The Expansion of Abstraction
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My presentation on the role of abstraction in virtualization and cloud computing. This was the keynote presentation for the 10th anniversary event for eGroup in Charleston, SC, on April 16, 2010.
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The Expansion of Abstraction
- 1. 1© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. The Expansion of Abstraction What Client-Server Computing, Virtualization, and Cloud Computing Have in Common and Where It Can Take Us
- 2. 2© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Where we were… Unified Centralized Monolithic Inflexible Photo courtesy of Vermont State Development Department
- 3. 3© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Along came client-server computing Decoupled Modular Distributed Flexible
- 4. 4© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. At its core, client-server computing is… Abstraction
- 5. 5© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Client-server introduced its own problems
- 6. 6© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. The solution to the problem… Abstraction
- 7. 7© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Virtualization is the next form of abstraction Encapsulation Isolation Partitioning Consolidation
- 8. 8© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Consolidation was only the first step Dynamic Elastic Pooled Resilient Live migration Dynamic workload placement Workload mirroring Easy capacity expansion Rapid deployment VM templating High availability
- 9. 9© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. We’re not all the way there yet Self-service Greater automation Increased visibility New operational models
- 10. 10© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Is it just me, or is it getting cloudy?
- 11. 11© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Back to our old friend again Abstraction
- 12. 12© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Carrying abstraction to its conclusion Abstracting data from the physical disks upon which it residesAbstracting network connectivity to simplify data center interconnects Abstract applications from the OS and enable JeOS (“Just enough OS”) Abstracting data access from data location Enabling the vision of the private cloud
- 13. 13© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Questions?
- 14. 14© 2009 EMC. All rights reserved. Thank You!
Editor's Notes
- Unified means tightly coupled…applications tightly coupled to the operating system, which was tightly coupled to the underlying hardware Data was tightly coupled to applications, making it hard to get data into or out of applications Centralized computing power, even the terminals lacked computing power Had benefits, but it was monolithic (couldn’t replace individual components) and inflexible (not easily repurposed for new tasks) The rise of the PC stemmed from a need to address these shortcomings, but PCs weren’t the ultimate answer
- PCs were the start down a new path Client-server computing came along and separated the various components of the computing environment Three-tier client-server architectures added more components, introduced more flexibility in deployment—and introduced complexity Various forms of client-server computing emerged, including server-based computing The client-server model was everywhere, it seemed But what is the client-server model if not just another form of… (advance slide)
- The client-server model introduced abstraction Abstraction is defined as “considering something independently of its associations or attributes” Abstraction is inserted between layers of an application—abstraction between the clients and the application servers, the application servers and the database servers, the database servers and the data model itself Server-based computing added abstraction between the location of a display and the location of the processing that produced the display Web-based architectures are just another example of the client-server model The client-server model had many great benefits, but it too was not without its problems
- The biggest problem? Server sprawl Organizations needed more and more servers to handle all these new layers of the client-server model…front-end servers, back-end servers, application servers, middleware servers, database servers, terminal servers, messaging servers…you name it For better or worse, the x86 architecture and the operating systems led companies to a “1 application per server” approach, which further accelerated the server sprawl problem Vendors responded by making servers smaller—first 2U and 1U rack-optimized servers, then blade servers (8, 14, or 16 servers in a chassis) These were just stopgap solutions, though Applications are still tightly coupled to the OS, and the OS is still coupled to the hardware So how do we fix this problem? Once again, we turn to abstraction
- Once again we turn to abstraction to solve the problem This time we need to insert a layer of abstraction in a different place—between the hardware and the operating system
- Inserting abstraction between the hardware and the operating system leads to virtualization Specifically, the machine virtualization made possible initially by VMware and later by other vendors By leveraging the three key properties of virtualization—encapsulation, isolation, and partitioning—we were able to achieve the first goal of virtualization: consolidation Consolidation was great—many workloads collapsed onto fewer servers, reductions in power, reductions in cooling, reductions in capital expenditures Customers were able to eliminate lots of hardware, often doing this in conjunction with a hardware refresh Millions of dollars saved in cost avoidance or in direct savings But consolidation was only the first step
- Consolidation was great, but we needed something more We needed the ability to have the infrastructure respond dynamically to changing workloads We needed the ability to have an elastic infrastructure that we could expand and contract as needed We needed resources to be pooled and allocated on-demand to workloads The virtualization solutions adapted to meet these needs adding features like VM templating, rapid deployment, live migration, workload mirroring, and dynamic workload placement But all these features still didn’t take us the whole way…they only get us part of the way on our journey Desktop virtualization is a further extension of this strategy out of the data center This, BTW, is where most organizations find themselves today
- In order to get to the “next level” we are seeking, there are still things that we need: We need self-service—we are still expending too many human resources to manage the data center, even highly virtualized data centers (if your admins are still provisioning VMs, you haven’t gotten there yet) Need greater levels of automation (again, need to reduce the human footprint) Need increased visibility into the workings of the virtualized environment, which will come through improved instrumentation, greater integration with the hardware, and improved management functionality Perhaps most importantly, organizations need new operational models to take advantage of these features, to streamline efficiency and utilization (both electronic and human)
- And really what you get when you marry these additional needs with virtualization is cloud computing (as defined by VMware, Cisco, EMC, VCE Coalition) The industry touts cloud computing as the evolution of virtualization Virtualization + automation + orchestration = cloud computing There are lots of different cloud computing definitions, but not all of them mean running your workloads on the public Internet Cloud computing is really nothing more than leveraging virtualization to create highly fluid, very elastic, extremely automated infrastructure to create “IT as a Service” Some significant challenges still remain…how do we get there? Yep, you guessed it…
- Abstraction once again becomes the key to how we move forward toward our vision of cloud computing, including building the private cloud
- Abstraction will allow us to move to policy-driven storage, where the location of data is determined by policies placed on the data for performance or availability, increasing storage efficiency (FAST) Abstraction will simplify the creation of data center interconnects (OTV). Data center interconnects are a key component of geographic workload portability. Application virtualization enables application portability and makes JeOS possible. Abstracting data access from data location enables new ways of thinking about workload placement (EMC data federation).