- Why OpenStack is much more than just hype
- A summary of key OpenStack technologies
- Why to consider converged infrastructure for building private clouds
- The right way to scale-out OpenStack deployments
Watch the webinar here!
//Richard
Archive
Posts Tagged ‘Cloud’
Azure ExpressRoute is a really cool and important feature – #Microsoft, #Azure, #ExpressRoute
August 5, 2014
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Everyone talks about the “cloud” and how you can leverage all the benefits or a public, private or hybrid cloud model. And one challenge and huge risks that enterprises see with moving into a public cloud like Azure is the dependency to the public Internet.
Is the connection secure, stable, available and how can you determine that I have the connectivity between my on-premise stuff and Azure..?
It’s here where I think that Microsoft really has made a HUGE step towards getting more traction with the larger enterprises with the new ExpressRoute feature! Now you can get your own dedicated connection to Azure through it’s partner network of service providers like AT&T and Verizon etc.!
Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute lets you create private connections between Azure datacenters and infrastructure that’s on your premises or in a co-location environment. With ExpressRoute, you can establish connections to Azure at an ExpressRoute partner co-location facility or directly connect to Azure from your existing WAN network (such as a MPLS VPN provided by a Network Service Provider). Read more…
Categories: All, Azure, ExpressRoute, Microsoft
Azure, Cloud, connections, connectivity, ExpressRoute, hybrid, hybrid cloud model, IaaS, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, MPLS, network, PaaS, private, public, routing, VPN, WAN
#Hyper-V 2012 R2 Network Architectures Series (Part 1 of 7) – Introduction
July 7, 2014
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This is a great blog post series! Good job Cristian Edwards!
Hi Virtualization gurus,
Since 6 months now, I’ve been working on the internal readiness about Hyper-V Networking in 2012 R2 and all the options and functionalities that exists and how to make them work together and I realize that a common question in our team or from our customers is what are the best practices or the best approaches when defining the Hyper-V Network Architectures of your Private Cloud or your Virtualization farm. Hence I decided to write this series of posts that I think they might be helpful at least to do the brainstorm to find the best approach for every particular scenario. The reality is that each environment is different and use different hardware, but at least I can help you identify 5 common scenarios on how to squeeze the performance of your hardware.
I want to make clear that there is no just one right answer or configuration and your hardware can help you determine the best configuration for a robust, reliable and performer Hyper-V Network Architecture. Please note that I will do some personal recommendation based on my experience. These recommendations might or might not be the official – generic recommendations from Microsoft, so please call you support contact in case of any doubt.
The series will contain these post:
1. Hyper-V 2012 R2 Network Architectures Series (Part 1 of 7 ) – Introduction (This Post)
5. Hyper-V 2012 R2 Network Architectures Series (Part 5 of 7) – Converged Networks using Dynamic QoS
6. Hyper-V 2012 R2 Network Architectures Series (Part 6 of 7 ) – Converged Network using CNAs
7. Hyper-V 2012 R2 Network Architectures Series (Part 7 of 7 ) – Conclusions and Summary
8. Hyper-V 2012 R2 Network Architectures (Part 8 of 7) – Bonus
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Hyper-V
2012, Architecture, Cloud, cluster, configuration, hardware, Hyper-V, Microsoft, network, Network Architecture, Network Architectures, performance, powershell, QoS, R2, SCVMM
#Nutanix Announces Global Agreement with #Dell
June 24, 2014
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Wow! This is interesting! 😀
Strategic Relationship Significantly Expands Access and Distribution of Nutanix Solutions with Dell’s World-Class Hardware, Services and Marketing to Accelerate Adoption of Web-scale Converged Infrastructure in the Enterprise
SAN JOSE, CALIF. – June 24, 2014 – Nutanix, the leading provider of next-generation datacenter infrastructure solutions, today announced it has signed an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Dell to offer a new family of converged infrastructure appliances based on Nutanix web-scale technology. The combination of Nutanix’s groundbreaking software running on Dell’s industry-leading servers delivers a flexible, scale-out platform that brings IT simplicity to modern datacenters. The Nutanix and Dell collaboration is designed from the ground up to deliver innovative web-scale technology to enterprises of any size. The agreement also includes joint sales, marketing, support and service investments, as well as alignment of product roadmaps.
The new Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances will be built with Nutanix software running on Dell PowerEdge servers, and will be available in multiple variants to meet a wide range of price and performance options. The appliances will deliver high-performance converged infrastructure ideal for powering a broad spectrum of popular enterprise use cases, including virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), virtualized business applications, multi-hypervisor environments and more. Nutanix’s web-scale software runs on all popular virtualization hypervisors, including VMware vSphere™, Microsoft Hyper-V™ and open source KVM, and is uniquely able to span multiple hypervisors in the same environment. The Dell XC Series appliances are scheduled for availability in the fourth quarter of this year and will be sold by Dell sales teams and channel partners worldwide.
“Nutanix is a recognized leader in the converged infrastructure market with a software-driven offering that fits with Dell’s efforts to redefine datacenter economics and simplify IT for our customers,” said Alan Atkinson, vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. “By combining market-leading infrastructure and software technologies from both companies with Dell’s world-class go-to-market capabilities, we believe our new solutions will be positioned to be a significant player in the growing, multi-billion dollar converged infrastructure market.”
“Dell is a world-class leader in servers, storage and networking, and has established itself as a valuable IT partner for many of the world’s largest organizations,” said Dheeraj Pandey, co-founder and CEO, Nutanix. “Nutanix is teaming with Dell to accelerate our global sales growth through Dell’s vast direct and channel sales networks. In Dell, we chose a company that shares our vision of disrupting traditional datacenter infrastructures with intelligent software running on x86 hardware to power all datacenter services.” Read more…
Categories: All, Nutanix
Architecture, Citrix, Cloud, compute, computing, Dell, enterprise, IaaS, Infrastructure, Nutanix, OEM, Platform, scale, storage, strategy, VDI, Virtual, virtualization, web-scale, XenDesktop
OpenStack and Nutanix – perfect match! (perfect with VMware and Microsoft as well of course) – #Nutanix, #OpenStack, #IaaS
May 2, 2014
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This is a good post by Dwayne Lessner around how perfect match OpenStack and Nutanix is (not just OpenStack of course, Nutanix rocks with VMware and Microsoft as well)!
Nutanix NDFS also provides an advanced and unique feature set for OpenStack based
private clouds. Key features include:
- Simplicity – The same great platform that simplified your virtualisation deployment can simplify the compute and storage deployment for key OpenStack services (Glance, Nova, Horizon, Keystone, Neutron, Cinder, and Swift)
- Single Scalable Fabric – NDFS provides a single fabric for data storage that integrates seamlessly with OpenStack services. NDFS-based storage is easy to provision, manage, and operate at scale.
- Hypervisor Agnostic – Just like OpenStack, Nutanix NDFS was designed from the ground up to be hypervisor agnostic. Nutanix enables customers to choose between KVM, Hyper-V, and the VMware ESXi hypervisor for deployments of OpenStack.
- Enterprise Ready – Nutanix enables a full set of enterprise storage features including Elastic Deduplication, Compression, In-Memory and Flash-based Caching, VM-Data Locality, intelligent Information Lifecycle Management (ILM), Snapshots, Fast Clones, and Live Migration.
Read more here.
Here you also have the link to the webinar with topic:
Building OpenStack on a Single 2U Appliance
OpenStack promises to be the open source cloud operating system. Automated provisioning and management of network, server and storage resource via a single dashboard is great, but how can you get the same one-stop-shop simplicity for the underlying infrastructure?Attend this advanced private cloud webinar and learn:
Categories: All, Cloud, Infrastructure, Nutanix, OpenStack, Storage
Cinder, Cloud, computing, deployment, design, ESXi, Glance, Horizon, Hyper-V, hypervisor, IaaS, Information Lifecycle Management, Keystone, KVM, Life-cycle, Microsoft, NDFS, Nova, Nutanix, Nutanix NDFS, OpenStack, perfect match OpenStack, Platform, private, private clouds, Swift, Virtual, VM, VMWare
Almost perfect.. #ShareFile StorageZones on Azure is now generally available! – #Citrix, #Azure
February 11, 2014
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This is a great addition I must say, but some things are missing!
One thing that I’m missing is the full integration with Azure storage containers! You still have to specify a temp/cache storage location that today ShareFile controller requires to be on a CIFS share when you have multiple controllers. And if you put the controller up in Azure as well, how do you then get that CIFS share and make it highly available? There is no CIFS exposure directly from the Azure storage, you have to setup a couple of VM’s in Azure, do something like DFS to expose is.. and then all of a sudden you have a whole file service to manage there as well.. and to monitor and all of a sudden you need AD and monitoring and reporting of it.. phuuu…
So I hope that in next version we can specify an Azure storage container for that cache/temp storage as well! 😉
The other thing I’d really like to see is NetScaler support in Azure, so that we could do proper AAA/CS/LB of the controllers in Azure as well so that we can get a simple and fully cloud based service in Azure! 🙂
BYOD and a growing global workforce are generating demand for instant access to data, offline productivity and seamless collaboration from anywhere. Organizations are challenged with reconciling these forces with leveraging existing investments, protect intellectual property and meet regulatory compliance requirements – driving interest in ShareFile StorageZones. StorageZones offers IT the flexibility to store data in secure Citrix-managed datacenters in multiple worldwide locations, or on-premise within their own datacenters.
At Citrix Synergy 2013, we announced new ShareFile StorageZones options with Microsoft Windows Azure. We are now pleased to announce the general availability of ShareFile StorageZones on Azure with the release of ShareFile StorageZones Controller software version 2.2. This release includes support for Windows Azure storage containers, therefore if you have a Windows Azure account, you can use an Azure storage container for your private data storage instead of a locally maintained share. Hosting ShareFile data natively in your Microsoft Azure account helps IT build the most cost-effective and customized solution for their organization. This customer-managed solution integrates ShareFile with Microsoft Azure’s Binary Large Object (Blob) storage, a cloud service for storing large amounts of unstructured data that can be accessed from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS.
Product Overview
Azure storage is customer-managed storage hosted in the Windows Azure cloud. File uploads are initially deposited into a temporary storage area shared by all StorageZone controllers. Then, a background service copies those files to the Windows Azure storage container and deletes the local cached copy of the file(s).
Typically with CIFS based StorageZones, the Controller servers are installed on-premise in the customer’s datacenter. However, if a customer is hosting virtual machines in Azure, they could install the StorageZone Controller software on instances running in their Azure account and not necessarily on-premise.
Read the ShareFile StorageZones on Azure Storage Technical Brief and watch the video Installing and Configuring ShareFile StorageZones v2.2 with Microsoft Azure to learn more about this solution.
Check out our Citrix and…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Citrix Startup Company #AppEnsure Releases Free tool to automatically measure response time & throughput for all applications! – via @douglasabrown
February 3, 2014
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Another cool application!
AppEnsure, a leading provider of application performance solutions for cloud and virtualized environments, today announced the first free product to aid IT operations with application performance monitoring and management. AppEnsure Free is the first free solution to automatically measure response time and throughput for all applications, including custom developed and purchased, in all locations; physical, virtualized, public and private cloud.
AppEnsure Free helps IT Operations rapidly troubleshoot and diagnose application performance problems within minutes and prevents war room meetings. The solution is easy-to-use and deploy and gives immediate insight into common application issues such as slow response time.
“IT Operations teams are the first ones blamed when an application is performing poorly,” reports Bernd Harzog, Performance and Capacity Management Analyst at The Virtualization Practice. “Giving these teams visibility into application response time and throughput will arm them with the necessary data to quickly resolve performance issues.”
“We developed AppEnsure Free to help IT Operations,” said Colin L.M. Macnab, CEO and co-founder of AppEnsure. “Time and time again we talk with companies struggling with their current performance management systems and we wanted to give companies a solution – at no cost – to help them ensure mission critical applications are performing as expected and to eliminate blame during war room meetings and bridge calls.”
AppEnsure Free costs absolutely nothing for a perpetual 5 servers…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
#XenApp 7.5 is launching! – #Citrix, #HSD, #DaaS, #VDI
January 25, 2014
2 comments
Wow… this is really interesting and “weird” I must say…
XenApp is back! 🙂
And of course AppDNA is in there as well to simplify software/application management on this platform.
Description
New Citrix XenApp 7.5 makes it simple to deliver any Windows app to an increasingly mobile workforce, while leveraging the cost saving and elasticity of hybrid clouds and the security of mobile device management. Learn more at http://www.citrix.com/xenapp
Hear more about it in this video!
The video above was removed because of that it was accidentally published too early.. but you can find it on YouTube here:
//Richard
Categories: All, Amazon, Citrix, XenApp
7.5, AWS, Citrix, Cloud, Description New Citrix XenApp, desktop, mobile device management, Server, virtualisation, windows, XenApp
#Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers – #ADC, #NetScaler, #Citrix
November 26, 2013
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Citrix is keeping up the good work and is placed with F5 in the Leader quadrant!
Citrix is positioned in the Leaders Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers for the seventh consecutive year: the Gartner Magic Quadrant Report focuses on vendor’s ability to solve complex application deployment challenges. Don’t miss this chance to learn from Gartner’s independent research.
NetScaler is well established as the industry’s leading internet delivery system, touching an estimated 75 percent of internet users each day. Citrix builds on this leadership to provide the world’s most advanced cloud networking platform, giving customers a single, integrated solution that brings the elasticity, simplicity and expandability of the cloud to any network. This combination helps customers deliver public and private cloud services with the best performance, security and reliability to any device. Learn more about the importance of this recognition by reading this recent press release.
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers
Source: Gartner (October 2013). The full 2013 Gartner Application Delivery Controller Magic Quadrant, report can be viewed on the Gartner website.
//Richard
Categories: All, Citrix, NetScaler
ADC, Application, Application Delivery Controller, Application Delivery Controllers, Array Networks, Brocade, Citrix, Cloud, F5, Fortinet, Gartner, Gartner Application Delivery Controller Magic Quadrant, Gartner Magic Quadrant Report, leader, Magic, magic quadrant, NetScaler, network, quadrant, Riverbed, Services
#Windows #Azure Desktop Hosting Deployment Guide – #RDS, #BYOD – via @michael_keen
November 12, 2013
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This is great! Have a look at this guide!
Hello everyone, this is Clark Nicholson from the Remote Desktop Virtualization Team. I’m writing today to let you know that we have just published the Windows Azure Desktop Hosting Deployment Guide. This document provides guidance for deploying a basic desktop hosting solution based on the Windows Azure Desktop Hosting Reference Architecture Guide. This document is intended to provide a starting point for implementing a Desktop Hosting service on Windows Azure virtual machines. A production environment will need additional deployment steps to provide advanced features such as high availability, customized desktop experience, RemoteApp collections, etc.
For more information, please see Remote Desktop Services and Windows Azure Infrastructure Services.
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Azure, BYOD, Client Services, Cloud, Microsoft, Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
Architecture, Azure, byod, Cloud, Desktop Hosting Deployment Guide, Desktop Hosting service, Guide, HA, High availability, hosting, Infrastructure, Microsoft, RDS, reference, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Desktop Virtualization Team, RemoteApp, windows, Windows Azure, Windows Azure Desktop
#Rackspace launches high performance cloud servers – #IaaS via @ldignan
November 5, 2013
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Rackspace on Tuesday rolled out new high performance cloud servers with all solid-state storage, more memory and the latest Intel processors.
The company aims to take its high performance cloud servers and pitch them to companies focused on big data workloads. Rackspace’s performance cloud servers are available immediately in the company’s Northern Virginia region and will come online in Dallas, Chicago and London this month. Sydney and Hong Kong regions will launch in the first half of 2014.
Among the key features:
- The public cloud servers have RAID 10-protected solid state drives;
- Intel Xeon E5 processors;
- Up to 120 Gigabytes of RAM;
- 40 Gigabits per second of network throughput.
Overall, the public cloud servers, which run on OpenStack, provide a healthy performance boost of Rackspace’s previous offering. The performance cloud servers are optimized for Rackspace’s cloud block storage.
Rackspace said it will offer the performance cloud servers as part of a hybrid data center package.
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Categories: All, Cloud, Infrastructure
10, block, center, Cloud, cloud servers, CPU, Data, high performance, hybrid, IaaS, OpenStack, performance, RackSpace, RAID, RAM, service, solid-state, storage, VM
The IT Melting Pot! 