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Struggling with the hybrid cloud & new technologies

Asif Dasl

First off I'm struggling with the hybrid cloud complexity, I just can't get my head around how these networks work and how these are implemented. Does anybody know of a good resource (video/book/site) that would make it easier to digest? How are we meant to learn about hybrid clouds if it costs money to spin up a VM in the hybrid-cloud?

Secondly things seem to be moving so fast technology wise, how are you all keeping up? NSX was launched last year and VMware are saying they have 150 customers so far. How common will NSX be or will it be a specialist product? You've got VDI too.. are these just small leaps to learn or massive topics to specialize in. I feel like I'm being pulled in different directions and I don't know what I want to learn.

I see some of you looking at vCenter Orchestrator & vCloud Automation Center, how do these fit in to the cloud puzzle? These are just for managing vSphere hosts only? Again, a new technology Docker - hearing lots of people mention it not sure how it fits in the puzzle.

There is so much complexity that you can go to... but I know that it'll be worth it to work it in my head eventually. I am honestly thinking of dropping MCSE:2012 and focusing on VMware only, there is that much I could learn here. Maybe MCSE is for way things were not the way things are going to be??

Any help, to help me understand would be appreciated.

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Comments

wahrheit

I can tackle the VCAC/VCO part of this. Both products are intended to help provide automation and orchestration capabilities to a vmware based environment.

VCAC brings multi-hypervisor support, so you can in theory provide automation and orchestration across your internal virutalization platform, as well as provide the same sorts of automation into supported cloud environments. For instance, you can write workflows in VCAC that automate tasks within AWS or OpenStack compliant services.

With VCAC6 the VCO plugin almost completely replaces the older 4.x (DynamicOps) and 5.x XAML based workflows, and provides a single interface to allow for orchestration. This plugin allows you to go 'both ways' for your workflows, and allows you to use that bi-directional support to automate tasks against any cloud provider that your VCAC instance supports....

Note: The copy of VCAC6 that comes with vCenter will not be able to provision against any external cloud providers, you are required to purchase a separate license for this (I got caught with that one awhile back).

Asif Dasl

Thanks for the reply. Rep+

So I checked Pluralsight and the vCloud Hybrid Service videos (now vCloud Air) and it says it used vCloud Director. So that's being deprecated and vCloud Automation Center (now vRealize Automation) and that's taking over and I need a different license to hook that up to an external hybrid cloud?

And they are offering $10,000 worth of credit because you need that license to hook it up with your private-cloud otherwise it's just VMs in the public cloud?

Docker must be the next big thing for use with vCAC (vRA & vRAA) then. Because Puppet, Chef & SaltStack require vCAC Enterprise.

I think this is far ahead of my experience with VMware at the moment but I want to use the next 6 months to learn as much as I can before I get back in to the workforce. So I might do up to MCSA:2012, play around with Horizon View, and try do VCAP-DCA.

Things are a little clearer, though much to learn!

I am going to go through these to see if I can understand it better:
VMware vCloud Director Fundamentals [V5.1/V5.5]
vCloud Automation Center 6.0 Video Library | United States

wahrheit

I can say from a software developer background Docker is awesome. Not really sure what VMware is shooting to do with it, but I can imagine they would want to cover their bases there with something like AppDirector.

Docker is Linux only, but allows you to create a psuedo-VM using LXC isolation, and provides a nice set of tools for wrapping LXC into an easy to use environment (it used to use some other tech as well, but I think with 2.0 they removed a ton of the 'extras' to simplify the architecture).

wahrheit

Oh and keep in mind, even with VCAC6 the IAAS component is still running all the .NET based workflow stuff on a separate component, so if you had workflows and such that work on 5.2 they would in theory continue to work (for IaaS only services) in VCAC6, assuming you can apply the proper licensing for the CDK, etc.

Asif Dasl

You've lost me a little! But when I cross that bridge I will revisit this thread and re-read your posts and maybe after I've looked the course and videos what your saying to me, I will understand better. I really appreciate your replies though!

kj0

One thing that was made clear to me on how to use vCAC and vCO at a recent VMUG is that if you are offering cloud computing services and you offer IaaS/XaaS for example, You may allow your customer to spin up their own VM.

The Customer can log into the portal and select how many CPUs, memory, HDD they want and a cost will also be added. Upon your select, this will kick off the workflows to build your VM. Everything happens in the background and it's just as if the customer has purchased a Built to Order computer.

The rest of it, I'm still learning.

Asif Dasl

Thanks Kieran, I can see why that is useful. I'm looking to get in to a VMware partner so it's possible I could be dealing with vCAC & vCO workflows and such but it's all new to me and kinda confusing how everything fits together when there are so many different technologies. Much appreciated.

kj0

Asif Dasl wrote: »

I'm looking to get in to a VMware partner so it's possible I could be dealing with vCAC & vCO workflows and such

I start Monday, so I'm going to be immersed in it, and it's going to be interesting. Citrix is the other thing I have to learn.

These videos should help.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPXMlollZXa1WYP2B24BExQ

tprice5

Honestly, Docker does not sound like anything ground-breaking. I watched the video on their home page and it all just sounded like App-V to me. This might be new for Linux but Windows has been doing this for awhile, though, if they can pull it off without the overhead of the infrastructure that is required of App-V then that would be a feat. Still not uber exciting and I'm not sure if it really belongs in the same conversation as vCAC and such. I think I am the least experienced with VMware here so maybe it does, you tell me.

Asif Dasl

@ Kieran - Thanks, I will check those out. And good luck with it on Monday!

@ tprice5 - Yeah Docker sounds a bit like App-V now that you mention it, the speech by the VMware CTO was with the Docker CEO so it looks like there is integration with vCAC going to happen. I think the challenge is that they want to virtualize more line of business apps, or so I heard in one of their other videos from VMworld 2014 - I'm not a linux guy but Docker probably helps with that task.

NightShade03

This is a great thread and I don't even know where to start! I think instead of picking / talking about a specific technology like VMware, it would be helpful to step back and see what the bigger picture is here.

Cloud - many things to many people. What is it really? No one knows.

IaaS/PaaS/SaaS - also referred to as SPI, these are all different cloud models. The biggest differences are which portions of the "cloud" or service you are responsible for and which parts the solution provider is responsible for.

Automation - the ability to deploy many things at once...commonly used when talking about horizontal scaling.

Orchestration - need to have the ability to create different roles, groups, permissions, users, and monitor everything. All of this is going to happen automatically so this is how you manage that mess

Agile - the development methodology used to create, test, fail fast for different ideas/features/apps. This rapid iteration allows orgs to bring things to market faster.

DevOps - a combination of automation, orchestration, and agile to build and scale systems really quickly in an automated fashion. There is more to it then this, but I'm trying to keep it high level.

SDN - take the traditional networking world (routers/switches/etc) and re-implement it entirely in software a-la automation/orchestration/etc. Super complex topic, but makes scaling super easy.

Now when it comes to cloud types you can break them down again:

Private - totally deployed on prem. 99.9% of the time this is what organizations have deployed today, but they don't call it a cloud and there are some subtle differences in cloud vs traditional data center model. VMware and OpenStack are the king makers in this space currently.

Public - this type has everything offered by a solution provider. That could be any of the SPI clouds mentioned above, but the key here is that you don't own this.

Hybird - some mix of public and private. Maybe you have a huge VMware private cloud which is connected to an AWS VPC leveraging direct connect which gives your org the ability to failover into the public cloud should the private one go down. The key here is that you are making use of public and private resources in some way.

Now there are some additional technologies that fit into all this to make life a little easier. Docker for instance is a containerization technology that essentially creates a "container" (think of this as a mini VM) inside of a VM. So I spin up an instance on AWS or my VM platform (doesn't matter) and then leverage docker to deploy 4 application services within that single VM. Why would I do this? Makes development, QA, security checks, testing, etc much much easier for people. Additionally you can build once and deploy many because Docker provides the ability to keep you stack/environment neutral (in theory anyway). Yes there is similar technology from M$ in this space. Yes Docker is Linux only (for the moment). However this type of approach really allows the whole Agile / DevOps movement to take shape and apply their principles to many organzations (particularly those with tons of legacy development methodologies or applications).

There are undoubtedly other topics that fit into the cloud conversation here; data security, data privacy, compliance needs, SLAs for different environments, IAM. You get the idea. All of these things need to be assessed and taken into consideration before moving to the cloud. Also depending on the SPI model you choose, you might have to re-write or adjust applications to fit into the cloud. Many applications weren't built with the idea of massive scale in mind.

Whew...that was like a mini-cloud workshop in 5 mins

---- [Enter the vendors] ----

Public cloud is still dominated heavily by AWS, but you also have IBM SoftLayer, Rackspace, Joyent, etc.

Private cloud is very much dominated by VMware, with OpenStack gaining some good traction.

Automation you have Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack.

Now there are ton of vendors depending on which space/topic you'd like to discuss, but I think most of the big players are listed here. If there is another you want to discuss specifically just let me know.

I know VMware has been mentioned a lot in this thread and honestly they are trying to be everything to everyone right now. They have (and partially had) a huge choke-hold on enterprise market. When the "cloud" became a hot topic, they started seeing some customers moving to AWS and other providers and drop their VMware environments all together (this changes the conversation from a CAPEX to an OPEX cost). Additionally you have OpenStack which everyone is rallying around. This is a one for one replacement for core AWS, but on prem. Definitely a nice way to get rid of your VMware environment and use that money elsewhere....but there is a problem. OpenStack is huge and new. While there are some great stories behind it, there are very little real world implementations and VMware has an 8 year head start in the market.

So as the saying goes...if you can't beat them, join them. VMware has been changing their strategy to embrace all things cloud. Many of things mentioned in this thread are really new(er) products to compete with everyone encroaching on VMware's space. Everything from NSX, to Air, to Director, and more. In fact VMware also just recently annouced that they are going to spin out their own distribution of OpenStack customized to run on top of VMware products! In the end these are all the same ways to skin a cat, but as you know there are advantages to using similar products from the same vendor (integration, better pricing, one support throat to choke).

Hopefully all of my babbling makes sense and shed some more light onto these topics.

Asif Dasl

I can't give you rep as I need to spread it around! I'll give you some at a later date!!

Thank you so much for going to so much effort to write that out for me, it definitely clarifies a lot of things for me.

If 99.9% are private on-prem deployments and there is an advantage to go from CAPEX to OPEX - I'm just wondering how you think things will play out with AWS then? Should I be concentrating some of my time towards AWS instead of burying my head in VMware books?

I don't know if I have the interest for full-time DevOps but I definitely need to learn a bit of Orchestration for good measure.

Essendon

@NightShade - this is got to be one the most comprehensive posts on TE, ever!

@Asif - I agree, it's kinda hard to keep up with all the new stuff that perpetually keeps coming out. VMware came up with EVO: Rail at VMworld this year, you must have noticed, a Nutanix like product. For other stuff, NightShade summed it up very nicely.

Asif Dasl

@Essendon - I heard of the term alright but didn't join the dots between it and Nutanix - it looks very interesting. I've been looking at the limited amount of VMworld videos and CBT/Pluralsight the past week that I've missed some of what has been released. However no vSphere 6 of all the things I was sure to expect, there were a few details but no launch.

Essendon

Yeah I was expecting vSphere 6 too, but then I guess they didnt want it to overshadow EVO: Rail and other bits & pieces and may announce vSphere 6 in October @ VMworld Barcelona.

Asif Dasl

Just to correct myself...

Asif Dasl wrote: »

So I checked Pluralsight and the vCloud Hybrid Service videos (now vCloud Air) and it says it used vCloud Director. So that's being deprecated and vCloud Automation Center (now vRealize Automation) and that's taking over and I need a different license to hook that up to an external hybrid cloud?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BziqcB3DliI

This video is excellent! It shows VMware setting up a test hybrid cloud network in vCloud Air in 5 days, and they say it just needs vSphere and it DOESN'T need vCloud Director to work! They say just to treat the public cloud part as just another AD site. Well worth a watch. I might sign up for the vCloud Air Beta now...

This is a related video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCxl-_UCqec

jibbajabba

Love the "How many people use Resource Pools ............. as folders"

Made me chuckle ..

kj0

Eli will be able to answer the questions you have, he covers, PaaS, IaaS, MaaS, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3EFBFBCE1249ABC0

Asif Dasl

Thanks I will check them out, I checked out Cloud+ videos on Safari Books Online and it's a somewhat useful overview of SaaS, IaaS, PaaS - not that I would take the exam.

Metal as a Service is a new one I haven't heard of before.

tprice5

Asif Dasl wrote: »

Metal as a Service is a new one I haven't heard of before.

MaaS?! Now they're just making stuff up.

NightShade03

tprice5 wrote: »

MaaS?! Now they're just making stuff up.

No it's a real thing: MAAS | Cloud | Ubuntu

You know when you want to deploy 100 servers automatically into a VMware or AWS environment? MaaS is the same concept, but the install target is the physical hardware that will be used for your cloud. A MaaS service usually consists of some kind of PXE tool, orchestration for roles, and then the ISO/files of each OS you want to deploy. In the VMware world, think of this as deploying ESXi or something similar to the physical hardware, but in an automated fashion.

@Asif Dasl - I am going to take the cloud+ just to see what it's like (since work pays) and get an idea of the total coverage of the exam. I don't think it will hold much weight in the real world, but will certainly arm one with enough information to host a cloud workshop. I think from a cloud perspective the AWS exams, Red Hat OpenStack certificate, and very soon VMware are the highly regarded certs pertaining to cloud at themoment.

NightShade03

One other comment I wanted to make too. I know it's hard to test a ton of things we are discussing here because they all cost money, but AWS is doing a pretty good job getting around this. They use Opsworks, which is essentially Chef underneath for automated deployments. If you learn the syntax on how to create the config files for different environments/roles you can essentially double click one of your config files and AWS will build the entire environment for you automatically. This would allow you test out different concepts and designs very quickly and then blow them away when you are done testing. This is pretty cool for getting used to different cloud models and technologies. Only downfall is that many VMware products require physical hardware still so you can't do the same for them.

Asif Dasl

@NightShade03 - I think you'll be fine for the Cloud+ without much study!! The objectives were simple enough in the videos I went through for someone with a little experience with 1 or 2 areas just to careful about. But one downside is the continuing education requirement which I know would put me off taking the exam.

I'm going to look in to the AWS certs and allocate some funds for it, I think it'll be important to spend some time on it and vCloud Air too.

Thanks for everyone's contributions to the thread!