1. 64 fourth quarter/2006
Easing Pain in the
By Robert Wipfel
Are you sufficiently overwhelmed yet?
Data center automation solutions can help you manage a myriad of server types and release the mounting pressure.
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3. 66 fourth quarter/2006
ata centers are being squeezed by a variety of internal
and external pressures such as power, HVAC, new servers, human
errors, patching, asset tracking and more. In fact, the average data
center consumes enough power in a month to power 1,000 homes! On
top of all this, you have to keep up with dynamically changing business
requirements. You need a solution that will allow you to align IT to
your business, control costs and minimize risks. Data center managers
are looking for a variety of ways to address these dilemmas. One of the
key ways is server consolidation using virtualization.
For a quick history of virtualization, see the section named An Old
Idea Made Better—A Lot Better in the article Virtualization: It’s Real.
It’s Here. It’s Now. It’s Xen on p. 22.)
“Data Center Managers are on the
hot seat lately. They not only have
to cram more servers per square inch
than they ever thought they’d need,
they also have to figure out how
to do it without sending the
electricity bill through the roof.”
(-eWeek, The Greening of the Data Center, Kevin Fogarty, August 2006)
“Virtualization in and of itself is
interesting, and it gives you server
efficiency, but without some of the
automated tools, it may actually
increase your management burden.”
—John Enck, Gartner
> Data Center Automation from Novell
Novell has launched a new strategy to build a mixed-source-based
platform that offers value thru sophisticated integration of otherwise
isolated components. This solution identifies the workloads shown in
FIGURE 1. Consider the evolution of computing from mainframe to
mini to client/server. Now modularize, standardize, commoditize and
virtualize. Next, add integrated intelligence and you have a modern
“computer” comprising virtualized computing and storage that is
controlled by a distributed operating system realized by grid-inspired
D
Netware/Linux
File & Print
Collaboration
Classification Aware
Data Management
Work Group
Linux Clusters
New Interconnects
Grid Managers
High Performance
Cluster Computing
Common
Integrated Fabric
Linux
Web/App/DB
Servers
LoB Services
CRM, ERP,
OLAP, OLTP
Data Center
Linux
Webtop
Office Apps
Secure Sign-On
Virtual Teams
Index/Search
Replicate/Sync
Work Station
Figure 1 SUSE Linux Enterprise is the foundation for commercial high-performance
cluster computing, data center and enterprise workgroup workloads.
Electricity supply utilities depend
on a high-voltage grid. Therefore,
Grid software is nominally consid-
ered the foundation for Utility
computing. A Grid runs distrib-
uted resource management
software capable of allocating
capacity from virtualized comput-
ers and storage devices. Instead
of statically installing application
software onto a computer, grid
software dynamically binds servic-
es and data to computers at
execution time. This makes indi-
vidual computers anonymous
relative to processing. Grid “jobs”
that comprise program logic and
dependent data are scheduled to
be combined and enable pro-
cessing.
A good way to think about it is the
next generation of resource man-
agement software. A better way
might be to consider Grid the next
distributed operating system that
manages applications comprising
a collection of Web services con-
suming virtualized storage and
computational resources ensuring
optimal use of physical resources
relative to consumers. The classic
definition of an OS hasn’t
changed; it too has been virtual-
ized across multiple computers.
What is Utility Computing?
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4. novell.com/connectionmagazine 67
resource management software. This new solution enables main-
frame-class capabilities for commodity scale-out data center
architectures. All workloads are supported by a common modular
Linux foundation: SUSE Linux Enterprise, although all major virtu-
alization platforms will be supported.
“For virtualization to truly work
in real-world applications, users
must also focus strongly on
automation, the policy-based
administrative tools used to
deploy virtualized instances
and manage them.”
—John Enck, Gartner
Commercial high-performance cluster computing, data center and
enterprise workgroup workloads will run inside “virtualized” data
centers. (SEE FIGURE 2.) Users connect to the network using work-
stations, whether they are fixed location desktop or mobile devices.
Eventually, parts of the desktop software experience will also be host-
ed and managed by data center servers thru virtualization-enabled
provisioning of user machines, onto dynamically repurposed servers,
and connected to next-generation thin-client terminals.
> Components
Novell’s first data center automation solution manages compute and
storage servers on behalf of applications or services hosted in virtual
machines. FIGURE 3 illustrates three primary types of servers running
in the new data center.
Redundant Data
Center Fabric
Virtualized Hosts Virtualized Storage
Clustered
Management
Servers
SLE 10 32/64–bit
SLE 10 32/64–bit
Storage
Resources
Storage
Resources
Business
Network
Virtual machines
hosting SOA Components
Anonymous Compute Servers
dedicated to VM hosting
Figure 2 A platform for executing SOA Applications can be
represented using the following formula:
Virtual Storage + Virtual Machines + Resource Management
+ Identity Management
Virtualized Storage: active control of SAN
devices to accomplish data protection or
storage provisioning goals on behalf of host
resident services. A cluster file system stores
virtual machine images and other persistent
data in a highly available way.
Virtual Machines: execution containers for
NetWare, Linux, .Net and Java, on Linux (for
example, a physical server that has been
imaged and is now running on a Linux cluster
as a managed virtual machine).
Resource Management: management soft-
ware that images blades, orchestrates
remote installs and package updates across
a farm of (blade) servers; includes Grid
resource scheduling algorithms, for example,
for migrating workloads and even large
datasets from one blade server to another or
one data center SAN to another for disaster
recovery; policy-driven data protection.
Identity Management: the owner of servic-
es and data, the entity that creates purpose
and ownership for the above activities.
What grids offer is an ease of letting compute power flow to wherever it’s
needed instead of being statically allocated by the capital spending of
particular business units. The enterprise data center is well on its way to
becoming a supplier of service rather than a custodian of hardware.
Today’s confluence of commodity components, burgeoning bandwidth
and open source systems software fills in the rest of the picture. Taken together,
they make the enterprise case for grid computing, which is the connection of
heterogeneous computing nodes using self-administering software that
makes the nodes function as a single virtual system.
—Peter Coffee, Grid Computing in the Enterprise, February 2004.
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5. 68 fourth quarter/2006
I. Compute Servers
Compute servers are industry-standard (rack-mount and blade)
servers with multi-core 64bit CPUs, multi-GB memory, serial-
attached RAID, Ethernet and SAN ports, plus embedded hardware
that supports out-of-band intelligent platform management interface
(IPMI). Next generation CPUs will provide hardware support to
improve upon today’s software-based server virtualization. Compute
servers run an appropriate OS for the physical hardware architecture,
comprising of a virtual machine monitor (such as Xen hypervisor),
device drivers, management kernel and agents. Management agents
support remote deployment of virtual machines to be executed by the
hypervisor also present on every compute server. Compute servers
may be grouped together and organized by type (for example, thin
blades versus thick SMPs), intended purpose (for example, test or
production), owner, physical location and other classification. They
are named with a globally unique identifier. Finally, compute servers
I. Compute servers
II. Storage servers
III. Management servers:
A. Orchestrator
B. Storage Resource Manager
C. Universal Model Facility
D. Image Creation
E. Image Repository
There are five main management server functions; all functions could
be installed on a single physical server, in separate virtual machines, or
separate servers. Management servers will be clustered for high availabil-
ity. The resulting management cluster is responsible for orchestrating
compute and storage servers with respect to allocatable units of applica-
tion-specific memory, compute and storage capacity declared by
individual virtual machine instantiation and deployment constraints.
Vm VmVm
Storage
Network
Vm Vm Vm Vm
VmVm
Redundant SAN
Redundant LAN
Figure 4 You can create a SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 cluster for hosting Xen VMs.
Using the YaST2 tool, VMs take on cluster-wide capabilities. VM images and cre-
ation files are placed where they are accessible to other servers in a clustered
configuration.
Virtual
Physical
Virtual
Physical
Vm Vm
Vm
Vm
Vm
Vm
Vm
Vm
Vm Vm
Machines
Virtual Management
> Image Creation & Repository
> Central (CIM-based) Model
> Distributed Monitoring
> Workload Orchestration
Server Management
> Physical & Virtual Provisioning
> Patching Agent
> Application Deployment
> Registration & Licensing
Virtual OS
Application stacks with
fault containment and
intrusion protection.
Physical OS
Comprised of a hypervisor,
device drivers and agents
needed by specific hardware.
Storage
Management
Storage
Figure 3 Novell Data Center Automation comprises a number of management
servers including Orchestrator, Image Creation and Image Repository servers.
Compute servers are industry-standard (rack-mount and blade)
servers with multi-core 64-bit CPUs, multi-GB memory, serial-attached RAID,
Ethernet and SAN ports, plus embedded hardware that supports out-of-band
intelligent platform management interface (IPMI).
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6. novell.com/connectionmagazine 69
can function in isolation, or they can cooperate with other compute
servers to create high-availability clusters.
II. Storage Servers
Storage servers are industry-standard SAN disk-block storage arrays
or file servers. Storage is pooled and protected. Storage is accessed by
compute servers on behalf of virtual machines. This is a dynamic rela-
tionship; storage is managed with respect to the life-cycle of
individual virtual machines. Just like compute servers, storage is
organized by type (for example, available RAID5 disks), purpose (for
example, temporary, protected or remotely replicated), and owner.
Many customers have already made a storage infrastructure commit-
ment and want Data Center Automation tools to support that
investment. Industry standard SMI-S* enables third-party management
of heterogeneous storage. The system will manage whatever enterprise
storage has been assigned to it, for example, a portion of an existing SAN
or the entire SAN if dedicated to compute and storage orchestration.
(*Note: According to Wikipedia.com, SMI-S, or the Storage Management
Initiative - Specification, is a storage standard developed and maintained by
the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and is a model, or
guide to building systems using modules that plug together. SMI-S-compli-
ant storage modules interoperate in a system and function in consistent,
predictable ways, regardless of which vendor built them, provided that the
modules use Common Information Model (CIM) language and adhere to
sets of specifications called CIM schema. The main objective of SMI-S is to
enable broad interoperability among heterogeneous storage vendor systems.)
III. Management Servers
A configuration management server extends an existing Novell prod-
uct that uses policy-driven automation to deploy, manage and
maintain data center servers. The management server provides cen-
tralized control of the life cycle of operating systems with imaging,
remote control, inventory and software management. With respect to
data center automation, it provides imaging of physical systems onto
compute servers plus a global namespace (hardware asset inventory)
of all managed compute servers.
This namespace plus any hierarchical structure created by the data
center administrator, for example, organizing servers into groups, will
be federated with the Universal Model Facility (UMF; also see
Universal Model Facility below) to support CIM-based server health
monitoring. The management server can track the creation of virtual
machines, assuming installation of a virtual machine image that con-
tains the management agents. The management server considers
virtual machines to be managed assets in the same way as physical
servers. Virtual machines, once created, will also appear in the man-
The word Utility connotes an
always-available resource much
like that sold by water, gas or elec-
tricity supply companies. These
utility companies charge con-
sumers for what is used and when
it is used. They also offer a guar-
anteed service level. Consumers
have become critically dependent
on utilities.
Consumers of information technol-
ogy desire a Utility model for
computing. It’s no longer possible
for society to function without IT
and because demand for capacity
is sporadic and unpredictable,
consumers want to pay as they go
and be guaranteed service when
they ask. On-demand is therefore
only one attribute of the broader
Utility Computing concept.
Virtualized systems do nothing by
themselves. They have a latent
potential to compute and store
data in a very dynamic way, but do
nothing unless directed. Virtualized
systems are the willing subordi-
nates of demanding consumers.
Utility computing is therefore real-
ized through the combination of
virtualized systems and sophisti-
cated resource management
software. Resource management,
by executing policy, is the driving
force directing virtualized systems
in support of line-of-business
applications and processes.
In response to variable workload
demand, resource management
automates tasks such as creating a
virtual machine and assigning it to a
physical machine or allocating more
storage to an authorized service.
And life cycle rules cause resources
to be automatically retired when no
longer needed. To offer a true Utility
model for computing, resource
management must also react to
unexpected events. Response to
server failure or spikes in demand
for capacity should not require
human intervention. Virtualized sys-
tems are therefore required to offer
standard mechanisms for intro-
spection, or the ability to monitor
and report their own health.
Autonomic computing is automated
response to monitored health con-
ditions and so therefore also
realized by the combination of virtu-
alized systems and (policy-based)
resource management.
What is Utility Computing?
Storage servers are industry-standard SAN disk-block storage arrays or
file servers. Storage is pooled and protected.
A configuration management server extends an existing Novell product that uses
policy-driven automation to deploy, manage and maintain data center servers.
Q4_Novell_final.qxp:Novell Connection 11/28/06 12:03 PM Page 69
7. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 offers virtualization capabilities like no other
OS. It can provision, deprovision, install, monitor and manage multiple
guest operating systems. It provides the out-of-the-box ability to create
Xen virtual machines running modified, highly tuned, paravirtualized
guest operating systems for optimal performance. What’s more, with the
CPU hardware assist plus Xen functionality, SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server can play host to several guest OSs operating on a single server
at speeds that are generally faster than those obtained when the OSs
were operating solo in a 1:1 configuration.
Data center managers can maintain a centralized store of virtual
machines (VMs) and deploy them over the network by identifying a phys-
ical computer at deployment time, copying the VM image, and making it
available to run on that particular physical server. The VM can specify a
set of constraints such as 32-bit or 64-bit server or SAN connectivity. The
VM might contain a Windows OS version or a legacy OS and can even
specify that the hardware must support virtualization technology. The
data center can maintain a veritable catalog of available VMs in an offline
repository and send images upon the request of an individual, a work-
group or—soon—autonomically, when a business policy, a service level
agreement or a server failure necessitates dispensing a new image.
In addition to virtualization capabilities, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
supports the Oracle Clustered File System (OCFS), and therefore pro-
vides outstanding support for clustering. What’s more, in a clustered
environment, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (plus the Xen hypervisor,
YaST2, CIM-based monitoring tools and other built-in, standards-based
management solutions) is the foundation for allowing resources to be
pooled, allocated and utilized like never before. In effect VM manage-
ment becomes synonymous with workload management. The data
center becomes an asset manager that is aware of all physical and vir-
tual servers in the environment and their characteristics. This information
is acted upon in real time to allocate resources as appropriately and
efficiently as possible.
Data center managers can configure a clustered environment based on
standardized platform and running SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 that fea-
tures centralized, shared storage and is free of single points of failure.
(SEE FIGURE 4.) This design enables high availability for VM hosting, as all
VM OS image files reside in a central location and access is possible by
each server. VMs can be failed over if the physical server on which they’re
running fails. With future support for live VM state migration, or a real-time
transfer of a live OS state from one physical server to another, there is vir-
tually no server downtime; applications continue to operate uninterrupted,
and end users are unaware that a migration even took place.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 –
virtuously virtual
70 fourth quarter/2006
aged server namespace. Once the systems are in a managed state, you
need a way to orchestrate them to align to business needs.
A. Orchestrator
The Orchestrator is the brains behind the data center automation
system; it interacts with the configuration and storage resource
management servers to manage physical compute and storage
resources and the relationships between them. The Orchestrator
also manages virtual resources. It’s responsible for the entire life
cycle of individual virtual machines comprising control
information, OS image and storage resources from initial creation
to deployment and monitored execution, to final destruction.
Physical constraints, dependencies, live performance trends and
other real-time execution states monitored by the UMF are
considered by the Orchestrator when scheduling virtual machines
to compute servers for execution.
B. Storage Resource Manager
The storage resource manager component is responsible for
managing SMI-S-enabled storage arrays. The manager is an
automounter for SAN LUNs. Compute servers will dynamically
access SAN storage with respect to the virtual machines that are
scheduled to run on them. The manager also supports
provisioning of SAN LUNs when creating a new virtual machine.
C. Universal Model Facility
The UMF is another new component responsible for aggregating
and associating management models and monitoring data from
managed devices. Managed devices are either compute servers,
virtual machines or SMI-S-enabled storage servers. The UMF
collects and records health information in the context of the
relationships that exist between managed devices. By consuming
status events, applying hysteresis thresholds to monitored devices
and exporting a summary view of vital-signs metrics to the
Orchestrator, the UMF could be considered the nervous system
wired to the Orchestrator’s brain. A monitored variable may go
above and dip below thresholds, but isn’t considered noteworthy
until it has stayed above a threshold for a certain period of time.
D. Image Creation
An image-creation server is a special kind of compute server
dedicated to the creation and installation of virtual machines. In
large environments that depend on frequent virtual machine
creation, you might have multiple image creation servers. In other
scenarios, the Orchestration server may decide to define and install a
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 offers virtualization capabilities like no other OS. It
can provision, deprovision, install, monitor and manage multiple guest operating
systems. It provides the out-of-the-box ability to create Xen virtual machines
running modified, highly tuned, paravirtualized guest operating systems for optimal
performance. What’s more, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can play host to
several guest OSs operating on a single server at speeds that are generally faster
than those obtained when the OSs were operating solo in a 1:1 configuration.
For more information or to have a Novell Representative contact you, please visit novell.com/ncmconnect.
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8. novell.com/connectionmagazine 71
The classic computer has CPUs,
memory and disk(s) to hold data
when the power is turned off.
Virtual memory gave computers
the ability to present the illusion to
applications of more main memory
than was physically available.
Virtual disks create the illusion of a
disk larger or more fault tolerant
compared to the many physical
disks they comprise. Virtual
machines present the illusion of a
whole computer that is actually
contained by a real computer shar-
ing its physical resources among
competing virtual machines.
Clusters present the illusion of a
single reliable computer by cou-
pling together and masking the
failures of physical computers.
Today, data center computers
(servers) are connected to disks
over a storage area network (SAN).
By removing and relocating stor-
age from individual servers to a
central network location, server
form factors have shrunk. Blade
servers are now popular. Blades
are granted access to virtual disks
(named storage containers) locat-
ed inside SAN disk arrays. When a
server fails, processing fails over to
another server with access to the
same SAN virtual disks. When a
service (running on a server) runs
out of storage, more space can be
allocated from the SAN using stan-
dard management APIs. When
services themselves are virtualized,
by hosting inside a virtual
machine, they gain the flexibility to
migrate from one physical server
to another.
Virtualization eliminates physically
imposed static boundaries: CPU,
memory and disk are allocated
dynamically. Services and data
gain mobility: the freedom to opti-
mally consume physical resources
and the ability to rapidly switch to
alternate physical resources while
adapting to workload demands.
High availability is a natural conse-
quence of virtualized systems.
Legacy line of business applica-
tions are also being virtualized.
Static monolithic client server soft-
ware is being augmented or
replaced with Web services. Web-
based Services Oriented
Architecture (SOA) replaces earlier
distributed object systems. There
are new WS- protocols for anything
that wasn’t XML-based before. And
line-of-business (LOB) applications
now comprise a number of cooper-
ating services. Infrastructure
services provide naming, discovery
and, via XML, a data integration
and exchange format. LOB compo-
nents execute in virtual machines
and communicate using Web serv-
ices protocols. SOA and WS-
protocols are creating a new plat-
form for distributed computing.
Finally, with so many distributed
moving parts, identity management
creates the infrastructure necessary
to securely name and associate,
authenticate and authorize service
consumers with producers regard-
less of service type. Identity is the
context that binds a flow of service
requests all the way from the end
user through multiple processing
tiers, to data on disks. Users are
granted rights to services and serv-
ices are granted rights to other
services. And if we haven’t experi-
enced enough virtualization yet,
identity itself has been virtualized
by the notion of “role.”
What is Virtualization?
virtual machine “in-place” effectively incubating the virtual machine
on the compute server that will eventually also execute it. The result
of providing image-creation services is the automated control and
creation of a new virtual machine comprising control information,
OS image and optional external storage references. Infant virtual
machines are ready to execute. They actually run as a result of
Orchestrator-driven deployment to an assigned compute server.
E. Image Repository
An image-repository server is another special kind of compute
server that stores ready-to-run virtual machines. When the
Orchestrator instructs a compute server to run a particular virtual
machine, the compute server contacts the image repository and
downloads the corresponding image. Pushing is an alternative to
this pull style of image deployment. For some workloads, it may
be optimal for the Orchestrator to instruct the image repository
to multicast an image to multiple compute servers to prestage the
VM on potential deployment targets. The image repository also
provides version control for virtual machines under management
to support, for example, offline patching and preproduction
testing prior to production staging and rollout, with assured
rollback to version-tagged golden images.
> Summary
Novell, having recognized the shift toward commodity data center
architectures based on Intel architecture servers, storage networking,
virtualization, automation for resource management and an underly-
ing context of identity-based orchestration is making investments for
customers that are consolidating their data centers. The unique
Novell approach, linking virtualized storage, virtual machines,
resource management, identity management and Services Oriented
Architecture (SOA) applications, puts Novell into a leading position
in data center automation. Watch for more developments from Novell
in the future, capitalizing on the virtue of the virtual approach. N
Virtualization eliminates physically imposed static boundaries: CPU, memory
and disk are allocated dynamically. Services and data gain mobility: the freedom to
optimally consume physical resources and the ability to rapidly switch to
alternate physical resources while adapting to workload demands. High availability
is a natural consequence of virtualized systems.
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