500 VMware Zealots Hit The Razor
Last week at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA, Mike Versace and I hit the New England VMUG “Winter Warmer.” It was an excellent use of time with more than 500 practitioners (aka VMware zealots) at the show.
Some interesting themes I saw were:
*Consolidation ratios (physical to virtual) for the clients we spoke with were all over the map, but more often than not, relatively conservative at 5:1, 4:1 and often 3:1 or sometimes even less.
*Storage continues to be a glaring weak spot in VMware. Specifically, VMware is still largely about server virtualization…storage virtualization frankly doesn’t work that well. The Vstorage API for Array Integration (VAII) isn’t in production yet and the hope is that will address some of the IO problems we’re seeing in VMware. But we’re still a ways off from seeing results from that integration.
*Backup is the other area that is generally challenging in VMware. We talked to lots of practitioners that are struggling with data protection because VMware is so IO intensive. Source-side de-dupe helps (e.g. EMC/Avamar, Vizioncore VRanger Pro) but organizations are reluctant to rip and replace existing backup software (e.g. Symantec NetBackup). VMware consolidated backups are generally perceived as a joke and not one practitioner I spoke with is planning to continue using VCB. Son of VCB is better (VMware api for Data Protection) supposedly but my understanding is it still doesn’t solve the recovery problems for users.
*Security is still not where it needs to be; not by a long shot.
Here are Mike Versace’s thoughts on VMWare security:
We also saw an integrator, ICI develop its own version of VCE’s VBlock. ICI annouced vCube, a pre-packaged set of integrated services (including backup– using BOTH Avamar and Data Domain). ICI is positioning Data Domain for those clients that don’t want to rip and replace their backup software and Avamar for those that have backup window and IO issues that are limiting P–>V ratios. Wow…why didn’t I think of that! ICI is also bundling Akorri tools to optimize management. ICI is smart. Good for ICI taking the best products on the market and adding value through integration– and as well, intelligently positioning Avamar and Data Domain in VMware shops. If you’re struggling with VMware and want some good advice – call ICI for a perspective – they’re very sharp.
All in all a great use of time at the NEVMUG.
#1 by johnmcarthur on February 3, 2010 - 5:01 am
Dave, I'm really bummed that I couldn't be there. Last minute shift on the timing of a board meeting. Thanks for the write-up. Good stuff.
#2 by johnmcarthur on February 3, 2010 - 5:02 am
Dave, I'm bummed I couldn't be there. Last minute change on a board meeting. Thanks for a great writeup. See you at the summer VMUG in Maine.
#3 by alexbakman on February 20, 2010 - 12:52 pm
Good recap David. From what we see at Vkernel I/O issues are the killer to increasing density rates
#4 by ibby on February 22, 2010 - 8:08 am
The problem is not VMware VCB or vStorage APIs for Data Protection. Backup technology, ask any expect on Backup, by virtue is resource hungry. Virtualization only exposes that and hence the pain. To understand this, we have to go back in time.
Until, still in some case, 15 yrs ago backup in particular was considered slow and painful in general. The reason was simple, not enough server resources. To give some reference of timeline, we are talking when the First generation Pentium 133Mhz – system with 128MB RAM -and SUN Ultra 167MHz were introduced. With time, the servers became faster and more powerful, resulting in 15% of resource utilization. This provided the system resource that was needed for the backup. Now add virtualization and we are talking 50-60%, if not more utilization. Guess what, the backup resource that was abundant became scare all of a sudden.
Then came VCB, which was VMware's first attempt to make life easier for the backup administrator and like any product took couple of years to mature. The current vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) is more advance then VCB, in which it provides file level, incremental VM restore, full VM image.
As far as offering around storage is concerned, VMware has made some significant additions with features like Storage VMotion, vStorage Thin Provisioning, VMFS, iSCSI performance. Then VMware has worked with Partner ecosystem to provide tighter integration, such as for Multipathing and Data Protection. VMware continues to enhance its product to make life of administrator simpler.