoint device
- Business continuity: Users are no longer tethered to a single device to access their apps. If a user’s primary device fails, he or she can access apps by running a client (e.g., Citrix Receiver, Wyse PocketCloud, or VMware View Client) on another device (e.g., zero client, PC, or tablet).
- Operational efficiency: New desktops and applications can be deployed in seconds, instead of over a period of weeks. Diagnosing and remediating problems can often be accomplished without an administrator having to “touch” a physical endpoint device.
With tangible benefits, it’s hard to argue against hosted virtual desktop (HVD) technology, as well as other complementary application delivery technologies such as server-based computing (SBC) (e.g., XenApp and Terminal Services), application virtualization, and SaaS. Many of our clients are placing strategic investments in these technologies today, with large scale rollouts planned for the coming years.
I have talked to several clients that want to move forward with BYOD initiatives, but are predictably cautious. Several have initiated small pilots with the goal of supporting a specific use case (e.g., iPads for c-level executives). Others are more cautious with planning and architecture and have yet to support any BYOD implementation. However, some clients are already using server-hosted virtual desktops (SHVD) to support call center employees that work from home. In some instances, those workers access their virtual desktops from personal PCs.
That leads us to a significant problem that occurred this week. A Windows 7 update broke the VMware View client. You can read about the problem in the VMware KB here. The problem can be resolved by upgrading the View client or by uninstalling the Windows 7 patches noted in the workaround here.
For user-owned Windows desktops or laptops, having Windows Update automatically apply new patches is considered a best practice. As a result, IT cannot apply traditional change management practices (e.g., patch testing and QA) to user-owned endpoints.
For organizations planning BYOD scenarios, this week’s Windows 7 patch issue should make you consider the potential for a large-scale break created on Patch Tuesday. If we fast forward a couple of years, it’s possible for an IT organization to have to deal with remediating this type of problem for thousands of users.
Since we’re giving up some aspects of change management with BYOD, these types of problems are inevitable. Having policies and processes for quickly remediating client failures on user-owned devices will be essential. For users that aren’t tech savvy, the IT organization will need to make it as easy as possible for them to receive and deploy a patch. That can also be tricky if a remote client app broken by a device update is needed for the user to access company email or another app in order to get a link to download a patch.
Contingency planning, remediation testing, and training that may also include patch distribution through personal email is an essential, but sometimes overlooked aspect of deploying BYOD solutions. Organizations that are fixing broken VMware View connectivity on user-owned Windows 7 devices are learning that lesson the hard way. Hopefully this event will serve as a reminder for BYOD planning to include a contingency plan and remediation methodology for dealing with large-scale BYOD client failures.
Sure, with BYOD, the user is supposed to “support” their own device in theory. However,if hundreds or thousands of users can’t connect to their apps, it becomes IT’s support problem, like it or not.
Am I overreacting? What do you think?
Category: Client Virtualization Tags: vmware
by Chris Wolf | December 21, 2010 | 2 Comments
This week Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been in the news for offering a tool that imports VMware VMs to the Amazon cloud. You can read the announcement on the AWS blog here.
While this is a good and important step for Amazon, the announcement reminded me of a conversation I frequently have with clients – when it comes to mobility, converting the VM is the least of your worries.
In some use cases such as training, the underlying hypervisor may not matter. However, for most production roles hypervisor parity remains important today. For starters, consider test and development. For early stages of test, the hypervisor choice may be irrelevant, but for later QA and integration testing, most enterprises prefer to test on an environment identical to what they run in production. This is why most organizations consider the hypervisor (and a specific hypervisor version) part of the application certification process.
When you look at production workloads, the challenges are more complex. Switching hypervisors, replacing in-guest paravirtualized device drivers, and converting virtual disk storage formats is oftentimes pretty straightforward. However, significant challenges may occur with operational management. For example, if my backup software assumes a VMware backend and uses the vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP), switching out the hypervisor would require changes to how the organization backs up the VM. Of course, that could be offloaded to the provider, but you’d also need to check on long term archiving support and that data privacy requirements are satisfied. You’d also have to determine the implications on backup and archive if you decided to move the VM from the cloud back to your internal data center or to another provider.
The organization’s security software and associated policy enforcement may require a specific hypervisor, and the same can be said for additional aspects of operational management (e.g., capacity, configuration, and lifecycle management). So after moving a VM, I may need to rebuild integrations to my operational software as well, assuming the software supports the new hypervisor format and cloud IaaS platform.
In a pure public cloud context, many providers offer a wide array of management services, but in the hybrid cloud context integration with the organization’s enterprise management software is often necessary. Application owners shouldn’t have to care about the underlying hypervisor, but the infrastructure and operations teams have no choice but to care (due to the operational management software dependencies I just mentioned).
Many clients I speak with are working to be more cloud-like internally and are dabbling in public cloud IaaS, and most are planning for hybrid clouds but are not ready to embrace them at a large scale. A lot of work is necessary to build out internal IT infrastructure capable of leverage hybrid cloud resources, and that’s something I described in the document “Stuck Between Stations: From Traditional Data Center to Internal Cloud.” To Amazon, that means that they have time.
We have many clients that run workloads that have little to no operational management requirements and several are already using AWS for those workloads. The announcement by Amazon is a start in making workload mobility easier. I’m hopeful that Amazon will follow this announcement with a broader story around hybrid cloud interoperability. Supporting OVF would be a good start. OVF support isn’t about the present (I doubt that many AWS customers are asking for it), but it’s more about future hybrid cloud mobility. Having a standard metadata set that not only advertises VM requirements, but service requirements as well (e.g., availability, RTO, RPO, security, etc.) eases hybrid cloud mobility. I’ve said in the past that OVF would be even more useful if we had similar standards for runtime metadata (it’s only for import today), and I’m hopeful that it will get there.
Amazon can show how serious it is about hybrid clouds by outlining ways to support management interoperability. Interoperability is a benefit most often cited by Amazon’s competitors that offer VMware vCloud. It’s also what the OpenStack project is trying to drive.
Are Amazon’s VM Import tools the keys to a room in what VMware CEO Paul Maritz has called the ultimate “Hotel California,” meaning “…you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” Or are these tools the starting point for a far broader hybrid cloud strategy? What do you think?
Category: Cloud Server Virtualization Tags: amazon, vmware
by Chris Wolf | November 10, 2010 | 9 Comments
Today EMC’s Chad Sakac blogged about a significant update to Oracle’s support policy for VMware ESX environments – Oracle no longer explicitly excludes Oracle RAC from being virtualized. It should also be noted that Oracle’s support is limited to “issues that either are known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware.” In other words, if it’s not a known bug, customers may be asked to reproduce problems on the bare metal.
Like Chad, this is an issue I have blogged about repeatedly over the last couple of years. For a historical perspective, you can read the following posts:
While Oracle should be applauded for supporting RAC in VMware environments, RAC support has not been the top customer requirement. Most Oracle customers license Oracle products by CPU core. In VMware environments, Oracle has asked customers with core-based licensing to license every physical core in an ESX cluster. The result is that customers often have to pay added licensing fees to run Oracle workloads in VMware VMs. Some clients have had to run Oracle workloads in small ESX clusters to stay within licensing compliance. Many have decided not to virtualize Oracle products until licensing restrictions were eased so that organizations would not have to pay more to run Oracle workloads in x86 VMs.
Some customers are more fortunate. For example, one client I have worked with migrated 100 Oracle database instances from AIX to RHEL/ESX last year. Their motivation was to save on IBM support costs, which they estimated at close to $200,000 annually. This particular client had a site license with Oracle, making the migration to ESX practical because they didn’t have to pay additional licensing fees to run in the ESX environment.
The root of the problem stems from the fact that Oracle considers the x86 hypervisor “soft partitioning.” Oracle’s policy on software partitioning states that “soft partitioning is not permitted as a means to determine or limit the number of software licenses required for any given server.” This rule also applies for Oracle’s own hypervisor – Oracle VM (OVM). However, Oracle makes an exception for Oracle VM, but only when VMs are pinned to physical CPU cores. That requirement complicates the execution of essential virtualization features such as live migration (vCPUs must be re-pinned to the target host’s physical cores after migration). An interesting side note in the licensing conversation is that Oracle allows licensing by vCPU for instances deployed to Amazon Web Services. Why make an exception for Amazon and not for VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, and other virtualization vendors? Our clients have repeatedly asked Oracle the same question.
Note that Oracle recently announced the availability of OVM instances hosted on EC2 instances and the licensing policy for AWS does not carry over to Oracle’s OVM hypervisor. The document “Licensing Oracle Software in the Cloud Computing Environment” describes OVM licenses on Amazon EC2 as follows:
Licensing policy for Oracle VM in EC2 environments: Amazon has implemented Oracle VM EC2 instances in accordance with the practices defined in the Oracle policy document titled, ‘Hard Partitioning with Oracle VM‘, which is referenced in Oracle’s Partitioning Policy. This ensures that a given virtual processor in an EC2 instance is assigned to a specific physical core on the backend server. From an Oracle product licensing point of view, this means that each virtual processor is equivalent to a physical core, and the standard Oracle Processor metric definition applies.
So to summarize, Amazon AWS is getting better licensing terms than Oracle even affords to its own hypervisor.
Oracle practically stands alone in its licensing policies for x86 virtualization. Both IBM and Microsoft allow software to be licensed by virtual processor, for example. Both vendors also offer broad support for a variety of x86 virtualization platforms (e.g., VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer). If Oracle is not in the business of certifying hardware, then why make the distinction for virtualization software? If ESX is supported, then why not XenServer, Hyper-V, or KVM? Vendors are not doing QA on every hypervisor, but they are offering “best effort” support, and there’s no reason why Oracle could not offer the same for its customers.
Finally,I think it’s also relevant to note that VMware introduced a new feature in vSphere 4.1 called DRS Virtual Machine Host Affinity. In my opinion, the feature was added primarily for the sake of satisfying Oracle licensing. DRS Host Affinity rules allow administrators to limit the physical hosts that VMs can reside on in a cluster. In theory, that should allow organizations to only license the physical hosts in a cluster where VMs running Oracle workloads are allowed to run instead of having to buy licenses for every physical core in the entire cluster. To date, Oracle does not recognize VMware’s DRS Host Affinity as a means to enforce “hard partitioning.” To me, adding additional administrative overhead for the sake of enforcing licensing compliance for one vendor should not be necessary in the first place.
Oracle should simply afford all x86 virtualization vendors the same courtesy it gives Amazon – licensing based on virtual processors and not physical processors. Like other vendors, Oracle could include end user license agreement (EULA) restrictions that do not allow multiple physical cores to be bound to a single virtual processor. Vendors include such restrictions so that customers cannot use virtualization to try and circumvent processor licensing (e.g., bind one virtual processor to multiple physical processors, while only paying for a single processor license). In fact, Oracle has a similar type of arrangement in its agreement with AWS.
Again, Oracle should get credit for expanding its support policy to include support for RAC in ESX environments. However, let’s not lose focus of the fact that Oracle’s current licensing policy often requires customers to spend more on software licensing to run an Oracle instance in a VM rather than to run the instance on a physical server or IBM LPAR. Now that cloud service providers offer VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix hypervisors, it’s hard to see how Oracle can offer Amazon favorable licensing conditions and not extend the same terms to providers that wish to run Oracle workloads on competing hypervisors.
Now is the time to lift restrictive licensing terms that favor certain partners (e.g., Amazon) and not others (e.g., VMware). The virtualization hypervisors and underlying x86 hardware have proven that they have matured to the point where they can support enterprise application workloads. I’m sure that was part of the reason why Oracle now supports RAC on ESX. However, support was never the greatest customer pain point.
Broad support is pointless if the licensing policy will not allow customers to run Oracle workloads on their hypervisor of choice. Oracle’s competitors (e.g., Microsoft, IBM, and SAP) have already shown the way to hardware-agnostic (e.g., user, instance, and virtual processor based) licensing that supports the customer’s platform of choice. It’s time for Oracle to do the same.
What do you think?
Category: Cloud Server Virtualization Virtualization Tags: amazon, citrix, microsoft, oracle, vmware
by Chris Wolf | October 21, 2010 | 10 Comments
Last week I traveled through various parts of Europe, while stopping for two days in Copenhagen for VMworld Europe. With eight days of travel, I thought it would be a good opportunity to test the feasibility of working from a server-hosted virtual desktop while traveling abroad. I run both Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 SP1 and VMware View 4.5 in my office lab in New Jersey. Accessing virtual desktops over the local area network using my Wyse Zero clients offers nothing short of an outstanding experience. I connect to my XenDesktop systems using the Wyse Xenith and connect to View using the Wyse P20. I’ll offer more on my experiences using zero clients in a future post, but for now I’ll say that user experience is easily on-par with a physical desktop.
Now onto the experiment. I wanted to see how both the ICA/HDX (XenDesktop) and PCoIP (View) protocols stood up to varying real-world network conditions. While traveling, I connect to my lab using a L2TP/IPsec VPN through a Vyatta VM appliance. A couple of years ago, I replaced a failed Cisco Pix firewall with the Vyatta appliance and have used it ever since.
The test itself is relatively simple. I connect to the XenDesktop and View environments one-at-a-time and perform a few basic tasks. After connecting, I open a Word document and add a comment. After that, I open a browser-based Flash application (imaginationcubed), watch the sample drawing, and then use the app to write the word “hello.” Each test lasts from just over one minute to three minutes, depending on the speed of the network I was on at the time. Also, I used Fraps to record my experience.
Note that the purpose of my experiment was not to conduct enterprise-scale benchmarking. Instead, I simply wanted to experience VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop while connecting from a variety of locations. My experiences are documented in the following posts:
To summarize, I found that as latency increased beyond 200 ms, ICA/HDX had a decided advantage over PCoIP. Text entry and menu response with ICA/HDX was still good enough to keep me productive, while the PCoIP response hampered productivity. When latency was relatively low (e.g., under 120 ms) both protocols performed well enough to meet my expectations. At several locations (i.e., Newark Airport, Munich, and Copenhagen) both protocols were able to deliver a good user experience.
When traveling abroad, there were numerous instances where I didn’t have Internet connectivity. For example, Internet connectivity was down at my hotel in Copenhagen, leaving me without Internet access for two nights. Also, I didn’t have connectivity while at several airports; connectivity was available, but I chose not to pay for it. That experience underscored the need for me to be able to run my critical Windows applications client-side while traveling abroad. While many enterprises get by with physical laptops, I have talked to others who have used client side virtualization technologies from vendors such as RingCube and MokaFive to meet the needs of the mobile user. Of course, we now have tools like Citrix XenClient and VMware View “local mode” desktops at our disposal as well. Today, the server-hosted virtual desktop often is not enough for the traveling professional (depending on access and latency considerations). It has its use, but so does complementary technologies such as SaaS applications, client-hosted virtual desktop solutions, application streaming, and of course, the trusty physical laptop. As always, the users’ requirements should dictate the technology choice.
Clients I speak with consistently state that they desire to move away from legacy application delivery models that resulted in tethering a user to a single physical device. Server-hosted virtual desktop solutions such as Citrix XenDesktop and VMware View have their place, but my experiences over the past week have proven to me that they are not the silver bullet either, and I think the vendors would agree. Client endpoint-side caching solutions such as VMware View Local Mode, Citrix XenClient, the MokaFive Suite, and RingCube also have their place. Not all client-hosted virtual desktop solutions are ready for large-scale enterprise deployments, but they are steadily maturing and will get there in the next couple of years.
What is your experience using these protocols in a variety of scenarios? I kept my tests relatively simple because I had limited time to do them. For example, I didn’t test audio/video response. We are planning to publish more detailed research that compares remote display protocols in the coming months, and I would love to hear about your experiences.
Category: Client Virtualization Tags: citrix, vmware, vmworld
