Archive
#Gartner report – How to Choose Between #Hyper-V and #vSphere – #IaaS
The constant battle between the hypervisor and orchestration of IaaS etc. is of course continuing! But it is really fun I must say that Microsoft is getting more and more mature with it’s offerings in this space, great job!
One of the things that I tend to think most of is the cost, scalability and flexibility of the infrastructure that we build and how we build it, I often see that we tend to do what we’ve done for so many years now. We buy our SAN/NAS storage, we buy our servers but lean towards Blade servers though we think that’s the latest and coolest, and then we try to squeeze that into some sort of POD/FlexPods/UCS or whatever we like to call it to find our optimal “volume of Compute, Network and Storage” that we can scale. But is this scalable like the bigger cloud players like Google, Amazon etc.? Is this 2013 state of the art? I think that we’re just fooling ourselves a bit and build whatever we’ve done for all these years and don’t really provide the business with anything new… but that’s my view… I know what I’d look at and most of you that have read my earlier blog posts know that I love the way of scaling out and doing more like the big players using something like Nutanix and ensure that you choose the right IaaS components as a part of that stack, as well as the orchestration layer (OpenStack, System Center, CloudStack, Cloud Platform or whatever you prefer after you’ve done your homework).
Back to the topic a bit, I’d say that the hypervisor is of no importance anymore, that’s why everyone if giving it away for free or to the open source community! Vendors are after the more IaaS/PaaS orchestration layer and get into that because if they get that business then they have nested their way into your business processes, that’s where ultimately that will deliver the value as IT services in an automated way once you’ve got your business services and processes in place, and then it’s harder to make a change and they will live fat and happy on you for some years to come! 😉
#Apache #CloudStack grows up – #Citrix, #IaaS – via @sjvn
On June 4th, the 4.1.0 release of the Apache CloudStack Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud orchestration platform arrived. This is the first major CloudStack release since its March 20th graduation from the Apache Incubator.
It’s also the first major release of CloudStack since Citrix submitted the project to the Apache Foundation in 2012. Apache CloudStack is an integrated software platform that enables users to build a feature-rich IaaS. Apache claims that the new version includes an “intuitive user interface and rich API [application programming interface] for managing the compute, networking, accounting, and storage resources for private, hybrid, or public clouds.”
This release includes numerous new features and bug fixes from the 4.0.x cycle. It also includes major changes in the codebase to make CloudStack easier for developers; a new structure for creating RPM/Debian packages; and completes the changeover to using Maven, the Apache software project management tool.
Apache CloudStack 4.1.0’s most important new features are:
- An API discovery service that allows an end point to list its supported APIs and their details.
- Added an Events Framework to CloudStack to provide an “event bus” with publish, subscribe, and unsubscribe semantics. Includes a RabbitMQ plug-in that can interact with AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) servers.
- Implement L3 router functionality for the VMware Nicira network virtualization platform (NVP) plug-in
- Support for Linux’s built-in Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization with NVP L3 router
functionality. - Support for AWS (Amazon Web Service) style regions
What all this adds up to, according to CloudStack Project Management Committee (PMC) member Joe Brockmeier, is that today’s CloudStack is “a mature, stable project, [that] is also free as in beer and speech. We believe that if you’re going to be building an IaaS cloud for private or public consumption, you’ll be better served choosing an open platform that any organization can participate in and contribute to.”
Brockmeier concluded, “CloudStack is a very mature offering that’s relatively easy to deploy and manage, and it’s known to power some very large clouds–e.g., Zynga with tens of thousands of nodes–and very distributed clouds–such as DataPipe, which…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
OpenStack vs CloudStack: The Latest Score – #CloudStack, #OpenStack
A little update below from Joe Panettieri, good reading! And thanks Oded Nahum for sharing!
And I must agree that I would not count out CloudStack! 😉
OpenStack vs CloudStack: The Latest Score
OpenStack remains the largest and most active open source cloud computing project, Network World notes. But research from Chinese blogger Qingye “John” Jiangsuggests that momentum is building for CloudStack, and interest in Eucalyptus and OpenNebula remains strong. For cloud services providers (CSPs) and consultants, it’s critically important to track each of the four open source cloud platforms. Here’s why.
During Q4 2012, interest in CloudStack grew faster than rival open source cloud platforms. But Jiang’s data shows that:
- OpenStack has the largest total population, followed by Eucalyptus, CloudStack, and OpenNebula;
- OpenStack has the largest active population during the past quarter, followed by CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula;
- OpenStack has the largest active population during the past month, followed by CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula.
Partner Views
Those findings are important to CSPs and consultants that are selecting cloud platforms upon which to build services. OpenStack has been the poster child for open source cloud computing for more than a year now but the bandwagon has some challenges.
Dell, for one, says OpenStack lacks maturity and the hardware giant won’t launch its public cloud (based on OpenStack) for roughly a year. Dell also alleges that Hewlett-Packard’s own public cloud uses a “dramatically forked” version of OpenStack containing proprietary HP technology.
Still, OpenStack consulting opportunities seem to be emerging rapidly. Mirantis, for instance, has emeged as the largest OpenStack systems integrator. The company’s clientele apparently includes Cisco, Dell, GE, Agilent, NASA, HP, AT&T, The Gap, Axcient and Nexenta.
Moreover, Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) continues to see OpenStack progress. CTO John Engates recently offered his perspectives — including some OpenStack milestones — to ZDnet.
Here Comes CloudStack
Meanwhile, it has been awhile since I’ve heard from the CloudStack community. But the CloudStack chatter will likely grow very loud…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
CloudPlatform – How to build a cloud from the ground up
Citrix has done a good job at explaining what they call the Cloud Fundamentals and how to build your own cloud using their and the Citrix partner products, the architecture behind it and best practises etc.
How to build a cloud from the ground up
Get up to speed on what it takes to build a cloud for your organization through this comprehensive library of educational videos and resources from Citrix and our partners. In Cloud Fundamentals, you’ll learn more about the building blocks of a cloud architecture and best practices to ensure you’re successful. When you are ready, explore how to Extend your Cloud and learn more about value-added Citrix partner solutions that will complement and extend your cloud.
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Don’t Let OpenStack Hype Distort Your Selection of a Cloud Management Platform in 2012
This was an interesting article, I recommend reading it! And thx Ruben for the tip!
“Recommendations:
- Do not plan the future of your data center with the assumption that OpenStack will be at its core. OpenStack may be a promising project, with many vendors eager to join its marketing bandwagon, but its future success is by no means assured. Rather than counting the number of vendors joining the project, judge OpenStack’s progress by its ability to deliver future releases on-time, with the planned features and minimal bugs and achieving mainstream adoption.
- To maximize deployment flexibility and interoperability to enable the potential for multi-vendor substitution, try to choose CMP solutions that allow the layers of the service (access management, service management, service optimization, resource management and the underlying resources), to be logically independent of one another.”
http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1C3IGID&ct=120919&st=sb
//Richard
OpenStack vs. CloudStack – IaaS – PaaS – XaaS
Ok, so what are your thoughts, findings and view on which will become or already is the best solution out there for IaaS/PaaS services?
I must admit that this is not my area of expertise but it’s an area of interest and I like reading about it to get more up to date on where they are from a service readiness perspective. Are they ready for enterprise usage, or are enterprises stuck in their mindset of adopting the open source initiatives and technologies that exists around them. If yes; then why? Is it due to that it doesn’t fit the existing way of how they buy or deliver existing IT services, or is the technology not ready from an ITSM point of view with SD, SLA, SLO and delivery models that we have with the “old” traditional technologies like vSphere, XenServer and Hyper-V if you put a large enterprise organization and governance on top of it?
The IT Melting Pot! 