latoga labs

Alliances & Partnership Advising

© 2006–2025 · Log in

Enterprises Defining the Enterprise Cloud

Leave a Comment

Thanks to a tweet today from cloudmeme, I found the InternetNews.com article VMware CTO : Cloud or software mainframe? where VMWare’s CTO, Steve Harrod, is quoted:

“Some call it a software mainframe others call it cloud, it depends on when you were born,”

I have heard a number of VMware’s executives use the term “software mainframe” when describing the new VMware Cloud OS, vSphere.  And as Steve indicated in his quote, it’s all about finding a term that resonates with the generation of your audience.

Today I joined in a virtualization discussion between the IT management teams of two Fortune 500 companies.  One of the more timely items that was discussed (with regards to the above article) was the implementing of an internal cloud.  One of the executives described it as a “change-request-less data center” where the business client is abstracted from the technology and given a transparent view of their own utilization within the data center.  Then, an executive from the other company nodded and said “getting back to a mainframe, a software mainframe”.

They were discussing their interpretations of what it meant for their business to have an internal cloud within their data center infrastructure.  And the reality is that it is starting to look more like an easily expandable, multi-vendor, distributed/modular mainframe enabled by software.

I found it interesting that the key aspect that defined an internal or enterprise cloud for these executives was the fact that the transparency of utilization was there (just like for an internet cloud and just like on the mainframe), but that the chargeback for the cost of that utilization may not be there.  Most enterprises don’t have the internal financial systems set up to do chargeback of computing resources.  And for an enterprise to change their internal  financial system is a non-trivial task.

However, levering virtualization technology to build an internal cloud that has the ability to track and report on utilization (even if the cost is null) puts the enterprise into a very powerful position:

  • Quicker servicing of their business customers needs
  • a simplified infrastructure which reduces operational expenses via automation and standardized IT offerings
  • the ability to run the existing computing jobs of the business with little or no modifications
  • a self service model which helps reduce operational costs even more
  • transparency to the business clients to help them understand how much of the IT infrastructure they are using and socially drive them to use it more consciously
  • an environment in which the technology can be managed at any time because it is abstracted from the business users
  • and the ability to change their internal financial system in the future without major upgrades to their data center or infrastrcuture.

The software mainframe.  The enterprise cloud.

A New Data Center Measurement Metric

Leave a Comment

Dilbert.com

One of my clients made an interesting comment this week about a new way they are thinking of measuring their data centers.  Anyone dealing with virtualization knows that measuring a data center on square feet or number of physical servers alone is rather meaningless.  We mostly talk about ratios:  VMs per Socket (CPU) or VMs per Core.  But as green initiatives push on I had one client mention the new metric of VMs per Kilowatt hour.

This is interesting because it not only takes into consideration the efficiency of your virtualization solution, but also the power efficiency of your servers, storage, and network.  What is the efficiency at which one can run a data center?  When you get into a cloud computing environment where users pay for what they use, don’t the providers also want to only be paying for what is required?  If companies are now placing notes in their annual reports on their corporate carbon foot print, shouldn’t they also be thinking about defining, measuring and tracking their data center carbon foot print?

This takes one down an interesting thought process that I think I’ve only scratched the surface of.

(Thanks goes out ot Mike P. for pointing me to the above Dilbert strip!)

VMware vSphere 4 Performance Enhancements

Leave a Comment

After a hectic past two weeks of traveling to the east coast, catching some sort of bug and recovering, and attending most of the first World Wide Technical Summit for VMware’s Field Organization, I find a long back log of both emails and blog posts.  While I prepare some of the more writing intensive posts, here is a quick link to a recently published vShpere whitepaper:  What’s New in VMware vSphere 4: Performance Enhancements (pdf download).  It’s a great summary of all the performance enhancements that VMware’s Performance Team has measured in vSphere 4.

I found the following items of specific interest:

  • Efficiency improvements from hardware-assisted memory virtualization
    • Apache Compile was almost 55% more efficient – of special interest to my client who is looking at virtualizing part of their Rational software development environment, specifically their build servers.
    • Citrix XenApp (aka, presentation server) was 30% more efficient – of interest to my client who is wrapping up the virtualization of their XenApp environment to an ESX Cluster.  with vShpere 4 they may be able to reduce their 40 or so ESX hosts due to greater density of XenApp VMs possible with vSphere 4.
  • VMotion performance enhancements show huge reduction in time  (almost 1/5th the time) to vmotion an active VM.  Every client of mine will love this as they all depend on VMotion to administer their virtual machines.
  • Fibre Channel VM Boot performance enhancements showing massive reduction in time (again, almost 1/5th the time) to boot 512 VMs from a fibre channel SAN.  My client who is building a virtualized training lab environment and needs to boot 800 VMs in preparation for some training classes will really appreciate this.

With all the performance enhnacmenets in vSphere 4, there really does appear to be something for everyone!