This Article Will Be A Bit Different?
Virtualization Critical Evaluation – Chapter 01
This article will be a bit different. How so? Well, that is both easy to explain and hard to illustrate. The year 2008 is effectively just past half over. This is significant, because thoughts about the near future of virtualization come to mind, and how I will communicate to my clients what makes sense and what does not make sense over the next 18 months on paper? Preparing them for the next 36 months? Really strategic scope would be 60 months! There will be long hours with spent with AIX (Dynamic LPARs), Xen (be it RHEL integrated or Citrix aligned), Solaris Zones, even Parallels, and the potential 800 pound gorilla, Hyper-V of Windows 2008 heritage with Microsoft SCVMM as well. Why? Because ESX 4.0 and its lean relative ESXi based on 4.0 core must be a winner. Unfortunately for VMware, as Rome, there are many Huns at the gates of Rome. I do hold out hope that VMware will have another winner, or I should say a better winner than ever before. The history of ESX major versions for the most part has been one of best of breed, but the competition is prepared as never before.
VMware, with a few missteps, has achieved a notable hat-trick, 2.5.x, 3.x, and 3.5.x. I do not quality 2.1.2, not because it was lacking significance, but it was just on the introduction of shared-storage as a serious feature or infrastructure component to virtualization, and was from my perspective the precursor to the serious modern hypervisor trend VMware established with 2.5.x and VirtualCenter 1.x. This is subjective of course, but VMotion was the single most intriguing and significant feature that VMware has ever implemented, and it came into its own with ESX 2.5x. As for those missteps? Well, VirtualCenter comes to mind again, as does VCB, in fact, scaling seems to be a concept that VMware has and continues to struggle with. Including more recent solutions like Update Manager, and even in the core VMware API, which still seems slow for some reason at any significant scale, as I have noted in the past in verbose detail. Unfortunately, this is where Microsoft can nail VMware to the wall. The very same wall that has the writing on it, that says…Abandon All Hope, All Ye That Read This Here…if you see complete doom for VMware ahead?
In spite of what others may predict or even believe about my views, I do not yet, see failure for VMware. VMware has potential, but so does every other virtualization platform. As other solutions move or prepare to move into application instancing, VMware still holds firm that its future is ESXi and a pure hypervisor-ized vision. That is dangerous. Hypervisors will always exist, but will never dominate the industry over time. VMware keeps its virtual-appliance model, only because it is a fake instance model? That is a dead end, when any true application instancing solution out performs it hands down, this is where Citrix may be going? There are just too many strategic reasons to reduce the complexity of virtualization, as only application instancing allows. How do I know this to be true? Why the emergence application instancing? My wish list for 2009 and 2010 are not dependent on hypervisor technology, is why. The wish list, in simple descriptors is as follows:
- Reduce the Total Number of Lines of Code Executed! This is #1
- Avoid any solution that layers filter drivers upon filter drivers. This is hard to do!
- Easy intra- and inter-site recovery, De-Duplication Models for Archival
- Thin Disking and Imaging, Greater alignment to Storage Arrays
- Reduced Support Staff (Yes, This Is Reality)
- Realign instancing back to its roots, Exchange, SQL, etc., all are instancing models that should never be in operating system isolation
- Utility Computing (Heterogeneous Application Hosting), Application Instancing
- Grid Computing? To some degree a solution looking for a problem?
- Kill dependence on VMFS, Explore other file systems, NFS, iSCSI (Again)
- Become Even More Green, this is related to #1 (Energy Consumption Must Be Reduced)
How many of these goals is VMware presenting against? Since LifeCycle solutions are nothing more than creative repackaging, not that many as I see it. None of these goals or concepts is in any way new. But achievement of these simple goals still is not consistent throughout the information technology industry or across hardware vendors. We, all seem to be waiting for something, watching, believing that just around the corner, over the next slight hill; the ultimate solutions, in each scope is there just out of sight, the supreme utopia for those of us that are architects of infrastructure. Why are we still chasing solutions to problems, not implementing? I for one, can not continue to wait, VMware VI based on revision 4 must be a quantum leap again.
Remember I said, it is easy to explain, but hard to illustrate? Well, we do well to itemize the problems, but do not do was well discovering the solutions? So, we compromise against the options that are available, saying to ourselves, it is just the 80/20 rule, that I can not have everything, everything does not exist. Food for thought no? I want my cake, and will eat it too, and I want zero calories with that real sugar taste! Well, for me, 2009 starts in the later half of 2008, and 2011 will start in 2009, if you understand my inference? 2015 is just not that far away, will you have the right solution, for 2015? Global Datacenter will be the expectation for 2015. Yes, I want everything just the way I want it, and to do that, I will have to implement a multiple vendor and tiered virtualization solution platform which may be, no will be, more complex than I want, but is the only way to achieve the efficiency I need. The operations teams are not going to be happy?
Do I sound sad? Or is the impression I present a bit dark? That is reality, providing VMware ESX 4.x is a winner, it may not be as dark as it could be. My hope is that VMware will spend major time in code validation and quality assurance certification with ESX 4.0, eliminating new introductions of features in 4.0, for inclusion in 4.0.1, 4.0.2, cough, or even 4.5 Update 1, in preference to solid stability. I hope that VMware has a true instancing model that is a surprise? Did I mention this all has to happen at a penance of a price? Dang, knew I forgot something in my wish list…Adding…Everything Has To Be Done On The Cheap.
Add comment June 26th, 2008
