This document provides an overview of a capstone project to design, create, and implement a cloud computing lab (CCL) at Durham Technical Community College. The project goals are to create an operational CCL that allows students to remotely access and use virtual machines from the lab or at home. Key aspects of the project include using PXE booting to load ESXi onto diskless lab computers, provisioning virtual machines using vSphere AutoDeploy, and providing storage using OpenFiler. NetLab will be used for scheduling and remote access to the virtual machines.
The document discusses how Jenkins and the Load Sharing Facility (LSF) were used to enable rapid delivery of device driver software. LSF was integrated with Jenkins to dynamically allocate hardware evaluation boards across software developers/testers, simplifying resource sharing and increasing automated regression testing throughput. This allowed tests to take advantage of idle boards and run in parallel, improving reliability, scalability, and reducing testing cycles. Benefits included eliminating manual board sharing, simplifying user access to boards, increasing system reliability, and shortening release cycles through faster automated regressions.
In this talk, we will give an overview of the state of the Xen Project, trends that impact the project, see whether challenges that surfaced last year have been addressed and how we did it, and highlight new challenges and solutions for the coming year.
Advanced performance troubleshooting using esxtopAlan Renouf
This document discusses using esxtop and resxtop tools to troubleshoot performance issues on VMware ESXi hosts. It provides 10 key things to know about esxtop counters and how they work. It then gives examples of using esxtop to troubleshoot common problems like CPU contention, memory issues, network throughput problems, and disk I/O latency. It also lists some other diagnostic tools that can be used along with esxtop.
In this session we examined the Xen PV performance on the latest platforms in a few cases that covers CPU/memory intensive, disk intensive and network intensive workloads. We compared Xen PV guest vs. HVM/PVOPS to see whether PV guest still have advantage over HVM on a system with state-of-the-art VT features. KVM was also compared as a reference. We also compared PV driver performance against bare-metal and pass-through/SR-IOV. The identified issues were discussed and we presented our proposal on fixing those issues.
Erlang on Xen: Redefining the cloud software stackViktor Sovietov
This document summarizes a presentation about Erlang on Xen and new approaches to cloud software stacks. It introduces Erlang on Xen as a new Erlang runtime that runs without an operating system and is optimized for low startup latency. It then outlines 7 "commandments" of new cloud software, including running computations near data and avoiding administration. Two potential projects are described: developing a Dom0 based on Erlang on Xen, and evaluating all web scripts inside separate Xen domains for increased security and performance.
The document discusses the Xen virtualization system. It begins by outlining the goals of Xen, which include running on commodity x86 hardware and operating systems without performance or functionality sacrifices, while allowing up to 100 virtual machine instances per server. It then describes Xen's design, which uses a thin hypervisor and paravirtualization to multiplex physical resources between guest operating systems. The document evaluates Xen's performance, finding it imposes small overhead and provides good isolation between virtual machines. It concludes that Xen is a promising virtualization platform and its development is ongoing.
vSphere APIs for performance monitoringAlan Renouf
The document discusses vSphere APIs for performance monitoring and provides an overview of useful performance metrics such as CPU, memory, disk, and network. It motivates the need for these APIs by demonstrating how charts and visualizations can help identify performance issues. The agenda covers common useful statistics, how vSphere retrieves performance data, and how to access the data programmatically using tools like PowerCLI and Java/C#.
Hypervisors and Virtualization - VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer, and KVMvwchu
With co-presenter Maninder Singh, delivered a presentation about hypervisors and virtualization technology for an independent topic study project for the Operating System Design (EECS 4221) course at York University, Canada in October 2014.
Virtualization, briefly, is the separation of resources or requests for a service from the underlying physical delivery of that service. It is a concept in which access to a single underlying piece of hardware is coordinated so that multiple guest operating systems can share a single piece of hardware, with no guest operating system being aware that it is actually sharing anything at all.
The document discusses how Jenkins and the Load Sharing Facility (LSF) were used to enable rapid delivery of device driver software. LSF was integrated with Jenkins to dynamically allocate hardware evaluation boards across software developers/testers, simplifying resource sharing and increasing automated regression testing throughput. This allowed tests to take advantage of idle boards and run in parallel, improving reliability, scalability, and reducing testing cycles. Benefits included eliminating manual board sharing, simplifying user access to boards, increasing system reliability, and shortening release cycles through faster automated regressions.
In this talk, we will give an overview of the state of the Xen Project, trends that impact the project, see whether challenges that surfaced last year have been addressed and how we did it, and highlight new challenges and solutions for the coming year.
Advanced performance troubleshooting using esxtopAlan Renouf
This document discusses using esxtop and resxtop tools to troubleshoot performance issues on VMware ESXi hosts. It provides 10 key things to know about esxtop counters and how they work. It then gives examples of using esxtop to troubleshoot common problems like CPU contention, memory issues, network throughput problems, and disk I/O latency. It also lists some other diagnostic tools that can be used along with esxtop.
In this session we examined the Xen PV performance on the latest platforms in a few cases that covers CPU/memory intensive, disk intensive and network intensive workloads. We compared Xen PV guest vs. HVM/PVOPS to see whether PV guest still have advantage over HVM on a system with state-of-the-art VT features. KVM was also compared as a reference. We also compared PV driver performance against bare-metal and pass-through/SR-IOV. The identified issues were discussed and we presented our proposal on fixing those issues.
Erlang on Xen: Redefining the cloud software stackViktor Sovietov
This document summarizes a presentation about Erlang on Xen and new approaches to cloud software stacks. It introduces Erlang on Xen as a new Erlang runtime that runs without an operating system and is optimized for low startup latency. It then outlines 7 "commandments" of new cloud software, including running computations near data and avoiding administration. Two potential projects are described: developing a Dom0 based on Erlang on Xen, and evaluating all web scripts inside separate Xen domains for increased security and performance.
The document discusses the Xen virtualization system. It begins by outlining the goals of Xen, which include running on commodity x86 hardware and operating systems without performance or functionality sacrifices, while allowing up to 100 virtual machine instances per server. It then describes Xen's design, which uses a thin hypervisor and paravirtualization to multiplex physical resources between guest operating systems. The document evaluates Xen's performance, finding it imposes small overhead and provides good isolation between virtual machines. It concludes that Xen is a promising virtualization platform and its development is ongoing.
vSphere APIs for performance monitoringAlan Renouf
The document discusses vSphere APIs for performance monitoring and provides an overview of useful performance metrics such as CPU, memory, disk, and network. It motivates the need for these APIs by demonstrating how charts and visualizations can help identify performance issues. The agenda covers common useful statistics, how vSphere retrieves performance data, and how to access the data programmatically using tools like PowerCLI and Java/C#.
Hypervisors and Virtualization - VMware, Hyper-V, XenServer, and KVMvwchu
With co-presenter Maninder Singh, delivered a presentation about hypervisors and virtualization technology for an independent topic study project for the Operating System Design (EECS 4221) course at York University, Canada in October 2014.
Virtualization, briefly, is the separation of resources or requests for a service from the underlying physical delivery of that service. It is a concept in which access to a single underlying piece of hardware is coordinated so that multiple guest operating systems can share a single piece of hardware, with no guest operating system being aware that it is actually sharing anything at all.
LFNW2014 Advanced Security Features of Xen Project HypervisorThe Linux Foundation
As delivered by Russell Pavlicek at Linuxfest Northwest 2014. Some of the key security features which can be enabled when using the Xen Project Hypervisor.
Xen is a virtual machine monitor that allows multiple guest operating systems to run simultaneously on the same computer hardware. It uses paravirtualization, where the guest operating systems are modified to interface with the hypervisor rather than directly with hardware. This allows Xen to provide isolation between guest virtual machines while maintaining high performance. Xen introduces a new privileged level, where the hypervisor runs at a higher privilege than the guest operating systems. This allows Xen to maintain control over CPU, memory, and I/O access between virtual machines.
Lightweight locks (LWLocks) in PostgreSQL provide mutually exclusive access to shared memory structures. They support both shared and exclusive locking modes. The LWLocks framework uses wait queues, semaphores, and spinlocks to efficiently manage acquiring and releasing locks. Dynamic monitoring of LWLock events is possible through special builds that incorporate statistics collection.
Sergey Dzyuban "To Build My Own Cloud with Blackjack…"Fwdays
Cloud providers like Amazon or Google have a great user experience to create and manage PaaS. But is it possible to reproduce the same experience and flexibility locally, in the on-premise datacenter? What if your own infrastructure grows to fast and your team can’t deal with it in the old way? What does Jenkins, .NET microservices and TVs for daily meetings have in common?
This talk shares our experience using DC/OS (datacenter operating system) for building flexible and stable infrastructure. I will show the evolution of private cloud from the first steps with Vagrant to the hybrid cloud with instance groups in Google Cloud, the benefits it gives us and the problems we get instead.
VMworld 2013: Silent Killer: How Latency Destroys Performance...And What to D...VMworld
VMworld 2013
Bhavesh Davda, VMware
Josh Simons, VMware
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
This document discusses the history and development of the Xen hypervisor project. It provides an overview of how paravirtualization and hardware-assisted virtualization have improved performance. It also examines how virtualization benefits security through policy enforcement and workload isolation. Network and memory management virtualization techniques are described that improve performance for virtual machines.
vSphere defines VMware's virtualization product suite, including the ESXi hypervisor, vCenter management server, and vSphere Client interface. ESXi uses a proprietary kernel called vmkernel along with some open source components. Key features of vSphere include VMware HA, vMotion, and DRS for managing and migrating VMs across hosts. Troubleshooting performance issues involves tools like esxtop to monitor CPU, memory, and swap usage on ESXi hosts and VMs.
This document provides an overview of hybrid cloud computing and outlines the steps to build a private or hybrid cloud using the open source Eucalyptus cloud platform. It describes the key components of Eucalyptus including the cloud controller, nodes, and networking configuration. The document also summarizes how to use the euca2ools to manage Eucalyptus resources such as images, instances, volumes, and security groups.
This document discusses applications that can experience performance issues when virtualized due to expensive address translation costs. It describes how virtual machines require an additional level of memory virtualization that introduces shadow page tables or nested page tables to map guest virtual addresses to machine memory. While hardware-assisted virtualization reduces exit frequencies and overhead compared to software address translation, it also makes the translation lookup more expensive due to deeper page table walks. In rare cases with very poor memory locality and high translation miss rates, the cycle costs of the two-level address translation can significantly degrade application performance when virtualized.
Hypervisors are becoming more and more widespread in embedded environments, from automotive to medical and avionics. Their use case is different from traditional server and desktop virtualization, and so are their requirements. This talk will explain why hypervisors are used in embedded, and the unique challenges posed by these environments to virtualization technologies.
Xen, a popular open source hypervisor, was born to virtualize x86 Linux systems for the data center. It is now the leading open source hypervisor for ARM embedded platforms. The presentation will show how the ARM port of Xen differs from its x86 counterpart. It will go through the fundamental design decisions that made Xen a good choice for ARM embedded virtualization. The talk will explain the implementation of key features such as device assignment and interrupt virtualization.
The document summarizes a Dell World User Forum presentation on troubleshooting the K2000 appliance. The presentation covered K2000 basics, networking configuration, boot environments, deployment methods, installation tasks, and resources for support. It included demos of exploring UEFI partitions, troubleshooting tasks, and generating a K2 Advisor report. The document concluded by announcing the migration of KACE support portal materials to the Dell Software Support Portal starting in November.
Todd Deshane presented results from benchmarking tests of Xen and KVM virtualization systems at the 2008 Xen Summit. Key findings included Xen having similar or better CPU performance than KVM, but KVM outperforming Xen on some disk and network tests. Tests of performance isolation showed Xen was generally more isolated, while KVM scaling failed as guest numbers increased beyond 4. Areas for further work were identified, such as expanding tests and automating processes.
Open Source Citrix Windows PV Drivers - Paul Durrant, CitrixThe Linux Foundation
Citrix has recently spent several months making sure all the key parts of XenServer are open source. Part of this effort made the XenServer Windows Paravirtual (PV) drivers available in source form under a BSD 2 clause license on GitHub.
Xen, XenServer, and XAPI: What’s the Difference?-XPUS13 Bulpin,PavlicekThe Linux Foundation
Many people have difficulty understanding the difference between the Xen Hypervisor, XenServer, and XAPI. In this session, James Bulpin, Director of Technology for XenServer, and Russell Pavlicek, Evangelist for the Xen Project, will attempt to clarify what each project is, what it does, and how it compares with the others. We will cover some of the basic features and functions, the tasks for which each is suitable, and where the projects overlap. Attendees will come away with a better sense of where these three projects fit in the world of Xen virtualization.
XPDS14 - Zero-Footprint Guest Memory Introspection from Xen - Mihai Dontu, Bi...The Linux Foundation
This presentation will detail a practical approach to memory introspection of virtual machines running on the Xen hypervisor with no in-guest footprint. The functionality makes use of the mem-event API with a number of improvements which enable the proper tracking of guest OS activity. The technology created on top of this Xen API opens the door for several immediate applications, including: rootkit detection and prevention, detection and action on several categories of malware, and event source information for low-level post-event forensics and correlation based on real event data during events.
My presentation on the paper: Xen and the Art of Virtualization by Paul Barham, Boris Dragovic, Keir Fraser, Steven Hand, Tim Harris, Alex Ho, Rolf Neugebauer, Ian Pratt, Andrew Warfield. Prepared for CSCI 297 - Advanced Operating System at GWU, Spring 2010
AAI-1304 Technical Deep-Dive into IBM WebSphere LibertyWASdev Community
A detailed look into the philosophy, architecture and design of the most flexible, simple and scalable Java EE Application Server on the market today; the WebSphere Liberty profile. These slides describe the motivation behind this project, and the key characteristics that are encouraging so many Java EE users to move their applications to Liberty.
This document describes setting up a PXE server to remotely install and configure ESXi hosts. The PXE server will:
1. Use TFTP to serve ESXi installation files and PXE boot files to hosts.
2. Use DHCP to assign IP addresses to hosts and point them to the PXE boot file.
3. Use a web server to host a kickstart file that automates the ESXi installation.
The document provides details on configuring the TFTP, DHCP and web servers on a Linux system to support this PXE installation process. It also describes testing the setup by booting a host to trigger the remote ESXi installation.
LFNW2014 Advanced Security Features of Xen Project HypervisorThe Linux Foundation
As delivered by Russell Pavlicek at Linuxfest Northwest 2014. Some of the key security features which can be enabled when using the Xen Project Hypervisor.
Xen is a virtual machine monitor that allows multiple guest operating systems to run simultaneously on the same computer hardware. It uses paravirtualization, where the guest operating systems are modified to interface with the hypervisor rather than directly with hardware. This allows Xen to provide isolation between guest virtual machines while maintaining high performance. Xen introduces a new privileged level, where the hypervisor runs at a higher privilege than the guest operating systems. This allows Xen to maintain control over CPU, memory, and I/O access between virtual machines.
Lightweight locks (LWLocks) in PostgreSQL provide mutually exclusive access to shared memory structures. They support both shared and exclusive locking modes. The LWLocks framework uses wait queues, semaphores, and spinlocks to efficiently manage acquiring and releasing locks. Dynamic monitoring of LWLock events is possible through special builds that incorporate statistics collection.
Sergey Dzyuban "To Build My Own Cloud with Blackjack…"Fwdays
Cloud providers like Amazon or Google have a great user experience to create and manage PaaS. But is it possible to reproduce the same experience and flexibility locally, in the on-premise datacenter? What if your own infrastructure grows to fast and your team can’t deal with it in the old way? What does Jenkins, .NET microservices and TVs for daily meetings have in common?
This talk shares our experience using DC/OS (datacenter operating system) for building flexible and stable infrastructure. I will show the evolution of private cloud from the first steps with Vagrant to the hybrid cloud with instance groups in Google Cloud, the benefits it gives us and the problems we get instead.
VMworld 2013: Silent Killer: How Latency Destroys Performance...And What to D...VMworld
VMworld 2013
Bhavesh Davda, VMware
Josh Simons, VMware
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
This document discusses the history and development of the Xen hypervisor project. It provides an overview of how paravirtualization and hardware-assisted virtualization have improved performance. It also examines how virtualization benefits security through policy enforcement and workload isolation. Network and memory management virtualization techniques are described that improve performance for virtual machines.
vSphere defines VMware's virtualization product suite, including the ESXi hypervisor, vCenter management server, and vSphere Client interface. ESXi uses a proprietary kernel called vmkernel along with some open source components. Key features of vSphere include VMware HA, vMotion, and DRS for managing and migrating VMs across hosts. Troubleshooting performance issues involves tools like esxtop to monitor CPU, memory, and swap usage on ESXi hosts and VMs.
This document provides an overview of hybrid cloud computing and outlines the steps to build a private or hybrid cloud using the open source Eucalyptus cloud platform. It describes the key components of Eucalyptus including the cloud controller, nodes, and networking configuration. The document also summarizes how to use the euca2ools to manage Eucalyptus resources such as images, instances, volumes, and security groups.
This document discusses applications that can experience performance issues when virtualized due to expensive address translation costs. It describes how virtual machines require an additional level of memory virtualization that introduces shadow page tables or nested page tables to map guest virtual addresses to machine memory. While hardware-assisted virtualization reduces exit frequencies and overhead compared to software address translation, it also makes the translation lookup more expensive due to deeper page table walks. In rare cases with very poor memory locality and high translation miss rates, the cycle costs of the two-level address translation can significantly degrade application performance when virtualized.
Hypervisors are becoming more and more widespread in embedded environments, from automotive to medical and avionics. Their use case is different from traditional server and desktop virtualization, and so are their requirements. This talk will explain why hypervisors are used in embedded, and the unique challenges posed by these environments to virtualization technologies.
Xen, a popular open source hypervisor, was born to virtualize x86 Linux systems for the data center. It is now the leading open source hypervisor for ARM embedded platforms. The presentation will show how the ARM port of Xen differs from its x86 counterpart. It will go through the fundamental design decisions that made Xen a good choice for ARM embedded virtualization. The talk will explain the implementation of key features such as device assignment and interrupt virtualization.
The document summarizes a Dell World User Forum presentation on troubleshooting the K2000 appliance. The presentation covered K2000 basics, networking configuration, boot environments, deployment methods, installation tasks, and resources for support. It included demos of exploring UEFI partitions, troubleshooting tasks, and generating a K2 Advisor report. The document concluded by announcing the migration of KACE support portal materials to the Dell Software Support Portal starting in November.
Todd Deshane presented results from benchmarking tests of Xen and KVM virtualization systems at the 2008 Xen Summit. Key findings included Xen having similar or better CPU performance than KVM, but KVM outperforming Xen on some disk and network tests. Tests of performance isolation showed Xen was generally more isolated, while KVM scaling failed as guest numbers increased beyond 4. Areas for further work were identified, such as expanding tests and automating processes.
Open Source Citrix Windows PV Drivers - Paul Durrant, CitrixThe Linux Foundation
Citrix has recently spent several months making sure all the key parts of XenServer are open source. Part of this effort made the XenServer Windows Paravirtual (PV) drivers available in source form under a BSD 2 clause license on GitHub.
Xen, XenServer, and XAPI: What’s the Difference?-XPUS13 Bulpin,PavlicekThe Linux Foundation
Many people have difficulty understanding the difference between the Xen Hypervisor, XenServer, and XAPI. In this session, James Bulpin, Director of Technology for XenServer, and Russell Pavlicek, Evangelist for the Xen Project, will attempt to clarify what each project is, what it does, and how it compares with the others. We will cover some of the basic features and functions, the tasks for which each is suitable, and where the projects overlap. Attendees will come away with a better sense of where these three projects fit in the world of Xen virtualization.
XPDS14 - Zero-Footprint Guest Memory Introspection from Xen - Mihai Dontu, Bi...The Linux Foundation
This presentation will detail a practical approach to memory introspection of virtual machines running on the Xen hypervisor with no in-guest footprint. The functionality makes use of the mem-event API with a number of improvements which enable the proper tracking of guest OS activity. The technology created on top of this Xen API opens the door for several immediate applications, including: rootkit detection and prevention, detection and action on several categories of malware, and event source information for low-level post-event forensics and correlation based on real event data during events.
My presentation on the paper: Xen and the Art of Virtualization by Paul Barham, Boris Dragovic, Keir Fraser, Steven Hand, Tim Harris, Alex Ho, Rolf Neugebauer, Ian Pratt, Andrew Warfield. Prepared for CSCI 297 - Advanced Operating System at GWU, Spring 2010
AAI-1304 Technical Deep-Dive into IBM WebSphere LibertyWASdev Community
A detailed look into the philosophy, architecture and design of the most flexible, simple and scalable Java EE Application Server on the market today; the WebSphere Liberty profile. These slides describe the motivation behind this project, and the key characteristics that are encouraging so many Java EE users to move their applications to Liberty.
This document describes setting up a PXE server to remotely install and configure ESXi hosts. The PXE server will:
1. Use TFTP to serve ESXi installation files and PXE boot files to hosts.
2. Use DHCP to assign IP addresses to hosts and point them to the PXE boot file.
3. Use a web server to host a kickstart file that automates the ESXi installation.
The document provides details on configuring the TFTP, DHCP and web servers on a Linux system to support this PXE installation process. It also describes testing the setup by booting a host to trigger the remote ESXi installation.
Top 10 assistant construction manager interview questions and answerstonychoper4406
This document provides resources for assistant construction manager interviews, including example interview questions and answers. It lists 10 common interview questions for assistant construction managers and sample responses. Additionally, it suggests other useful materials for interview preparation, such as ebooks on interview questions, secrets to winning interviews, and interview techniques. The document aims to equip job applicants with guidance on succeeding at interviews for assistant construction manager roles.
Top 10 assistant category manager interview questions and answerstonychoper4406
This document provides resources for assistant category manager interviews, including sample interview questions, answers, and tips. It lists 10 common interview questions for assistant category managers along with detailed example answers. Additionally, it provides many links to further interview preparation materials on topics such as situational interviews, behavioral interviews, interview techniques, common questions, and more. The resources are intended to help candidates effectively prepare for and succeed in an assistant category manager interview.
Top 10 housekeeping assistant manager interview questions and answerstonychoper4406
This document provides resources for interview preparation for a housekeeping assistant manager position, including example interview questions, tips for different types of interviews, and links to ebooks and articles on interview skills. It lists the top 10 interview questions for this role, such as why the applicant wants the job, what they have learned from past mistakes, and what challenges they are seeking. Additional materials provided include guides on researching the company, common interview formats, and suggestions for follow-up questions to ask.
Hozaifa O. Abdelaziz is a Drilling Fluid Engineer with over 10 years of experience working for companies such as MISWACO, the Sudanese Oil Corporation, and StarOil Operating Company. He has extensive experience with various drilling fluid systems and solving problems like lost circulation, formation ballooning, and well control issues. Hozaifa has worked on land and offshore rigs and holds various safety and technical certifications. He is seeking new opportunities as a Drilling Fluid Engineer where he can apply his expertise.
Hitachi's Unified Compute Platform Pro (UCP Pro) for VMware vSphere provides a turnkey solution for building a private cloud infrastructure. It integrates hardware, software, and hypervisor components within VMware vCenter for unified management and orchestration. UCP Pro simplifies provisioning, monitoring, and maintenance of the entire physical and virtual infrastructure through a single management interface.
OpenStack is an open source cloud computing platform that can manage large networks of virtual machines and physical servers. It uses a distributed architecture with components like Nova (compute), Swift (object storage), Cinder (block storage), and Quantum (networking). OpenStack has been successful due to its scalability, support for multiple hypervisors including Hyper-V, and compatibility with popular programming languages like Python. While OpenStack is best suited for large public and private clouds, its complex installation and lack of unified deployment tools can present challenges, especially for small to mid-sized clouds.
The document provides an overview of Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance (OVCA), a preconfigured, converged infrastructure appliance for deploying virtualized workloads. Key points:
- OVCA automates the deployment of Oracle VM server virtualization, Oracle Fabric Interconnect networking, and Oracle ZFS storage on Oracle Sun hardware.
- It enables the addition of new compute servers with minimal configuration needed and automated provisioning of resources.
- OVCA is designed to deploy both virtual infrastructure and Oracle applications rapidly, with examples given of deploying Oracle RAC in 1 hour or less and E-Business Suite in under 2 hours.
This document summarizes a project on cloud forensics. It discusses cloud computing models like SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. It describes implementing a private Eucalyptus cloud and testing live forensics via virtual introspection and recovering ephemeral data from previous cloud tenants. It demonstrates recovering data from a physical disk but not from a new virtual instance due to sparse files. The document concludes ephemeral data is not accessible to new tenants in Eucalyptus clouds due to sparse files and zero-filling.
Everything gets faster and more agile in our Data Center.
Connectivity means everything.
Resource sharing is the new default.
Latency is the currency of the modern world to processes more data faster and smarter than ever.
Amazon EC2 provides a broad selection of instance types to accommodate a diverse mix of workloads. In this session, we provide an overview of the Amazon EC2 instance platform, key platform features, and the concept of instance generations. We dive into the current generation design choices of the different instance families, including General Purpose, Compute Optimized, Storage Optimized, Memory Optimized, and GPU instance. We also detail best practices and share performance tips for getting the most out of your Amazon EC2 instances.
Course Tech 2013, Ron Carswell, Using Virtualization in the ClassroomCengage Learning
Virtualization, an excellent solution for the classroom, balances the expanding hardware/software needs of
increasingly complex implementations that meet the expectations of the IT industry with budgetary constraints.
This session provides information on the methodologies implemented at San Antonio College in the Computer
Information Systems Department, and focuses on the virtualization products of Microsoft,Oracle, andVMware.
For beginning students, virtualization provides a stable environment to complete learning activities in the classroom/
laboratory. Intermediate students use virtualization to create “networks in a box”.Advanced studentsworkwith the
intimate details of virtualization to create “private clouds.”
Simulating Networks Using Cisco Modeling Labs (TechWiseTV Workshop)Robb Boyd
These are the slides....but you need to watch the replay so you can benefit from the demo! This was easily one of our most popular sessions with a HUGE number of attendees smashing previous records. REPLAY: cs.co/9001BMjah
Q&A Added on Nov 3, 2015: http://www.slideshare.net/robboyd/qa-from-cisco-modeling-labs-workshop
DESCRIPTION:
Building physical networks can be a slow, painful, and repetitive task. We often spend more time building the physical aspects of rack, cabling, and configuring and end up rushing the actual work.
In Simulating Networks using Cisco Modeling Labs, we will look at how you can simplify the building of labs using network virtualization. What is the architecture behind the system, the type of routers and switches you can use, the performance and capacity considerations, a demonstration of the product, and finally the gotchas for planning and building a virtual network.
This document outlines best practices for designing, implementing, and managing a Hyper-V virtualization environment. It covers topics such as using certified hardware, implementing server core, changing default locations, using the best practice analyzer, configuring failover clustering, allocating resources properly between virtual and physical machines, using shared storage, securing virtual machines and the host, implementing backups, and monitoring the environment with System Center products. The goal is to help users obtain the most efficient and effective way to complete tasks using proven and repeatable procedures.
This document provides an overview of virtualization concepts and VMware vSphere features. It begins with defining key virtualization building blocks like hypervisors, virtual machines, and virtual switches. It then covers ESXi architecture, vCenter functionality, and advanced features like vMotion, HA, and vNetworking. The document aims to give attendees a deep understanding of virtualization and how vSphere addresses various virtualization challenges.
The document provides best practices for deploying SUSE CaaS Platform. It discusses requirements like hardware needs, software subscriptions required, and support options. It covers planning and sizing considerations like cluster topology and disk space needs. Deployment best practices include steps like preparing the infrastructure, installing base software, verifying the infrastructure, installing CaaS Platform, and deploying Kubernetes addons. Testing and operations topics like monitoring, logging, backups are also covered.
Network Infrastructure as Code with Chef and CiscoMatt Ray
Chef is an open source framework for managing infrastructure as code. It uses a declarative language and recipes to describe and configure systems to match a desired state. Chef works by having clients pull policies from a server and apply them locally, then reporting the state back. Cisco and Chef are working together to bring official Chef support to Cisco's NX-OS and IOS-XR platforms through Omnibus packages and a Cisco cookbook with resources for managing Cisco devices. This will allow network infrastructures to be managed as code through testing, versioning, and continuous delivery practices.
DEVNET-1007 Network Infrastructure as Code with Chef and CiscoCisco DevNet
Automation of infrastructure is one of the key tenants of DevOps. Chef has been at the vanguard of "Infrastructure as Code", where the configuration and management of your applications and servers is automated and tracked as source code. This infrastructure source code may be tested, shared and tracked just like any other software project. Traditionally configuration management has meant physical, virtual and cloud servers but Cisco and Chef are working together to extend this into networking. This session will provide an introduction to Chef and the current state of Cisco integrations, network automation scenarios and the roadmap ahead.
This document discusses virtual machines and their implementation. It begins with an overview of virtual machines, including the key components of a host, virtual machine manager/hypervisor, and guest. It then covers different system models and types of virtual machine managers from hardware-based to software-based. The document discusses the history, benefits, and building blocks of virtual machines like trap-and-emulate and binary translation techniques. It also covers hardware assistance for virtualization and the lifecycle of virtual machines.
Simplifying Hyper-V Management for VMware Administrators5nine
In this presentation you will learn how to:
- Simplify and centralize Hyper-V Management across hosts
- Manage Hyper-V as easily as you manage VMware ESXi with vCenter
- Reduce VM costs without impacting performance
**Originally published here: https://info.5nine.com/webinar-simplifying-hyper-v-management-for-vmware-administrators
The document provides information about three Microsoft resources for technical training and software evaluation: the TechNet Evaluation Center, IT Camps, and Microsoft Virtual Academy. The TechNet Evaluation Center allows downloading free trials of Microsoft software. IT Camps are free, hands-on technical training events led by Microsoft experts. Microsoft Virtual Academy provides free online technical courses on Microsoft technologies.
OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform that was launched in 2010. It provides services for managing compute, storage, and networking resources in a data center. The core OpenStack services are Nova (compute), Swift (object storage), and Glance (image service). OpenStack uses a RESTful API and supports many hypervisors, operating systems, and storage backends. It allows for public and private cloud deployments and supports common industry standards.
This document discusses stateless hypervisors that are booted from a live image rather than persisting to local storage. Some key points:
- Rackspace uses stateless hypervisors booted from a network image to improve consistency and allow easy updating of all servers.
- The hypervisors are built using Ansible from a base operating system chroot. Common configurations are applied and different "personalities" like KVM or Xen are configured.
- Servers boot the image over the network using iPXE or locally using GRUB. The image runs in memory and mounts persistent storage.
- This approach allows rapid, consistent provisioning of thousands of hypervisors across different hardware with reproducible builds.
Latest (storage IO) patterns for cloud-native applications OpenEBS
Applying micro service patterns to storage giving each workload its own Container Attached Storage (CAS) system. This puts the DevOps persona within full control of the storage requirements and brings data agility to k8s persistent workloads. We will go over the concept and the implementation of CAS, as well as its orchestration.
2. Project Description
Design, create, and implement:
• Secure system
• Remote access
• Virtual machines (Linux, Windows, and OSX)
• Supporting both persistent and non-persistent VM
environments
• Utilizing existing classroom equipment (dual-purpose)
• Scheduling interface
3. Project Goals
Creating an operational Cloud Computing Lab
• Lab computers are capable of running a diskless
Hypervisor
• VMs are loaded to lab machines on request
• Students are able to access the CCL from home
• Lab machines alternate between VM server and host
workstation according to class schedule
4. Project Goals
Learning about project management
• Students have had experience in a simulated work
environment
• Students have had experience planning, designing and
implementing a large project
• Students learned about group organization and
communication
5. Project Goals
Sharing our work
• The CloudMaster will be reproducible by other colleges
• Our system will be thoroughly documented to assist
recreation
• The documentation will be made openly available to
anyone wishing to implement the CCL
7. How the System will Work
Overview
From the End User’s perspective:
End user makes a reservation using NetLab
• course selection
• time selection
• VM type (pod) - depends on enrolled courses
User will log in to NetLab at the reserved time and access
the VM
8. NetLab User Login
• Remote access
• Web browser
• Java plugin
• Console Connection
sharing
• Built in chat function
10. Class Availability
In test environment:
• Currently utilizes computers in a single classroom
• Testing will use 5 or 6pm as the test cut-off time for lab computers to
boot into CCL environment
• Testing lab isolated from Campus LAN
In production environment:
• Cut-off time may vary by classroom and PC availability
• Additional classrooms lab equipment may be added to resource
pool
• Classroom vs. CCL schedule will be documented and approved by
faculty
11. Inside NetLab
• Administrator login home
screen
• Add/modify user accounts
• Manage classes and rosters
• Design custom PODs
• View current network settings
and status
14. Behind the Scenes
Host systems (lab desktop workstations) are prepared in
advance for a virtual state:
Systems set up in advance to PXE boot
• boot order set
• Wake on LAN
• Diskless systems
• Will boot ESXi 5.1 into RAM from TFTP server
16. PXE Booting
• Pre-Boot Execution Environment
• Derived from DHCP
• Implemented in the NIC and BIOS
• Used to load Operating System images onto a target
computer
• Requires NIC capable of PXE (e.g. Intel® 82574L
Gigabit Ethernet Controller)
17. PXE Booting – The Steps
Boot order set in
BIOS
Universal Network
Driver Interface
loaded from NIC
PXE client
Broadcasts a
request for an IP
address
DHCP server
Responds with an
IP address
PXE client
requests name of
boot image
Boot Server
responds with boot
image filename
TFTP request from
PXE Client for the
NBP file
TFTP reply from
Boot Server
Boot Server sends
the boot image file
NBP to client
18. Diskless Hosts
• No local disk needed
• Requires PXE bootable system
• Loads OS into RAM from network
• Install and post-install configuration not persistent
• Persistent storage required to save changes
19. Configure the PXE
Service Point
Requirements of Lab Setup
• PCs boot in morning with BIOS
• PC restarts/boots with ESXi 5.1 in the evening.
• PC shuts down ESXi 5.1 at night.
Possible PC States
• Off
• Running OS for lab (Windows 7)
• Running ESXi 5.1
20. PXE Service Point –
Scenarios
Scenario #1 -
PC boots in morning from OFF to lab OS (Windows 7)
• Done in BIOS
• Uses auto power-on settings
• Local HDD accessed
Security
• BIOS can be locked with password
21. PXE Service Point –
Scenarios
Scenario #2 -
PC boots in evening from OFF to ESXi 5.1
• Wake on LAN magic packet - mc-wol.exe/Syslinux and pxelinux.0
• Uses PC MAC address
• Scheduled for boot after class time (~6pm)
• TFTP server is brought online using server-side scripting
• PXE boot request fulfilled
• ESXi image is pushed out to PC
22.
23. PXE Service Point –
Scenarios
Scenario #3 -
PC restarts in evening from lab OS (Windows 7) to ESXi 5.1
• Time based ACL will be set up on the switch
• When ACL on, DHCP traffic blocked inbound from campus server
• ACL blocking outbound DHCP traffic all the time from the test
environment
• Host systems receive IP info and direction from the local test
environment Active Directory domain
24. PXE Service Point –
Scenarios
Scenario #4 -
Shutdown PC at night from ESXi
• Set up script using PowerCLI to shutdown PC from vCenter server
• Script runs through Windows Task Scheduler on vCenter server
• Clean shutdown requires VMware Tools installed
25. vSphere AutoDeploy
• Installed on vCenter Server
• Plug-in provides front-end GUI interface
• Works with PXE boot infrastructure
• Stateless hosts
• Provision hosts with specified ESXi image
• Uses vSphere host profiles
• Image Builder and Power CLI
29. VIBs and Image Builder
• VMware Installation Bundle or VIB (software package)
• Image profile = set of VIBs
• Used by AutoDeploy to provision hosts
• VIBs can be added to VMware base image and exported to ISO
image
• Kept as zip file in directory on TFTP server
In our lab environment:
• vSphere Management Assistant – GUI interface
• vCenter used to update host VMs
30. AutoDeploy Rules Engine
• Rule type determines how
image sent to host
• VM image sent to specific host
network address or NIC
• Can specify that host be part
of vCenter inventory list
• AutoDeploy only applies rules
when the new rule is first
tested
32. vSphere Clustering
• All host servers in the CCL to be centrally managed
• CPU and memory resources pooled for use by VMs
• VMware’s Distributed Resource Scheduler provides
intelligent load balancing across ESXi hosts for
performance and efficiency
https://www
.vmware.co
m/files/ima
ges/vspher
e_imgs/
VMW-
DGRM-
vSPHR-
DRSOVER
VIEW-101-
280x180.gif
33. vSphere High Availability
• vSphere High Availability constantly monitors servers in
the cluster for signs of hardware or system failure
• In the event of hardware or operating system failure, HA
will minimize downtime by automatically restarting the
VM on another machine with available resources
https://www.vmware.com/files/images/high-availability-image3.jpg
34. vCenter Server Appliance
• vCSA eliminates need for Windows OS to manage
vSphere environment
• Specialized Linux appliance – pre-configured VM
o More secure / only required parts of OS installed
o Fewer updates required / less maintenance
• Reduced cost of ownership
o Less Microsoft licenses
o Fewer resources
• Installed on standalone ESXi 5.1 server
35. Current Server Resources
Main server for the project:
• Server with ESXi 5.1 server, OpenFiler, vCenter
Appliance provides all services needed for hosting,
assigning IP addresses, and storing VM’s.
36. Main Server Details:
•RAID10 (8 drives: 4x140GB and 4x900GB)
•ESXi 5.1 custom images for NIC support
•Vmware vCenter Server Appliance
•Google Chrome for web access
•Next steps include finalizing Auto
Deployment tools installation and
configuration
37. Bandwidth
Requirements and Setup
• 100 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s Ethernet connection to Campus
LAN
• 5.0 Mb/s or higher Internet connection with higher
outbound burst capability
Initial Proposed Lab Setup
• 20 workstations with 1 Gb/s NIC cards in each
• vCenter Server with 1Gb/s NIC
• Two Cisco 2960 switches – trunked with 1 GE
connection
Note: This sets limitation on host full networking capabilities
38. Bandwidth
Proposed Solution
• Eliminate one 2960 switch
• Directly connect both 10 GE ports of switch to vCenter
Server
• Improves throughput for host machines
• Host machines able to utilize full networking
capabilities
• Still in testing
39. Making the Hardware Work
• Existing desktop NICs did
not support PXE booting
and Wake on LAN
• Ordered Intel® 82574L
Gigabit Ethernet Controller
(qty 3)
• Cost ~$40-50 each
• Installed NICs and current
Intel driver
40. NIC Features
• PCIe
• 10/100/1000 Mbps auto-
negotiation
• Maintain full bandwidth
capacity
• Low cost/low
power/compact
• WoL and PXE supported
• Remote management
support
• Support for most network
OS
Image: http://www.avadirect.com/images/items/NIC-INL-
EXPI9301CT.jpg
43. Storage Server Details:
•Openfiler was created by Xinit Systems
•Free software made available for public use in
May of 2004
•Provides File-Based NAS and Block-based SAN
•Directory services compatible (LDAP or Active
directory)
•Supports Kerberos 5 authetication
•Ease of use - GUI or CLI for both installation and
configuration
44. OpenFiler Configuration
• Installed as a Virtual
Machine Instance on
ESXi 5.1 server
• Dual NIC cards for
access from 192. and
169. networks
• Network Access List
restricted to 192. and
169. networks
• Additional storage space
added in ESXi as a
virtual hard disk http://www.openfiler.com/products
46. Selection of NetLab over
VCL
NetLab
• Already established
• Supports NET and NOS
coursework
• Scheduling interface
accessible for testing
• Expected faster ramp up
time
• Increased chance of
project success
• Existing cost is known
factor
VCL
• Open Source
• More time to implement
• Extensive programming
knowledge needed
(Java, C++, PHP, SQL,
Perl)
• Potential hardware
expense based upon NC
State setup
• Long term potential is a
consideration
47. Bringing it all Together
• PXE booted diskless hosts obtain IP
• Using DHCP, obtain bootfile ESXi 5.1 from TFTP
server
• Image provisioned in accordance with AutoDeploy
rule (incl. target domain, IP range, target MAC
address)
• Client computer boots ESXi 5.1 directly into RAM
• New diskless hosts will be added to vCenter
resources
• vCenter will match diskless hosts with their
preconfigured profiles
Continued….
48. Bringing it all Together
• Preconfigured profiles will have access to permanent
storage (OpenFiler)
• Students will log into NetLab and select PODs (VMs)
based on reservation
• NetLab Server will communicate with vCenter then it
will load preconfigured PODs (VMs)
• ESXi 5.1 server running VM OpenFiler will send the
VMs in the PODs to diskless hosts
• Students will access reserved PODs (VMs) through
NetLab Server
49. Licenses – VMWare
How To Download VM ESXi 5.1 licenses:
• VMware website – www.vmware.com
• Create a VMware account
• Navigate to products and go to vSphere Hypervisor
under free products
• Click on download free now
• Opens page to make an account
50. Licenses – NetLab
• Currently have NetLab Academy Edition
• Allows 16 pods to be active at once
• Sufficient for test environment
If upgrade needed:
• NetLab Professional Edition
• Allow 32 pods to be active
• Upgrade fee $13,700
51. Licenses –
Cost Considerations
• No current DTCC agreement with VMware IT Academy -
$750/year
• School has enterprise license agreement with Microsoft
• vCenter server 5.1.0b basic with 1 year subscription and
support - $ 13,243.00
• VM Licenses sold in packs and keys managed through
vCenter
52. Malware & Antivirus
Protection
• NetLab
o Private "sandbox“ - no antivirus necessary
o All traffic passes through campus firewalls
o Uses safe proxy connection to outside users
• Network Devices
o DTCC uses Trend Micro Antivirus on network devices
53. Backup Management
• NetLab
o daily offsite backup supported by NetDevGroup
• ESXi
o vSphere Data Protection
o first party solution
o fully integrated with vCenter Server
o Additional HDD and a standalone backup server will
be used for redundant backups of all VMs
54. Physical Security
• RFID card readers on
doors
• Administrative passwords
on all servers
• Full time campus security
• Concrete walls and
reinforced windows
• Motion-sensing lights
Image: http://www.kaba.co.nz
Image: http://spadeoftrades.com
55. Accomplishments
• Created test environment using AutoDeploy
• Documented current test environment setup and security items to
evaluate
• Able to PXE boot ESXi 5.1 onto stateless/diskless host server
• Set up OpenFiler on ESXI 5.1 physical server
• Share NFS permanent storage with stateless host servers
• Boot host servers from off using Magic Packet (WOL)
• Initial polling configured for network bandwidth testing and
performance tracking for physical server
• ESXi installed on Mac Mini (8 VM’s hosted)
56. Still in Progress
• Manually or automatically load VM into memory on host server
• Configuration and stress testing of test environment to simulate
network traffic
• Save VM info using OpenFiler – In Testing
• Using Windows Task Scheduler and server side scripts to automate
shutdown and power on of lab host systems
• Automate PXE boot process
• Configure BIOS for auto-on at specified times
• Test permanent/persistent storage and its capability for all
diskless/stateless computers in the lab – In Testing
• Created security policy for test lab
57. Lessons Learned
• Project Management skills
• Effective utilization of resources
• Time management
• Communication
• Research of complex technical topics
• Hands on lab experience and application
• Overcoming obstacles / problem solving
58. Special Thanks
• Lee Rogers
• Jenny White
• Harry Bullbrook
And some regular old fashioned kudos to the
NETSECT289 class of 2014!
61. Works Cited
Apache Software Foundation. “VCL.” 2012. Mar 2013. <https://vcl.apache.org/docs/VCL231InstallGuide.html>
Kiwi - SolarWinds. “Syslog Server and Network Configuration Manager.” 2013. Mar 2013.
<http://www.kiwisyslog.com>
Microsoft Windows. “Schedule a Task.” 2013. Mar 2013.
<http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/schedule-a-task>
Miller, Wes. “The Desktop Files: Network-Booting Windows.” 2008. Mar 2013.
<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.07.desktopfiles.aspx>
NC State University. “Virtual Computing Lab – Powered by Apache VCL.” Mar 2013. <http://vcl.ncsu.edu/>
NDG. “NetLab+ Product Comparison.” Mar 2013. <http://www.netdevgroup.com/products/compare.html>
NDG. “NetLab+ System Requirements.” Mar 2013. <http://www.netdevgroup.com/products/requirements>
Openfiler. “Openfiler Products.” 2012. Mar 2013. <http://www.openfiler.com/products>
Paessler the Network Monitoring Company. “PRTG: Finally There is a Network Monitoring Software
That is Powerful and Easy to Use!” 2013. Mar 2013. <http://www.paessler.com/prtg>
TFTPd32. “The industry standard TFTP server.” 2011. Mar 2013.
<http://tftpd32.jounin.net/tftpd32_download.html>
62. Works Cited
VMware. “Build a Flexible, Efficient Datacenter.” 2013. Mar 2013.
<http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/auto-deploy.html>
VMware. “PXE Boot the ESXi Installer Using gPXE.” 2013. Mar 2013.<http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp>
VMware. “Using vSphere ESXi Image Builder CLI .” and “Rules and Rule Sets. “ 2012. Mar 2013.
<http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp>
VMware. “VMware AutoDeploy Administrator’s Guide.” 2010. Mar 2013.
<http://labs.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/autodeploy_fling.pdf>
VMware. “VMware vSphere & vSphere with Operations Management Pricing.” 2013. Mar 2013.
<http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/pricing.html>
VMware. “vSphere Auto Deploy Demo.” 2011. Mar 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qZl-760yU
Virtuallyghetto. “Running ESXi 5.0 & 5.1 on 2012 Mac Mini 6,2” 2012
Mar. 2014. <http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2012/12/running-esxi-50-51-on-2012-mac-mini-62.html>