Becoming a vAdmin Rockstar! Tips & Tricks for Managing Multiple

Hypervisors in Your EnvironmentMike Nelson

Solutions Architect - nGenX

Level: Intermediate

Or…Who Can Make Up The Longest

Session Title Ever & Get Away With It!

Mike NelsonSolutions Architect - nGenX

Level: Intermediate

Mike Nelson 2014

Who Is This Guy?

• Solutions Architect – nGenX• 25 years in tech• CTP - vExpert - MCSE-PC• mike.nelson@ngenx.com• Twitter - @nelmedia

Mike Nelson 2014

What Are We Going to Talk About?• Who are you?• What, why, and how of what you do• Are you the master of your domain? Really?• Some Stats & Speculations• Cover the basics• Managing the mess• Demo

Mike Nelson 2014

UpdatesI like to draw ;-)

Updated slides, drawings, etc.

http://1drv.ms/1oHyNzP

Questions for You• What’s the difference between Type1 and Type2?• Can anyone name all the Type1 Hypervisors?• Do you have a single or multiple hypervisors in

your datacenter now? Do you even know?• Does your IT have any role in decisions by the

business? Who owns the technology?• How many admin’s? Who does what?• Are you bias? Paranoid? Or both?

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Who Are (Major) The Players?

Drivers For Multiple Hypervisors• Mergers & acquisitions• Hypervisor Vendor relationships, pressure, & deals• Licensing• Application vendor hypervisor support, pressure, and

risk• I.T. as a Business, I.T. as a Service• Ambiguous “cloud” services

Do you have a guy like this in the business?

Who gets schmoozed by a guy like this?

65% in 2012 80% in 2014

The Wikibon conclusions from their survey:• Overall growth of x86 virtualization is healthy, and shows no sign of stalling or topping

out.• VMware is the dominant force with 76% of the installed base. The workload analysis

shows that all workload types are migrating to VMware, including mission critical and database workloads.

• Even though VMware is projected to grow at only 24%, VMware will still hold 68% of the overall market in 18 months time.

• Microsoft Hyper-V is projected to grow at 61% over the next 18 months, with an emphasis on smaller Microsoft IT shops, and desktop virtualization.

• KVM is growing very fast from a small base, and is the leading open-source contender by far. It is particularly strong it Hyperscale IT infrastructures (not represented in this survey), an with other IT service organizations such as Cloud Service providers, ISVs, VARs and other distributers.

• OVM from Oracle is focused on large-scale Oracle database installations, and seems to be growing fast in this niche.

• From the evidence of this survey, Citrix Xen is challenged to remain a viable hypervisor.Ref: Wikibon Multi-Hypervisor Survey, August 2013

COMM

ODITY

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

• Code injection in Hypervisor Layer

• Requires compatible hardware & device drivers

• No security patches or operating system required in the Controlling Layer

• No code injection possible in Hypervisor Layer

• Device drivers do not need to be hypervisor aware

• Controlling Layer requires OS = less secure

vSphere 5.5Linux: Asianux SUSE RedHat Fedora CentOS OS X (Darwin) * E-Com Station Debian FreeBSD Mandrake Java Desktop Oracle desktop * TurboLinux Ubuntu Solaris* SCO Netware

Windows: Server 2012 / R2 Server 2008 / R2 Server 2003 / R2 Server 2000 Server NT Windows 8.1 Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP Windows 98 Windows ME Windows 95 Windows 3.1 DOS

Other?:OS/2 Warp

Linux: Asianux SUSE RedHat Fedora CentOS OS X (Darwin) E-Com Station Debian FreeBSD Mandrake Java Desktop Oracle desktop TurboLinux Ubuntu Solaris SCO Netware

Windows: Server 2012 / R2 Server 2008 / R2 Server 2003 / R2 Server 2000 Server NT Windows 8.1 Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP Windows 98 Windows ME Windows 95 Windows 3.1 DOS

Other?:OS/2 Warp

Hyper-V 2012 R2

Comparison Sites

Keith Mayer’s writeup - http://bit.ly/1e0icwW

www.virtualizationmatrix.com - Andreas Groth

Aidenfinn.com

Perficient Whitepaper - http://bit.ly/1lKAFD2

Virtualization Matrix

VirtualizationMatrix Website

Mike Nelson 2014

vAdmin Challenges• Terminology• Management• Licensing• Capacities & limitations• “Core 4” compatibility• 3rd party integrations• Scaling• Vendor support• DR / HA / Compliance

Mike Nelson 2014

How Do We Manage Today?• Multiple windows• Multiple machines• Multiple admins• Steep learning curves

VMware’s Rant on SCVMMVMware Whitepaper: Opening line “Why trying to use SCVMM 2012 will frustrate

vSphere administrators” Microsoft is trying to convince vSphere administrators to

manage their VMware environment using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (SCVMM 2012). However, vSphere administrators will find that SCVMM 2012 -

1. Increases Complexity While Adding Little Value 2. Is Not a “Single Pane Of Glass Interface”, vCenter Server Is Still

Required 3. Adds New Overheads, Delivers Little Benefit 4. Degrades Operational Efficiency, Frustrating Administrators

SCVMM 2012 offers only rudimentary management capabilities for VMware environments and introduces unnecessary complexity, overhead and frustration for vSphere administrators.

F. U. D.

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

• Still limited to basic tasks• Terminology & Standards issues

What about other Hypervisors?

OpenStack Compute (Nova)

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HypervisorSupportMatrix

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014Ref: OpenStack User Survey – May 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Embotics v-Commander

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Hotlink Video

Mike Nelson 2014

Some Others To Look At• WebCommander (Check Steven Kang as well)• ProHVM• 5Nines• VMware MHM• The next greatest….

Mike Nelson 2014

What About…• Backup & Recovery?• Monitoring – E2E?• Compliance?• Patching – Security & Updates?• What else?

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

Mike Nelson 2014

vAdminKnow Your Hypervisor

Install – Config - Admin

Network

Storage

Cloud

vAdminFundamentals

Management

Complex

What’s a vAdmin To Do?• Pick your fights• Learn about the hypervisors, what they can &

cannot do, how to configure & troubleshoot• Read the best practices & capacity info• Make your case & mark your territory, if you can.• Learn the tools, try before you buy• Deploy and play around, cop a feel• Talk to some “smart” people, buy them beer• Learn PowerShell!

Mike Nelson 2014