vCloud Architecture Deep Dive

Chris ColottiDavid Hill

Who We Are

Chris Colotti, VMware Global COE Consulting Architect VCDX #37

Twitter @CColotti vCD on Vblock /

Upgrades VMworld Presenter

08/09/11 Blogger

David Hill, VMware Global COE Senior Consultant CIM Lead UK

Twitter @DaveHill99 vCAT 2.0 contributor VMworld/PEX

Presenter 2011 Blogger

vCloud “Eco-System” of Components All the possible building blocks Importance of Orchestration and knowledge

depth Solution in Practice

Based on vCAT 2.0 Published Catalog vApp Cloning

Based on 3-part “clone wars” blog posts Open Q&A on anything vCloud

What We Will Talk About

vCloud Eco-System

The Building Blocks

vSphere was traditionally the management layer

With vCloud Director vCenter is more “Application” Layer

vSphere administrators may not be vCloud Administrators

Orchestration and customization may be important

High availability of all components involved

Change in Management

vSphere / ESX Deeper Storage Skills Deeper Networking & Firewall skills Scripting (PowerCLI) Workflows / Automation Capacity Planning Before it was ESX, vCenter and some Scripting It is about Infrastructure Management now

Depth of Skills and Knowledge

Example Solution in Practice

One vCloud, Two Buildings

Two On-Campus Datacenters 2 vCloud Director Cells per building (4 Total Cells)

Single NFS mount in Building A F5 GTM Load Balancer

1 vCenter Server per building (2 Total) Protected with vCenter Heartbeat 1 Update Manager server per building 1 Cluster per vCenter

vShield Manager per building Protected use VMware Fault Tolerance

Database Servers per building vCenter Orchestrator Server per building Published Master Catalogs

Published Catalogs and vApp Cloning

How Cloning Works

vSphere ESX host with VM registered does the clone

Block based copy when source and destination presented (Same vCenter) VAAI can help with offload

Network copy when source/destination host storage is not equally presented (Same vCenter)

vCloud Director “Transfer” space used when moving between vCenter servers

Logical vCloud Director View

Silver to Silver = Block Based between LUNs VAAI can also improve

Sliver to Gold = Network Copy between ESX hosts Silver to Bronze = vCloud Director Transfer Space

(NFS) OVF Export from vCenter 1 OVF Import to vCenter 2 Similar to vCloud Connector Cell Network Design Considerations

Cloning Examples

Today two maybe three interfaces HTTP/Console Proxy OS Management / DB Backend

Consider Additional Ones NFS vSphere Management

May require static or additional Routes

Consider Separate VLAN’s Enable Jumbo Frames on NFS,

vSphere Ports

Cell Network Considerations

Jumbo Frames

HTTP/Consol

e

NFSL2

vSphereL2

OS Mgmt

DB

Dedicated “Catalog” Provider vDC Force all cloning load to hosts not running VM’s VAAI on Storage Challenge to force Org Catalogs to this Provider

(vCO?) Within the same vCenter use a Catalog LUN

Presented to all hosts even in different clusters Remember cross-vCenter will be network based copy

Additional ESX Kernel Ports (No Network I/O Control)

Possible Cluster Considerations

Window 2008 SYSPREP Re-Arm Not vCloud Specific, but be aware of it

DRS Never disable it vCloud Director relies on it

Supported Cell Operating Systems Check the latest list, always use what is supported

NFS Share permissions Ensure “vcloud” user/group has read write to share

vCloud Director and vSphere Maximums apply Combined document now

Unique BIOS UUID VMware KB2006605

Final Thoughts / Common Themes

Item Maximum

Virtual machine count 20000

Powered‐On virtual machine count 10000

Organizations 10000

Virtual machines per vApp 64

vApps per organization 500

Number of networks 7500

Hosts 2000

vCenter Servers 25

Virtual Data Centers 10000

Datastores 1024

Calalogs 1000

Source: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r50/vsphere-50-configuration-maximums.pdf

vCloud Maximums

Questions

Thank You! We can always use more Followers PS – Did we mention never Disable DRS with vCloud

Director…..

Twitter @CColottiTwitter @DaveHill99