The document discusses the evolution of distributed application infrastructure, focusing on the role of open source innovation and the shift towards microservices and DevOps practices. It highlights the transition from traditional server environments to cloud-based, software-defined infrastructures and emphasizes the significance of lightweight containers for application deployment. The document raises questions about future trends in hardware virtualization, integration with existing IT, and the balance between monolithic and microservices architectures.

1. The New Distributed
Application Infrastructure
Gordon Haff @ghaff
Technology Evangelist
Red Hat

2. About me
• Red Hat Technology Evangelist
• Twitter: @ghaff
• Google+: Gordon Haff
• Flickr: bitmason
• Email: ghaff@redhat.com
• Blog: http://bitmason.blogspot.com
• Author: Computing Next
• Formerly: Illuminata(industry analyst)Data
General (minicomputers/Unix/NUMA/etc.)

3. This is all very new
2007 2011
2013
2014
2006

4. A common thread is open source innovation
And the principles and practices associated with it

5. Computing as puntuated equilibria
• Rapidly changing
environment
• Open source
innovation and
recombinations
• Intersecting trends
• Hard to predict

6. Traditional infrastructure & apps
Server, storage, & networking hardware
Operating system
Application
& dependencies Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies

7. (One of) the problems
Server, storage, & networking hardware
Operating system
Application
& dependencies Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies

8. Enter hardware virtualization
Server, storage, & networking hardware
with CPU, memory, I/O virtualization assists
Hypervisor (or other partitioning methods)
Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies
Operating
system
Operating
system
Operating
system

9. What’s changed really?
• Application
components still
installed within OS
• Applications still long-
lived & stateful
• Applications still
“pets”

10. Which was sort of the point
• Improved server
utilization reduced
CAPEX
• Without (at least
initially) much impact
on operational model
2006

12. The discontinuity hits
• “Software is eating the world”
• Digital transformation needed:
– More effective software delivery
– Reimagined componentized
architectures
– Scale
– Pervasive sensors & access

13. Better faster software with DevOps

14. DevOps applies open source tools,
principles, and practices with:
• CULTURE of collaboration valuing
openness and transparency
• AUTOMATION of process from
development through ongoing
operations
• An evolving PLATFORM that optimizes
for flexible, dynamic workloads

15. Toward an “ant” model for apps
• Stateless (often)
• “Small” components
• Expose an API
• Replacable cogs
• Portable across hybrid
infrastructures

16. Signs you might need microservices
• Having trouble coordinating function
teams like DBAs and UI engineers
• Brittle apps. Minor changes cause
major breakage
• Your process is bogged down by big
deployments
• Different teams keep reinventing the
wheel (in gratuitously different
ways)
• Hard to experiment

17. On the other hand
• Architectural effort
• Service boundaries
• Communication
overhead
• Do you need it?

18. DevOps + “Cloud” = Industrialize

19. What does this factory
look like?

20. From servers to resource pools
• Software-
defined
“everything”
• Dynamic
resource pool
• May be
provided by
public cloud
Virtualized pool of IaaS resources
“Commodity”
server
“Commodity”
server
“Commodity”
server
Operating
system
Operating
system
Operating
system
Operating
system
Software-defined storage
Software-defined networking/NFV

21. OpenStack:
Software-defined infrastructure
Linux

22. Containers: Isolation within OS
• OS-level virtualization
• Originally BSD jails
• Then Solaris zones
• OS kernel manages
isolation, resource use,
and security
• Namespaces, SELinux,
Cgroups in Linux
Operating system instance
Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies
Resource pool

23. Making containers useful & portable
• Standard packaging
format
• Ecosystem App
composition specification
• Optimized operating
system foundation
Lightweight, immutable OS
for running containers
Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies
Resource pool
Container packaging for
image-based deployment

24. Key areas of container standards
Open source communities working to drive

25. Managing at scale as a single entity
Lightweight, immutable OS
for running containers
Application
& dependencies
Application
& dependencies
Resource pool
Container packaging/API for
image-based deployment
Resource management
Orchestration

26. Everyone is scaling
• Not just unicorns and
mammoths
• Three main use cases:
– Large scale workloads
– Diverse workloads
– Complex resource
management
• Grid computing: It lives!

27. PaaS is one integration point

28. Source: DevOps, Open Source and Business Agility: Lessons learned from early adopters, June 2015

29. Needs for integrating with existing IT
96% see open source
as an enabler of cloud
native integration and
conventional app
modernization.
Source: Red Hat Modernization Strategies Survey
IDC September 2015
Structured & unstructured data
integration
Business process automation
Model-driven process
management
Enterprise service bus & APIs

30. Data
integration
services

31. Some open questions
• Role of hardware virtualization
• On-premise vs. public cloud trends
• Monoliths vs. Microservices
• The post-NIST service model
• When/where/how is data useful?

32. How evenly distributed
will the future be?
The future is already here—it's
just not very evenly distributed.
William Gibson

33. Credits
Fractal: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fractal_ken/3996156539/Flickr Creative Commons license
Punctuated equilibrium:University of California atBerkeley
Mainframe:"IBM 704 mainframe"by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.Licensed under Attribution via Commons
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_704_mainframe.gif#/media/File:IBM_704_mainframe.gif
Ants: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pondapple/6502194585 Flickr Creative Commons license
Meteor, galaxy: NASA
Datacenter:Google
Dogs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ulster/3250246355 Flickr Creative Commons license
Aircraft factory: Flickr/cc, https://www.flickr.com/photos/jetstarairways/9130160595Kids programming:Esti Alvarez cc
license
Auto factory: CopyrightTesla
Tower: Daniel Pratts CC/flickr https://flic.kr/p/7RE6yc
Frog: Kathy CC/Flickr https://flic.kr/p/b9fFV
Coupling graphic:PWC
Buildings:CC/Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/firstdown/2456119103

34. Thank you!