virtualization.info Editors

VMware was founded in January, 1998 to bring mainframe-class virtual machine technology to industry-standard computers. In 1999, VMware delivered its first product for the desktop, VMware Workstation. VMware Workstation has revolutionized software development by making it possible to develop faster, test more comprehensively and deploy even the most complex enterprise applications in virtual machines. The product is now a de-facto standard for development with more than 2.5 million users.

VMware entered the server market in 2001 with VMware ESX Server and VMware GSX Server. ESX Server and GSX Server are virtual infrastructure software products for partitioning, consolidating and managing computing resources. The products have been adopted by thousands of IT organizations worldwide and have saved customers hundreds of millions of dollars in costs through providing server consolidation, fast provisioning and disaster recovery.

In 2003, VMware introduced 2-Way VMware Virtual SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) that allows virtual machines to span two physical processors, making virtual machines ideal for resource-intensive enterprise applications.

Also in 2003, VMware launched VMware VirtualCenter with groundbreaking VMotion technology, and the company firmly established itself as the thought leader in the fast-growing virtual infrastructure marketplace. VirtualCenter is virtual infrastructure management software that provides a central point of control for virtual computing resources. Using VMotion technology, virtual machines can be migrated while running, allowing for dynamic load balancing and zero-downtime maintenance.

In 2004, VMware delivered the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Software Developer Kit that provides standards-based interfaces that enable ISVs, partners and customers to control VMware virtual infrastructure and to integrate virtual infrastructure deployments into existing management frameworks.

VMware delivered support for 64-bit computing in 2004, once again extending virtualization capabilities for industry-standard platforms. VMware also announced it would deliver 4-Way VMware Virtual SMP, making it possible to extend the benefits of virtual infrastructure to the most demanding enterprise workloads.

Also in 2004, VMware introduced a breakthrough new enterprise desktop management and security product, VMware ACE. VMware ACE is targeted at the problems of contractor, telecommuter and mobile laptop management and enables IT managers to provision secure, standardized PC environments throughout the extended enterprise. With the introduction of VMware ACE, VMware again demonstrated its relentless innovation and aggressive technology leadership.

“In just seven years, VMware has successfully created a new category of software, virtual infrastructure, and is poised to extend our leadership position in this market,” said Diane Greene, president of VMware. “We are an organization that thrives on consistently bringing innovative ideas to market in highly robust and high value products.”

VMware firsts include:

– First to demonstrate the value of virtualization on commoditized platforms
– First to virtualize the x86 architecture (VMware Workstation)
– First to deliver a hosted virtual machine monitor; the hosted architecture integrates a virtual monitor with an existing operating system (VMware Workstation)
– First to enable transparent memory sharing of virtual machines on a commoditized platform (VMware ESX Server)
– First to handle a modern I/O subsystem in a virtualized x86-based system (VMware ESX Server)
– First to enable a single virtual machine to span multiple physical processors on an x86-based system (VMware ESX Server)
– First operating system to support 64-bit extensions on an x86-based system (VMware ESX Server)
– First to enable a running virtual machine to move across physical boundaries (VMware VMotion)
– First to enable automatic conversion of a physical x86-based environment, including the operating system and applications, into a virtual environment (VMware P2V Assistant)
– First to deliver comprehensive Virtual Rights Management technology (VMware ACE)

VMware’s comprehensive virtual infrastructure solutions for enterprise desktops, servers and development and test groups solve the hard problems of efficiency, flexibility and security and provide an easy on-ramp to next generation computing models.

Key facts about VMware:

“We are honored to be identified by one of the industry’s most respected publications for our ongoing commitment to innovation and excellence” said Karthik Rau, director of product management for VMware. “The past year we saw virtual infrastructure mature and become the de-facto standard among leading enterprise IT departments for making the data center scalable and manageable. It is exciting for VirtualCenter to be singled out for its strategic value to our customers.”

Used by thousands of IT organizations worldwide, VMware VirtualCenter is virtual infrastructure management software that provides a central and secure point of control for virtual computing resources. VirtualCenter creates a more responsive data center, enabling faster reconfiguration and reallocation of applications and services. VirtualCenter allows for instant provisioning of servers and decreases user-downtime while optimizing the data center.

VirtualCenter provides a powerful way to connect IT to business needs. With VirtualCenter, IT infrastructure becomes more flexible, efficient and responsive. VirtualCenter uniquely leverages virtual computing, storage and networking to improve data center management and reduce cost. Together with VMotion technology, virtual machines can be migrated while running for dynamic load balancing and zero-downtime maintenance.

VMware is virtualization software that allows the running of multiple operating systems at the same time on Intel x86 architectures. It was and is developed by VMware Inc. and it has three product lines, namely Workstation, GSX, and ESX. We will be using Workstation. You can download a free evaluation version here.

Several tools included in the CD are only available for GNU/Linux platforms. One of the advantages of using VMware is that it permits the implementation of the Honeywall under any operating system supported by this program. Up until the CD was released, the only way to install a complete Honeywall under Windows (with traffic limiting capabilities using iptables, for example) was to first install VMware and then configure a GNU/Linux distribution under it. But now, with the introduction of the Honeywall CDROM this task is very straightforward.

Another reason for implementing the Honeywall using VMware is that by default, Honeywall uses all resources of the machine you install it on. If a virtual environment is used then this is restricts the Honeywall to use only the resources inside the virtual machine. The advantage is that it is not necessary to consume all the resources of a machine to install the Honeywall CDROM.

You will be able to see demo live in Birmingham on January 13th where you can ask me questions in-person.

The first blogcast is an introduction to the environment I’m using to perform the migration and can be viewed by clicking here.

The second blogcast is using the gatherhw tool to generate an XML manifest cataloguing the hardware in my NT4 Server. This can be viewed by clicking here.

The third blogcast walks through validating the XML file describing the hardware which the server being migrated is running. It can be viewed by clicking here.

The fourth blogcast walks through generating the P2V (physical to virtual) files used for the remainder of the migration. It can be viewed by clicking here.

The fifth blogcast walks through updating the script files to ensure the generated P2V migration files work correctly in the environment validating the XML file describing the hardware on the server being migrated and adds an device to ADS for the target Virtual Server machine. It can be viewed by clicking here.

Vanderzweep: If you look at our virtualization strategy and think about a graph with an X-Y axis, in the bottom right-hand corner, I’d label that element virtualization, that is the first step in virtualization. The middle box would be integrated virtualization, and up in the top corner — nirvanah — would be something we call the complete IT utility.
Element virtualization is absolutely mainstream. It’s hard not to find a customer who hasn’t, on an Intel server, used DM ware to partition that server into two machines. It’s hard not to find a customer who hasn’t put in a storage array instead of dedicated storage on a server-by-server basis. What element virtualization is all about, though, is virtualizing only one thing, cutting a server in half into two logical servers.
The next step on that graph, integrated virtualization, is where the innovation in the industry is now and certainly where our focus is. That’s where Virtual Server Environment [fits]. It uses those virtualization pieces, but instead of saying, “I need to divide this server into two,” it gets a lot of that automation that’s required. You simply say, “I need sub-second response time for my Web retail system, and I need two-second average response time for my ERP system and I need 30 minute turnaround for batch jobs for my HR system for payroll run.”
You tell the control software, the Virtual Server Environment software, the service levels that you need, and then it will keep moving resources around, changing the size of partitions on the fly to meet those service levels. You can see the difference where we were in the past with element virtualization: [There] we cut a 10 CPU server into two CPUs for Oracle, four CPUs for PDA, for instance. With integrated virtualization, you don’t specify CPUs.
When you get to the Complete IT Utility, that’s where all your data centers, all its resources, are automatically flowed to the right application, at the right time; all the server resources, network resources, storage resources and the software is automatically reprovisioned and moved around in a heterogeneous environment — Windows, Linux, HP/UX, whatever kind of operating system. That’s a little bit more complex to do.
We start them with the basic elements of virtualization, move them towards integrated in some projects and get multiple projects together and then finally move them toward Complete IT Utility.

ECT: And this is something HP already is doing for some clients — moving them to Complete IT Utility?

Vanderzweep: Yes. Primarily where we do the Complete IT Utility for a customer that looks at our portfolio of element, integrated and complete, they usually say, “You know HP, I want to go straight to the top right-hand corner — to the Complete IT Utility,” They will also say, “Ed, HP, since you’re already doing this in your datacenter, why don’t you manage my datacenter or outsource my datacenter and give me all those benefits?”
We’ve done things like that and been public about things like that for many customers — DreamWorks, for example, where we manage their infrastructure and, as they produce a film like “Shrek” or “Shrek 2,” they need to render a film, we do that for them and we charge them based on the number of frames rendered in the film. We’ve really connected up to their business.
Amadeus — you’re probably familiar with Sabre in North America, the booking system — does the same kind of thing in Europe. They came to HP and fell in love with the Complete IT Utility. They said, “Ok, we’re in the airline booking industry. We write software to do that. You, HP, are good at infrastructure. We get paid by the likes of Lufthansa — say, 25 cents — every time we book a seat and a customer actually sits in it. HP, you provide us with infrastructure that grows and shrinks based on supply and demand, and we’ll pay you 5 cents every time a customer sits on an airline seat.”
The more business they get, the more we have to scale that infrastructure up. The less business they get, the more we have to scale it down. Predominantly, if people want to go straight to the upper right corner, we do that through our managed service offering. We have huge amounts of customers who are doing element virtualization. I’d be surprised if I could find an enterprise HP customer that isn’t using some kind of virtualization. It’s the integrated stuff that probably 10 percent of our customer base is kicking the tires with. The Complete IT Utility is a smaller amount, but we do have a tremendous amount of business with our managed services group — companies like DreamWorks, Amadeus, Procter & Gamble, Ericsson — where we implement these capabilities for customers using the 400 datacenters that we’ve implemented.

ECT: Who do you generally encounter in competitive situations?

Vanderzweep: We definitely see IBM (NYSE: IBM) in there. Especially when you’re looking at heading off into integrated and the Complete IT Utility, it really requires you to coordinate and automate the provisioning of these resources — server, networking, storage, software — so the likes of HP and IBM are very well diversified in the IT industry, selling servers, storage, networking, etc. At HP, we have the ability to build things like the Virtual Server Environment, coordinate resources or go all the way up to the Complete IT Utility and manage a company’s environment.
We were out there talking about our vision for utility computing some years ago and we’ve brought a whole set of these products to market in the last two or three years, so we’ve got references after references after references. Execution is our biggest differentiator.

ECT: How about some smaller companies? Or companies like Sun?

Vanderzweep: Because this is a highly innovative space you’ll see lots of start-up companies out there that are making some big inroads. One start-up company was acquired by EMC (NYSE: EMC) a while ago — VMware — and they’re a good partner of ours versus a competitor. They provide the ability to virtualize an x86 Intel Opteron-type system and slice that up into smaller systems. They’re an interesting company.
We see a lot of other start-ups out there. I went to a venture capitalist conference a little ways back — this is a popular area for venture capitalists to invest in and for start-ups to design software and hardware around this area. If you look out, there are 50, 100 start-ups that have a unique piece of the puzzle here. Some of them, over the past few years have been bought up. We, ourselves, have acquired Talking Blocks, Consera, Novadigm and a few others to round out our portfolio of capabilities.

ECT: And I guess that underscores the growing mainstream nature of the market?

Vanderzweep: Oh yes, definitely. You’ve got a few other major players in the marketplace that are not as strong as HP or IBM because they’re not as diversified. You hear Sun talking a little bit, but they have a small portfolio of capabilities compared with the likes of HP. I don’t run into those guys very much. I go more head-to-head with IBM.

ECT: You mentioned heterogeneous environments and standardizing procedures and administration, but are there any technology standards issues that CIOs should be aware of when considering moving into or expanding their use of virtualization?

Vanderzweep: There are things like working groups like W3C and Oasis are working on, and we’re heavily invested into those standards organizations. Web services plays a big role in this because they make it much easier for applications to be compatible in this world, to move resources around. So we’ve been key to developing some of the Web services standards.
Grid services are now being built on top of Web services, and we’re very active in standardization of grid services as well. In fact, HP now holds the chair position in the Global Grid Forum. Standards are expensive initiatives, but they’re very fruitful as well, because HP likes to be able to build on top of standards, then add value to provide differentiation to the market place.
It’s the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of what the customer gets is standards-based infrastructure, then 20 percent is value-add on top of that, which really can differentiate them in the industry so they’re better than the company down the street. The more we standardize, the more we put into the 80 percent, allows us to innovate on top of that, and once it’s standardized, it reduces our cost and we can take our engineering efforts, our innovation efforts, and put them on top of that standard. It accelerates the industry. It differentiates us in the marketplace: It’s good for customers. It’s good for us.

ECT: I think every IT executive has a horror story about lack of standardization.

Eligibility Requirements
Customers who purchase any Full Product or Academic Product of VMware Workstation during the eligibility period are entitled to get the corresponding VMware Workstation 5, when available, free of charge via electronic download from the VMware web site.

Eligible Products Acquired During Technology Guarantee Program
– VMware Workstation 4.5 (for Windows Operating Systems)
– VMware Workstation 4.5 (for Linux Systems)
– VMware Workstation 4.5 Academic (for Windows Operating Systems)
– VMware Workstation 4.5 Academic (for Linux Systems)

Eligibility Period
Starting from December 16, 2004 to the commercial release of VMware Workstation 5 (expected to occur in the first half 2005).

Conditions
1. Direct Electronic Download Purchases of Workstation 4.5 from VMware: Upon release of VMware Workstation 5, customers who have purchased product during the eligibility period will be able to download the new software from the VMware Web site. At the time of the release, details on how and where to perform the download will be posted on the VMware web site as well as listed on an email that will be sent out to all eligible customers.

2. Packaged Product purchases of Workstation 4.5 from resellers or directly from VMware: Upon release of VMware Workstation 5, customers who have purchased product during the eligibility period and have registered the serial number for product will be able to download the new software from the VMware Web site. At the time of the release, details on how and where to perform the download will be posted on the VMware web site as well as listed on an email that will be sent out to all eligible customers. VMware determines whether the product purchase occurs during the eligibility period based on the shipment date of the product for a specific serial number. In addition, VMware may require presentment of proof of purchase.

3. The free upgrade to Workstation 5 for eligible customers will be fulfilled via electronic download only (not via packaged versions of Workstation 5).

4. Only Full licenses of Workstation 4.5 are eligible products for the VMware Workstation Technology Guarantee Program. A customer who purchases an upgrade license from Workstation 3.x to Workstation 4.5 during the eligibility period is not eligible for this program. The list price of a VMware Workstation Full license is US$189.00 (Electronic Software Distribution) and US$199.00 (Packaged Software Distribution).

5. Customers who have a Workstation 3.x license must purchase a Full license of Workstation 5 when it becomes commercially available in order to upgrade to Workstation 5. We do not have an upgrade license for upgrading directly from Workstation 3.x to Workstation 5.

6. The free copy of Workstation 5 must be on the same platform and language as the original purchase.

7. Customers are required to visit the VMware Web site and enter their VMware Workstation 4.5 license serial number in order to receive their Workstation 5 license.

How Is VMware ACE Used in the Enterprise?
VMware ACE is used across the enterprise to:

– Provision enterprise-standard PC environments on unmanaged remote PCs.
– Provision time-limited, locked-down PC environments on unmanaged guest PCs.
– Secure sensitive enterprise and personally identifiable information on mobile PCs.
– Provision standardized, hardware-independent PC environments on any enterprise PC.

How Does VMware ACE Work?
VMware ACE leverages industry-proven VMware virtual machine technology to provide an isolated PC environment known as an “assured computing environment”. Using VMware ACE Manager, IT desktop managers create projects that include:

– A virtual machine with an operating system, applications, and data
– An application to run the virtual machines
– A set of policies to control the lifecycle and capabilities of the virtual machine

From this project, PC managers create a VMware ACE package that is distributed to end-users via download, DVD, or CD media. VMware ACE enables end-users to run an “assured computing environment” on their desktop or laptop PC. The VMware virtualization layer maps the physical hardware resources to the VMware ACE virtual machine resources, providing the full equivalent of a standard x86 machine within the assured computing environment.

VMware ACE Key Features

Manageability
– Design once, deploy anywhere. Create standardized hardware-independent PC environments and deploy them to any PC throughout the extended enterprise.
– Virtual Rights Management interface. Control VMware ACE lifecycle, security settings, network settings, system configuration and user interface capabilities.

Security
– Rules-based network access. Identify and quarantine unauthorized or out-of-date VMware ACE environments. Enable access to the network once the VMware ACE environment complies with IT policies.
– Tamper-resistant computing environment. Protect the entire VMware ACE environment, including data and system configuration, with seamless encryption.
– Copy protected computing environment. Prevent end users from copying enterprise information.

The number of independent operating systems VMware Workstation currently can run is limited by how much memory a computer has, because each copy –called a virtual machine– needs as much memory as a regular standalone computer. VMware Workstation 5, however, will employ technology that lets the same memory be shared by similar virtual machines.

For example, a machine with 10 instances of Windows, each using 512MB, needs about 5GB of memory today, but typical tasks will let that be cut in half to about 2.5GB, said Michael Mullany, vice president of marketing at VMware. Under best-case circumstances, new virtual machines occupy only 8MB to 12MB, he added.

The new edition is due in the first half of 2005. Like predecessors, it runs only on computers using x86 chips such as Intel’s Pentium and Advanced Micro Devices’ Opteron.

The memory-sharing feature was first introduced in the company’s high-end product, ESX Server, about two years ago, said Srinivas Krishnamurti, the company’s workstation software product manager.

The EMC subsidiary’s basic virtualization technology has been available for years, but the company continues to refine it and add features as new competition arrives in the market. VMware faces competition chiefly from Microsoft, but also from SWsoft, Sun Microsystems and start-up VirtuOS Computing. But VMware is well entrenched in the industry through established partnerships with IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and most recently Oracle.

Boosting memory efficiency is helpful for developers who might want to employ another new feature called Teams, Krishnamurti said. Teams makes it easier to use a single workstation for simulating a multiserver infrastructure–for example, one with a Web browser, a Web server, an application server and a back-end database server.

Teams lets a developer start and stop an entire collection of linked virtual machines, Krishnamurti said. They also can control factors such as boot order so foundational machines such as database servers start up before other modules. And networking links can be throttled to simulate low-speed dial-up connections.

Another feature coming with version 5 will be a better ability to save “snapshots” of the virtual machine, a useful technology for those who want to store a particular state before trying risky software. Currently, only one snapshot may be saved, but version 5 will allow any number, Krishnamurti said.

The new edition will include another tool called “V2V” that will make it possible to convert Microsoft virtual machines to VMware virtual machines.

VMware Workstation works with two categories of operating system: the hosts on which the software runs and the guests that can run as VMware virtual machines. Version 5 will add some new hosts, including SuSE Linux Professional 9.2, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and Mandrake Linux 10. It will come with experimental support for the beta version of Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0, both due in 2005.

The software also will support 64-bit versions of host operating systems from SuSE, with experimental support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

The list of supported guest operating systems is the same as that for hosts, but also includes Sun’s Java Desktop System, VMware said. Sun’s version of Solaris for x86 chips isn’t on the list, though.