Sirish Raghuram, co-founder and CEO of Platform9, previously worked at VMware for 12 years. He discusses how OpenStack can provide benefits for VMware environments, including self-service automation, resource pooling across vCenter infrastructure, using standardized REST APIs, and managing platforms from a single pane of glass regardless of hypervisor. Key benefits include reducing configuration sprawl through templates and flavors, and relying on open-source APIs rather than proprietary technologies.

1. Sirish Raghuram
Co-founder, CEO,
Platform9
Why OpenStack for VMware?
Private Clouds Made Easy

2. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
Speaker Bio
2
Sirish Raghuram
• Co-founder, CEO at Platform9
• Previously: Staff Engineer at VMware (12 years)
• Technical and Management responsibility for
multiple VMware products

3. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• #1 platform for
private clouds
• #2 open source
project of all time
OpenStack Momentum
3

4. What is the value for a VMware environment?
Forget the hype…

5. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• This session speaks to VMware environments
• But OpenStack isn’t limited to VMware
• See recording (March) for KVM. Upcoming talk for Docker
• We’ll be using Platform9 for demos
• Private clouds made easy
• Several other ways to deploy OpenStack
Preamble
5

6. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
OpenStack Architecture
6
Clarity UI
Nova
!
!
Cinder
Scheduler
Keystone
(Identity)
CLI / Tools Scripts Heat
(Orchestration)
Neutron
Glance
(Images)
Basic Storage
Compute
Basic Network
Block
Storage
Network
Controller

7. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
Platform9 Managed
OpenStack:
• Your servers host your data
• Platform9 hosts the
OpenStack controller as a
Service, with an SLA
• No need to install, monitor,
troubleshoot or upgrade
OpenStack
Platform9 Managed OpenStack
7

8. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Resource pooling
• Automates VM placement
• Intelligent placement based on resource utilization
• Automated IP Address Assignment
• Optionally, self-service provisioning
• Developers love this!
#1 — Self Service Automation
8

9. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
Resource Pooling
9
Devops
Austin
Infra
SFO
Infra
Resource Pool

10. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Segregate underlying infrastructure for different
classes of workloads (or users!)
• By workload, hardware type, geography or organization
• Illustrations:
• Test/Dev vs Production
• Tier 1 vs Tier 2
• SSD vs HDD
Intelligent Placement
10

11. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
Intelligent Placement
11
Devops
Tier-2
Infra
Tier-1
Infra
Resource Pool
Tier-2Tier-1

12. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Existing VMware clusters
• Platform9 beta 2 supports multiple clusters
• Or, multiple resource pools
• Or, multiple vCenters!
• Paired with OpenStack
• Instantly available for self-service automation
Demo
12

13. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• REST: Simple, familiar pattern
• Any language - https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/SDKs
• Vendor Neutral
• Stable, Versioned
• Clear separation of concerns
• Hosts, Storage, Network, Tenants, Users
• Nova (EC2), Cinder (EBS), Neutron (ELB), Swift (S3), Heat
(CloudFormation)
• Separation of physical vs virtual concepts
• Simpler, broader, but lacks very fine detail
#2 — AWS Like REST API
13

14. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• vSphere Web Services API:
• https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=
%2Fcom.vmware.wssdk.apiref.doc_50%2Fvim.vm.ConfigSpec
.html
• OpenStack API:
• http://docs.platform9.com/#a-idcreate-instanceapost-
v2tenant_idservers
• Observations:
• OpenStack API dramatically simpler, cuts out a lot of detail
• Includes key cloud constructs: e.g. Tenant
Illustration: Create VM
14

15. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• REST API calls being made by the UI
Demo
15

16. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
#3 — Single Pane Across Platforms
16
• VMware vSphere is proven, rock solid
• But also $$$$
• Do all of your workloads today require vSphere?
• >50% of our customers say no
• Running 100s or 1000s of servers on KVM, Hyper-V or
Docker
• Should your cloud platform be limited to vSphere?
• Why not decouple cloud platform from Hypervisor?

17. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
vSphere vs KVM vs Docker
17
Platform Type Pros Cons
VMware vSphere
(ESXi)
Hypervisor
1. Time tested, stability
2. Familiarity
3. OS / HCL support
4. Operational workflows
(vMotion)
1. $$$$ (for higher SKUs)
compared to KVM / Docker
2. Containers have advantages
over VMs
Linux KVM Hypervisor
1. Price (can be $0)
2. Supports wide range of OSes
3. Increasingly stable
4. Management: OpenStack
1. Windows guest support not
as good as ESXi
2. Operational workflows
(vMotion) are maturing
3. Management: OpenStack
4. Containers have advantages
Docker /
Containers
Container
Runtime
1. Better performance, density
2. No overhead from Guest
OSes
3. Developer centric workflow
1. OS / App compatibility issues
2. Security / Isolation concerns
3. Performance guarantees
unproven
4. Immature management tools

18. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Platform9 managing KVM and VMware vSphere,
side by side
• Availability expected later this summer
Demo
18

19. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Template images
• Create and reuse VM template images
• Customize images during provisioning
• Flavors
• Standardize resource configurations
• Map to resource tiers
• Application Blueprints
• Infrastructure as code paradigm
• Compose applications across individual instances
#4 — Reduce configuration sprawl
19

20. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
#5 — Open-Source vs Proprietary
20
OpenStack API
VMware Proprietary
API
Storage APIs
Cinder (block storage), Swift (Object)
See: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/
CinderSupportMatrix
VASA (block storage)
Network Control Plane
Neutron
See: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/
Neutron#Plugins
Proprietary integration w/ VMware
NSX only
Application Blueprints
Heat (Based on CloudFormations)
See: https://github.com/openstack/
heat-templates/tree/master/hot
vApp Director
Analytics & Planning Ceilometer vCenter Operations Manager

21. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Fundamental shift towards open APIs
• Or at least, industry standard APIs (e.g. Amazon S3)
• OpenStack APIs are now doubly advantaged
• Open / vendor neutral
• Broad adoption as the standard
• Use VMware, but rely on open APIs
• OpenStack managing vSphere
Open-Source vs Proprietary
21

22. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Self-service automation
• Resource pooling across vCenters / vCenter Clusters /
vCenter Resource Pools
• AWS like REST APIs
• Single pane across platforms
• Decouple cloud platform from Hypervisor
• Reduce configuration sprawl
• Rely on open, industry standard APIs
Recap — Key Benefits
22

23. © 2015 Platform9 Systems, Inc. Webinar: Why OpenStack for VMware?
• Take a test drive
• Try our VMware beta
• Related resources at www.platform9.com
• OpenStack benefits for KVM
• Running in production — webinar in May
• Have questions?
• Ask away!
• Get in touch:
• @Platform9Sys
• support@platform9.com
Summary
23