Rhm2ktmi's List: Cloud - Management

• cloud application development, deployment, migration and management space
• Notable competition comes from GigaSpaces with Cloudify, AppZero, CliQr, BitRock, Virtustream, Appcara, RightScale and CloudVelocity
• Racemi has been anointed by both IBM and Amazon as a cloud on-ramp partner

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• In addition to automating a broad set of hybrid cloud workloads,   ManageIQ has significant benefits for developers and administrators   exploring the world of DevOps. Instead of separately targeting multiple   platforms, an open hybrid platform facilitates access to DevOps with a   single interface and API for resource utilization and chargebacks across   all cloud platforms. The ManageIQ community expects to enhance these   capabilities for open hybrid cloud management and integrate   contributions as the community grows.
• Joining the contributing partners announced in April 2014, the ManageIQ   community has added several new partners, including:
• Cloudsoft,   specializing in multi-cloud application management and offering   their Application Management Platform for enterprises to develop,   deploy and manage large-scale distributed applications across multiple   clouds

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• One of the more interesting announcements to come out of the Atlanta OpenStack Design Summit was Red Hat's statement that they were going to open source ManageIQ, a cloud management platform.
• First we need to get both ManageIQ and OpenStack up and running. Follow the instructions for installing ManageIQ (here) and OpenStack (here). Note that since we will be running ManageIQ and OpenStack in a single data center and under a single account the programs should share a VLAN by default.
• Log into the ManageIQ console (user: admin, password: smartvm). Navigate to Clouds -> Providers

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• As you might have heard, Red Hat has acquired ManageIQ. This is an exciting acquisition as it brings many new technologies to Red Hat that will continue to enable it to deliver on the vision of an Open Hybrid Cloud.

• ManageIQ is the open source project that powers Red Hat® CloudForms
• Drive your complete virtual infrastructure with ManageIQ.

• Network performance management vendor ThousandEyes has closed a $20m series B round. Sutter Hill Ventures led the round, with contributions from salesforce.com's Salesforce Ventures, existing investor Sequoia Capital, and the Silicon Valley angel investors that contributed to its earlier rounds. The funding will be used to drive new product innovation, expand the company's presence in North America and Europe, and support the launch of the new free ThousandEyes Lite version.

• Ostrato is offering new financial management tools within its cloudSM cloud-broker platform, including a cloud instance scheduler and parking tool that allows organizations to automatically start, stop and 'park' cloud instances
• A new governance and control mechanism provides role-based access tools, and it now also offers a single-pane view of cloud cost. It counts three paying customers – including a Washington DC systems integrator and a managed service provider – and competes with RighScale, CSC ServiceMesh and Dell Cloud Manager.
• t doesn't see much appetite for cloud migration services (less than 5% of the 180-plus companies it has spoken with are interested in migration), although cloud integration with existing systems is key (LDAP, AD, ITSM, etc.).

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• Google’s announcement of its new Google Container Engine, a managed service version of its open-sourced Kubernetes container-management system, shows that the search giant believes it can lure new customers to its cloud through its container expertise.
• “[Google Container Engine] creates managed clusters inside the Google Compute Engine,” said DeMichillie. “It doesn’t have the ability to span across multiple cloud providers.”

• What makes Kubernetes seem so special is how it’s bringing together so many different companies (and competitors) to band behind a container-orchestration standard. If the Google Container Engine can’t play nice with other systems, then part of the allure of using containers in the first place goes out of the window.

   

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• RackN seeks engagements for OpenCrowbar deployments, Crowbar v1 migrations, upstream development of OpenCrowbar workloads for hardware (Dell, Cisco, HP, SuperMicro, Open Compute, etc), cloud (OpenStack, CloudFoundry, etc), Docker (CoreOS, Atomic) and other related DevOps work.

• In this post, you’ll learn about some of the technology behind Cloudera Director and why one would use it.

   
• Data Model
• From the outset, Cloudera Director was designed to be cloud-neutral, which translates to support for different cloud providers (as well as both private and public clouds). Its data model is therefore abstracted away from the specific architecture of any single provider. Here are some of the key concepts in that model.
• Environment
• Instance
• Deployment
• Cluster
• Server API

• Cloudera Director includes a server component that you can use as a central location for your administrators and users to manage cloud deployments. The server is designed around an API that provides access to the complete set of capabilities Cloudera Director has to offer.

   
• User Interface
• The Cloudera Director server hosts a UI available through your browser
• Client

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• We’re seeing an interesting trend among some young companies adopting cloud. Initially, they turn to cloud because it offers them instant access to infrastructure and unlimited compute power that fuels the rapid build out of their business. However, at a critical point they reach a scale where they are drawn towards a hybrid cloud model where they create their own cloud capacity.
• Conversely we are seeing more established enterprises moving in the opposite direction starting out with a private cloud and then graduating toward a hybrid model
• Such a usable, enterprise-friendly cloud will be built on three pillars of technology, all of which will help speed the adoption of enterprise-grade apps to the cloud
• Integration: Establishing a hybrid model leveraging the public cloud for certain projects is the ideal way for organizations to test the waters, especially if they already have invested heavily in their own systems and infrastructure
• Security: One of the most pressing – and visible – challenges facing the adoption of cloud by larger organizations today is data protection and privacy.
• Big Data: Big Data is quickly becoming organizations’ most valuable asset, and is rising as the primary competitive advantage in growing customer relationships, marketing, trend prediction, product improvement and more.

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• CliQr is quickly growing out hybrid cloud management chops with new version 3.2 of CloudCenter, its flagship product. CliQr has extended portability with expanded REST API support, binary image transformation, cross-cloud software release and lifecycle management, and new 'drag and drop' application profile builders, among other features.
• CliQr's strategy is built around its ability to enable migration, governance and management of applications from on-premises or cloud environments to and between any physical or cloud (public and private) environments using its patented technology.
• CliQr's CloudCenter comprises two core components
• CloudCenter Manager (CCM) and CloudCenter Orchestrator (CCO)
• While CliQr differentiates itself by enabling a hybrid cloud management capability, it is challenged by a growing number of multi-cloud management software vendors
• Companies such as RightScale, CloudVelox (formerly known as CloudVelocity), ElasticBox, Scalr, Appcore and Dell Cloud Manager, CSC ServiceMesh, are in this group, although CliQr does not see itself competing with the likes of CloudVelox.
• Other vendors include, CiRBA, Scalr, Xervmon, Ensim, Egenera, Ostrato, Cognizant, CompatibleOne, Gravitant, VMware, Red Hat, CloudMGR,

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• The Docker virtualization technology has just taken another giant step forward, as developers from both Microsoft and Docker have started working on a native Docker implementation for Windows Server, which will make the increasingly popular container technology available for use in Windows shops.
• Heretofore, Docker has only run on Linux. The two companies will create a version of the Docker Engine that will run, natively, on the next edition of Windows Server, as well as run on the Microsoft Azure cloud

• Today at VMworld 2014 I have the pleasure of co-presenting with Ben Golub, Docker CEO, on our joint container strategy. Our session, “SDDC3350 – VMware and Docker – Better Together,” will run on Monday from 5:30-6:30 and on Tuesday from 12:30-1:30.
• Combined architectures that leverage both containers and VMs are nothing new. Cloud Foundry Warden first supported this approach in 2011. In addition, Amazon EC2 first supported containers via LXC in 2010. The bottom line – this combined architecture isn’t some crazy new VMware approach – it’s an industry norm.
• short, the Project Fargo technology provides a fast, scalable differential clone of a running VM.

• This approach yields several benefits:

   
   
  • Significantly reduces the startup time for child VMs (VMs available < 1s)
   
  • Reduces the VM storage and memory footprint
   
   

• As you can see, we are building a highly differentiated architecture to support the workloads that you have trusted to VMs for more than a decade, as well as emerging third platform applications.

   
• In the case of Docker, developers can leverage their tools of choice, the Docker Engine, Docker Hub, and any of the more than 30,000 “Dockerized” applications, while the operations team can provide the VMware infrastructure to support Docker containers on the most efficient and flexible SDDC platform.

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• Whether or not VMware’s existing virtual infrastructure is the best virtual machine environment to run Docker is pretty irrelevant. That message seems aimed at enterprises that are already VMware customers to make them confident that they don’t have to change anything as they dip their toes into the Docker waters.
• Once those enterprises decide to deploy at scale the looming problem is that containers don’t offer the same degree of isolation and protection as virtual machines. Put simply, containers don’t contain.
• Project Fargo aims to deliver a best of both worlds approach – a lightweigh virtual machines that looks and feels like a container (and that can be treated as a container by Docker tools). According to VMware CTO Ben Fathi the result will bev irtual machines that are, ‘faster, smaller and smaller memory footprint and boot faster’. He goes on to say that the project should deliver, ‘sub second availability of VMs’, that, ‘will make containers a lot more speedy, and in some case more efficient than bare metal’.
• Should VMware succeed in delivering product based on Fargo then the prize could be quite substantial – the ability to co-opt the ‘build and ship’ aspects on the Docker ecosystem whilst offering a better approach to ‘run’, and one that enterprises will be willing to write cheques for.

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• Appcara has won an array of new service-provider accounts for its AppStack cloud application deployment and management tools over the past year. The company has also raised new funding to expand operations in order to meet increasing customer demand.
• Appcara's AppStack is designed to deploy and manage prepackaged software applications into private and public clouds, and to move those applications between them. Appcara's AppStack Marketplace offers some 70 packaged software applications to deploy. It includes integration with QuickBooks, for example, and can deploy to private and public clouds.
• AppStack uses a model-based approach to capture and define application states and components – such as the tiers they occupy, relationships and dependencies between components, and configuration parameters – and maintains these over time in a configuration repository.
• While Appcara has been able to offer application portability for more than a year, applications not installed using its AppStack would be invisible to it.
• This has been remedied, and Appcara can now discover and copy applications that haven't been installed using AppStack.
• It now uses its Appcara AppStack hardware/software appliance only as an entry-level demonstrator, which helps to shorten the sales cycle
• Appcara was founded in 2010 with a vision of holistic application and workload management, integration, and mobility. Product development was funded by consulting and private investment from the company's founders, including CEO John Yung.
• Scalr, UShareSoft, Dell Cloud Manager and RightScale in the past, but says these have mostly disappeared from its competitive radar.
• It does see CliQr, which is strong in the service-provider sector, but claims to have beaten it out in a couple of accounts.
• Standing Cloud acquired AppDirect, another competitor

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• While there have been high profile projects and services using containers (Google contributed cgroups to the Linux kernel in 2007, and notably Heroku, Cloud Foundry and dotCloud were all based on containers since at least 2011), mainstream IT didn’t get excited about the potential of Linux containers until quite recently.
• Linux operating system virtualization or ‘containers’ have been one of the primary tools Google developed to manage and leverage infrastructure.
• Some of these projects have been available for years, so what did Docker change? In my opinion, two big things, convenient defaults and image management, both of which shifted using containers from an enabling technology for people with specialized understanding to something that was actually easy for the average developer to have up and running in a spare hour or two.
• Docker brought image versioning and Linux containers together, packaged for mass consumption.
• Historical Context
• Docker brought together image management and Linux container process management with a unified interface.
• Container in this sense is less about standardizing units and more about ‘containment’.
• but I have a personal wager that the preponderance of containers will run inside VMs for the foreseeable future, if not forever.
• most organizations will gladly pay the ‘virtualization tax’ in exchange for the mature tooling and security VMs currently provide.
• There is also a portability issue. A hypervisor can run any operating system that would work on the presented machine architecture, but containers are going to be dependent on particular kernels.
• Docker style image management and workflows for every platform would be great, but that is not going to make Linux containers run on Windows (or Solaris, or BSD, etc.) or vice versa and attempts to do so would inevitably start to look suspiciously like a hypervisor (or worse).
• Using Docker in particular can also be transformative to workflows when the primary product of work becomes a deployable image that can be put directly into production or be the baseline for further collaboration.

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