Comments on: Fault Tolerance: Diamond in the Rough http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/ Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Technology of Business & Business of Technology Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:02:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Convergence of Private Clouds Presentation | latoga labs http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-540 Convergence of Private Clouds Presentation | latoga labs Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:14:46 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-540 [...] Fault Tolerance: Diamond in the Rough with links to additional FT [...] [...] Fault Tolerance: Diamond in the Rough with links to additional FT [...]

]]> By: Nick Bond http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-502 Nick Bond Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:49:26 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-502 Interuptions to service to a sub-set of your users is different to application downtime, at least in my mind. Any modern online application that cannot handle the interuption of a connection etc. is poorly architected. I would suggest that you would have to use both (or just load balancing) for true full availability. Geographic seperation of servers is essential to maintain systems running in case of a catastrophic failure (fire, aircraft strike etc). Therefore global load balancing would be needed, I suspect running FT across multiple locations would be fraught with problems (if not impossible)? Nick Interuptions to service to a sub-set of your users is different to application downtime, at least in my mind.

Any modern online application that cannot handle the interuption of a connection etc. is poorly architected.

I would suggest that you would have to use both (or just load balancing) for true full availability. Geographic seperation of servers is essential to maintain systems running in case of a catastrophic failure (fire, aircraft strike etc). Therefore global load balancing would be needed, I suspect running FT across multiple locations would be fraught with problems (if not impossible)?

Nick

]]> By: latoga http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-499 latoga Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:44:37 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-499 The use cases for Load Balancing versus Fault Tolerance are very different Nick. Typically, you wouldn't use both. As I described, if your application requires zero downtime the additional resources you are using is the price of that zero downtime and load balancing can not guarantee zero downtime. This zero downtime requirement is typically for applications that are critical to a businesses operations. The whole point here is that FT makes zero downtime cost a lot less than it did previously! The use cases for Load Balancing versus Fault Tolerance are very different Nick. Typically, you wouldn’t use both. As I described, if your application requires zero downtime the additional resources you are using is the price of that zero downtime and load balancing can not guarantee zero downtime. This zero downtime requirement is typically for applications that are critical to a businesses operations. The whole point here is that FT makes zero downtime cost a lot less than it did previously!

]]> By: latoga http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-498 latoga Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:38:00 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-498 This is a great point John, I hadn't considered the option of turning on FT just for a busy peak period for an application. Many of my clients are considering building dedicated environments targeted for internal users who require higher availability (i.e., SRM enabled clusters, FT specific sub-clusters). The ability to vMotion a VM to a FT cluster and turn it on for a month when it is really needed allows an IT organization to be more responsive to the needs of their customers. Now, to enable this for self service and include a way to calculate a charge for this via vCenter ChargeBack! :-) This is a great point John, I hadn’t considered the option of turning on FT just for a busy peak period for an application. Many of my clients are considering building dedicated environments targeted for internal users who require higher availability (i.e., SRM enabled clusters, FT specific sub-clusters). The ability to vMotion a VM to a FT cluster and turn it on for a month when it is really needed allows an IT organization to be more responsive to the needs of their customers.

Now, to enable this for self service and include a way to calculate a charge for this via vCenter ChargeBack! :-)

]]> By: latoga http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-497 latoga Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:32:42 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-497 Thanks for sharing your script William. Great addition to be able to manage FT from the command line! Thanks for sharing your script William. Great addition to be able to manage FT from the command line!

]]> By: Nick Bond http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-495 Nick Bond Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:44:28 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-495 Nice feature, but surely the cost (in terms of resource) are too high? It must be more practical to run two instances of the application (which is in effect what you are doing with FT), and actually use them by adding a load balancer into the infrastructure. Particularly if you need to then scale the application, two running instances with FT means four lots of resource... Load balancing especially makes sense when you can use a Virtual Appliance version. Nick Nice feature, but surely the cost (in terms of resource) are too high?

It must be more practical to run two instances of the application (which is in effect what you are doing with FT), and actually use them by adding a load balancer into the infrastructure. Particularly if you need to then scale the application, two running instances with FT means four lots of resource…

Load balancing especially makes sense when you can use a Virtual Appliance version.

Nick

]]> By: John Troyer http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-493 John Troyer Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:29:59 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-493 What expanded my consciousness during our <a href="http://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2009/07/vmware-studio-2-beta-vapps-community-roundtable-podcast-54.html" rel="nofollow">podcast with the FT team</a> was the notion that FT was so easy to use that you could even just turn it on for a few weeks during the holiday or end of the quarter rush and then turn it off again later. The fact that FT <i>isn't</i> a multi-million dollar solution and instead is a feature that can be turned on with a flick of the mouse really opens up the use cases -- could be quite a game-changing tool in your toolbox. What expanded my consciousness during our podcast with the FT team was the notion that FT was so easy to use that you could even just turn it on for a few weeks during the holiday or end of the quarter rush and then turn it off again later.

The fact that FT isn’t a multi-million dollar solution and instead is a feature that can be turned on with a flick of the mouse really opens up the use cases — could be quite a game-changing tool in your toolbox.

]]> By: William Lam http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-492 William Lam Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:22:04 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-492 This is another good link to add to the resources for FT: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/07/01/ftcli-pl-vmware-fault-tolerant-managment/ This is another good link to add to the resources for FT: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/07/01/ftcli-pl-vmware-fault-tolerant-managment/

]]> By: VMware Announces vSphere 4 Cloud OS | latoga labs http://www.latogalabs.com/2009/07/fault-tolerance-diamond-in-the-rough/comment-page-1/#comment-491 VMware Announces vSphere 4 Cloud OS | latoga labs Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:04:00 +0000 http://www.latogalabs.com/?p=709#comment-491 [...] Fault Tolerance and the hidden revolution this provides [...] [...] Fault Tolerance and the hidden revolution this provides [...]

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