Build your Enterprise Private Cloud – Powered by Citrix XenServer - Part 2

Part 1: Meeting with the Dev/Test Lab Administrator - Read here before starting Part 2 below.

Part 2: Meeting the Dev and Test Engineers

Abbie’s Dev/Test Lab

(Ziva, Test Lead and Tony, Dev Lead walk into the lab)
Ziva – Shut up Tony. That bug was not because of a setup issue. I know it was a REAL bug.

Tony – Ho Ho…I never said it wasn’t a bug Lady…All I am asking of you is to reproduce it.

Ziva – Hmmm…I am going to do just that Mr. Developer. Just wait till we discuss with Abbie. Abbie, could you re-setup the test bed you gave me yesterday. I need to kick Tony’s butt with that stupid bug.

Tony – Alright Miss. Perfect. How many times have you raised defects only to find that the s/w config was not setup correctly, the Environment variable was not set properly, the right version of the required s/w was not installed blah blah blah…

Abbie – Guys Guys…STOP….Agent Pal could you help us here before these guys eat up each other

Agent Pal – Ha ha…no problem guys…I have the right solution…Ziva, would you love it if you could capture the test bed right when the bug happens and push it out to Tony…File a defect with the link to the bug reproduced???

Ziva – Are you serious?? Can we do that?

Agent Pal – Yup…and you can also record all the user actions while the bug happens as a movie and let Tony watch it!!!

Ziva – Wow…That is unbelievable…That is going to save me weeks of testing cycles. How many times have I had to re-create bugs only bcoz the stubborn dev couldn’t reproduce it and wouldn’t accept the defect..

Agent Pal – Totally agree….And you also automate all the manual steps involved in setting up the test bed…prevents any manual errors…

Ziva – You are just awesome Pal (Gives Pal a big hug). Abbie – when are we getting this LabManager in our lab. I am going to tell my Boss that we can complete the whole testing cycle in 30 days – instead of 50 days. Am sure to get a fat pay hike and a promotion this year 

Tony – Mr. Pal, once you can stop blushing, and recover from that hug from Ziva, could I ask you a favour?

Agent Pal – Sure, shoot it Tony

Tony – Well my team designs and develops some large distributed systems that run the company’s online e-commerce portal. And I would like to create some of these N-Tier systems in the lab, today it takes me days to get the networks setup, VMs configured and have the system up. Anyway that your solution could speed up this process.

Agent Pal – Of course yes. You can use LabManager to design and deploy some of these complex multi tier applications.

Tony – I don’t want to tussle with the networking folks to setup the network and then beg abbie to give me the VM resources. Can that be done.

Agent Pal – Why not. It is as simple as defining the VM roles, network settings etc. in LabManager and just hit deploy. LabManager automatically brings up the whole system – and it can be an exact replica of your production application.

Tony – Wow that sounds cool. If it is going to be really that SIMPLE, I am going to give you a big hug too.

Agent Pal – Oops…I guess just a hand shake will do.

Tony – Hmmm..Okay.

(Michele, Marketing dept walks into the lab)

Michele - Abbie, I had requested for a Wiki Server to run our new marketing campaign – is it ready. We need to go live next week?

Abbie – You need to give me more time Michele. You wanted the Wiki to be accessible over the internet. That has to get cleared by the Networking and the Security Folks. Will let you know when it is done.
(Michele walks away)

Agent Pal – You should probably let her self-provision pre-built secure Wiki servers using the Citrix Self Service Portal.

Abbie – Ha ha…None of your solutions are gonna work here Pal That lady is just DUMB …Nevermind she will never be able to do that.

Agent Pal – Oh …The Self Service Portal servers just that purpose. A Super Simple UI where even the most Non-Tech folks can get what they want. You should try that with Michele.

Abbie – Will do Pal. And I want to charge these folks for the VMs that they run. So they learn to use the resources scarcely.

Agent Pal – Definitely. You should look at the billing code functionality built into Self Service Portal. Lets you generate monthly reports on how much resources your users have consumed.

Abbie – Ya…that will be handy. Btw you should meet McGee, the Geek who manages our Production Infrastructure. Your solution has been wonderful and I am sure McGee could use your help too.

Part 3 – Meeting with the Production Infrastructure Administrator

To be Continued….

Note: All characters depicted above are purely fictitious and bear no resemblance to anyone alive or dead – however any similarity to the fictitious characters of NCIS is purely intentional.

This blog is my personal and all the contents here are my personal comments and have no bearing on my employer.

Enabling the Dynamic Datacenter - Virtualization, Automation and Orchestration

Dynamic Datacenter technologies have shown significant improvement in maturity and adoption levels over the years. With the screws tightened on the IT budgets, CIOs are looking for ways to optimize their existing resource usage to meet their growing customer needs - in short they are looking for dynamic datacenter technologies (or building a private cloud). The three main pillars for building any dyanmic datacenter include - Virtualization, Auomation and Orchestration. In this post, we will discuss how the top software vendors have built solutions around the three pillars to enable the dynamic datacenter vision.

VMware:
VMware has been the undisputed leader in the virtualization space and is keen on expanding that to the Private/Public Cloud space too. So far VMware has got the most comprehensive vision to start with Dynamic Datacenter (Private Cloud) and gradually transition to Public Clouds as they start maturing. The slew of Products/partnerships that VMware has released include:

Infrastructure Virtualization : vCenter Server, vCenter CapacityIQ for fine tuning, VCE VBlocks (in partnership with Cisco and EMC)
Automation : vCenter LabManager, vCenter Lifecycle Manager
Orchestration : vCenter Orchestrator

VMware also offers Professional Services around Cloudifying your on-premise datacenter and designing strategies to adopt the Public Clouds.

Microsoft:
Microsoft, as usual, has been a late entrant to the Virtualization space and it's Hyper-V platform doesn't seem to have picked up yet - even after the R2 release. However MS has been quick to show how Hyper-V along with its rich System Center Suite can be leveraged to build your Dynamic Datacenter. The Dynamic Datacenter toolkit has the best practices to achieve this.

For MS, a lot is going to depend on the success of its Azure platform . If MS can deliver a stable and scalable Azure platform, that would speak volumes about the maturity and stability and scalability of the MS solutions. Till then - it's just Wait and Watch.

Citrix:
Citrix has gained traction over the past year with the free XenServer release and the Citrix Essentials Suite providing the automation (LabManager OEM'd from VMLogix) and orchestration ( Workflow Studio ) tools on top of the Virtualization layer. Citrix has also open sourced XenServer to attract the Cloud Service Providers. But the key area of Citrix's dominance has been Application Delivery. The Citrix Delivery Centre comprising of XenDesktop, XenApp, XenServer and Netscaler can securely and optimally deliver both Web and Desktop based applications. Citrix has also launched Virtual Appliances for its Application Delivery Controllers - Netscaler VPX - to enable flexible and automated provisioning. Will be good to see if Citrix can extend its dominance in the Application Delivery market to the Server Virtualization space too - with the Free, OpenSource XenServer.

That adds the fourth pillar to the Dynamic Datacenter story - which is Application Delivery.

The Verdict:
Based on various factors, here's the leader in each of the Dynamic Datacenter technology pieces:

Virtualization - VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer
Though VMware would win hands down based on technology, the cost factor weights heavily in favor of XenServer. A mix of both is going to be a reality in the future.

Automation - VMLogix LabManager
The winner in this space primarily because it supports both VMware and Citrix Virtualization technologies (and MS Hyper-V too). Also has a bit of Orchestration built in it too.

Orchestration - ????
No clear winner here. Still a nascent technology and hoping some Startup can delivery some really interesting products here.

Application Delivery - Citrix Delivery Center
Citrix wins this category hands down. However some credit also goes to the F5 BIG-IP Product specifically in delivering Web Applications. But F5 still doesn't have a Virtual Appliance version of its product.

Of course, this space is set to dramatically change when VMware launches the much awaited vCloud platform. Interesting year ahead!!!

PS: All info in this post are totally my personal views only and have no bindings on my employer whoever that may be!!!