Dynamic Data Center Alliance Blog

Microsoft introduces Cloud Guide for IT Leaders

Dynamic DC Alliance — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:58:36 GMT

Today, Microsoft launched its Cloud Guide for IT Leaders, an online digital resource for information technology and business leaders interested in cloud computing.

Wondering how the roles of IT staffers will change with cloud computing? Curious why organizations have left Google Apps? The Cloud Guide for IT Leaders provides access to a steady stream of rich content—highlight videos, executive interviews, images, blog entries and keynote replays—addressing those issues.

Learn more by visiting the Cloud Guide at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/cloud/ and follow us on Twitter via http://twitter.com/STBNewsBytes.

Guest Blog by NetApp: Great Ideas + Fast Execution = Innovation Hosters Can Monetize

Dynamic DC Alliance — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:32:00 GMT

By Lee Gates, Sr. Manager, Microsoft Solutions Engineering, NetApp

The Dynamic Data Center Toolkit for Hosters (DDTK-H) has been gaining mindshare since its launch last year, as Service Providers look for guidance to create private and public cloud offerings based on Microsoft's Hyper-V with integrated management via System Center.

For technology partners like NetApp, working through the Dynamic Data Center Alliance (DDA) offers a great way to quickly contribute IP to the DDTK-H community, enhancing the integration of advanced virtual storage and data management functionality so hosters realize a faster time to market for affordable enterprise-class service offerings for SMB’s.

NetApp is embracing the DDTK-H and our first solution integrating SnapMirror, our storage based replication product, delivers automated disaster recovery (DR) and was showcased at the MS Hosting Summit last month. Bob Muglia demonstrated the capability during his keynote, showing live failover of hosting partner nGenX's Hyper-V environment between a production data center in Indiana and a secondary data center 470 miles away in Wisconsin. We talked with many hosting executives at the event and the consensus was that it was an innovative solution and a great kickoff to the NetApp-Microsoft collaboration around DDTK-H. The PowerShell code and configuration guidance that represent this initial work are published on codeplex. A case study of the nGenX implementation and Microsoft’s press release give further context.

Going forward, NetApp will aggressively expand our contributions to the DDTK-H. The Microsoft Solutions Engineering team at NetApp is already testing additional support for Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). This provides additional local datacenter service level availability while still enabling the long distance DR. Another imminent addition integrates SnapManager for Hyper-V, providing policy based backup and recovery for both standalone and CSV Windows environments.

As we lay the Hyper-V and NetApp foundation for Service Providers and Hosters through DDTK-H integrations, we’re highly focused on enabling best of breed solutions through PowerShell implementations for rapid deployment and reuse. We’ll be publishing the CSV and SnapManager for Hyper-V extensions to this solution before Microsoft TechEd next month.

At TechEd NA 2010, we will also release rapid provisioning for the Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (DIT-SC) enabling enterprises to build private clouds. To learn more, please stop by to meet our team at NetApp booth #801.

What's coming up with the next versions of SCOM and VMM!

Dynamic DC Alliance — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:24:00 GMT

For the folks onsite at MMS with us, hope you are having a great time! For the rest of us, we're trying our best to keep you informed of the happenings in here!

Among a ton of exciting vision from Bob Muglia’s keynote on April 20^th, we're also announcing the capability set that we are working on for the next version of System Center. Our goal is to provide a unified management solution that delivers datacenter services across physical, virtual and cloud environments using an integrated app/service-centric model.

With that in mind, I’ve included below some of the Dynamic IT / cloud capabilities that Virtual Machine Manager vNext and Operations Manager vNext will deliver to lower operational expense and increase agility in the enterprise datacenter. Some of these capabilities will take a few cycles to fully realize, but we’re going to get rolling on them in the next version J

System Center Virtual Machine Manager

· Service lifecycle management, including creation, deployment and updates to cloud apps/services - Leverages app virtualization technology and service modeling to perform image-based service composition, deployment and updates.

· Creation of private clouds - Enables “Infrastructure as a Service” for the enterprise datacenter and allows self-service scenarios; discovery and assignment of logical/virtualized network and storage pools to apps/services

· Federation across clouds - Enables workload mobility between on-premises, service provider and public clouds (e.g. Windows Azure) in a secure manner

· Policy-based dynamic resource optimization – Ensure optimal utilization of your datacenter resources (e.g. policy driven power management), deeper Operations Manager/PRO integration

· Deeper Opalis Integration – Offers deeper integration with Opalis for enhanced orchestration and automation across multiple sub-systems

System Center Operations Manager

· Unified on-premises and cloud monitoring - Enables hybrid cloud deployment scenarios with “single pane of glass” monitoring

· Outside-in/end user experience monitoring for geo distributed cloud services (based on synthetic transactions)

· Service oriented network and storage monitoring (e.g. monitor and troubleshoot network and storage resource pools assigned to services)

Also check out this video I recorded to get additional information on our Datacenter vision and SCOM/VMM vNext.

Finally, I also wanted to highlight the Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center, which will allow you to build your private cloud foundation very soon to help you accelerate your journey to the cloud. What's more, this solution is built on top of technology you currently have and are very familiar with - System Center and Windows Server!

We will provide additional details on these capabilities (and others) as we finalize them!

Ananthanarayan Sundaram, Product Marketing Manager - System Center, Microsoft Corp.

UPDATE: Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center — Final Release Now Available!

Dynamic DC Alliance — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:29:00 GMT

In March we told you about a new guide that the Solution Accelerators team was working on—Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center. The beta for this guide has closed and the final release is now available. Be sure to download a final release copy of this free guide for insight into how your organization can strategically plan a Dynamic Data Center infrastructure that is designed for ease of manageability.

Next Steps

· Download the IPD Guide for Dynamic Data Center. Learn more about IPD Guides for Virtualization and System Center.

· Download other best practices from the Infrastructure Planning and Design series for products such as Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, SQL Server 2008, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, System Center, and much more at the IPD home page on TechNet.

· Check out other Solution Accelerators.

Join us tomorrow, Thursday, March 18 for the Desktop Virtualization Hour!

Dynamic DC Alliance — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:18:00 GMT

Don't forget to join Microsoft executives, industry experts and IT leaders on Thursday, March 18 at 9:00 am Pacific for the Desktop Virtualization Hour.

This will be a valuable session for both IT Pros and Business Executives interested in desktop virtualization. Hear from top experts and companies using Microsoft's comprehensive desktop virtualization technologies to help drive down costs, improve flexibility and control, and streamline desktop management. And learn about Microsoft's latest array of virtualization technologies, spanning from the datacenter to the desktop.

Please join Gartner Analyst Mark Margevicius and Microsoft Executives Garth Fort and Gavriella Schuster for this can't-miss session on one of today's most compelling IT technology advances.

Read more about this interactive live broadcast here.

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center—Join the Beta Now!

Dynamic DC Alliance — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:03:54 GMT

The Solution Accelerator team is working on a new guide: Dynamic Data Center.

The design process in the free Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Dynamic Data Center allows your organization to strategically plan a Dynamic Data Center infrastructure that is designed for ease of manageability.

Key benefits of the guide include:

The infrastructure is designed using best practices to reduce the administrative burden of managing the Dynamic Data Center.
A single set of requirements is tracked throughout the entire design process and then transferred to the appropriate supporting Infrastructure Planning and Design guides.
The infrastructure design of the virtualization hardware and the management software includes determining the scaling and architectural limits of each component.

With this guide, you can design a Dynamic Data Center that will allow your organization to be responsive to changing market conditions by presenting new ways to develop, deliver, deploy, and manage applications and IT infrastructures.

Strategically planning your infrastructure can help you avoid problems before they begin, allowing you to serve your customers more accurately and reliably, as well as saving you time and money.

Next Steps

Download the IPD Guide for Dynamic Data Center. Learn more about IPD Guides for Virtualization and System Center.
Download other best practices from the Infrastructure Planning and Design series for products such as Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, SQL Server 2008, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, System Center, and much more at the IPD home page on TechNet.
Check out other Solution Accelerators.

Microsoft Virtualization Summit 2010 – February Update

Dynamic DC Alliance — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:54:00 GMT

In our mid-February blog post we announced the launch of the Microsoft Virtualization Summit 2010 – From the Desktop to the Datacenter that is happening across 45+ countries and representing 100+ customer events.

The summit is off to a good start and will run across the globe through June this year. The inaugural event took place in Paris on Feb-10 at MS TechDays – France. This was followed by the second event ‘A day @ Microsoft Cloud’ in Seoul (Korea) on Feb-24 wherein 1000+ customers and partners and participated. 47 articles were published in general daily, business, IT print and major online sites. The most popular track (attended by 50% participants) was the one on Virtualization, VDI, and Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center.

March will witness the execution of 35 additional events. Find a Virtualization Summit in your nearest city and learn how Microsoft can help you discover choices, preserve & extend your existing investments.

Join Microsoft, industry experts and IT leaders online for a Desktop Virtualization Hour on March 18th at 9:00am PST. Save the date on your calendar.

Guest Blog by F5 Networks: Where’s the (Infrastructure) Beef?

Dynamic DC Alliance — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:16:00 GMT

By Lori Mac Vitte, Technical Marketing Manager

The often touted benefits of “saving money” and “reducing expenses” associated with virtualization and cloud computing are often discussed in the context of reduction or elimination of servers. The softer savings associated with both technologies are rarely mentioned, perhaps because they are intangibles and peculiar to the organization. These savings can be as substantial, however, as the hard dollars saved through consolidation or leveraging of cloud computing providers when virtualization capabilities move from the test lab into the production data center.

The dynamic nature of virtualization capabilities herald a new, more efficient data center that exhibits stronger fault tolerance and improved deployment procedures. Microsoft’s Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (DIT-SC) is designed to help customers realize the benefits of a dynamic infrastructure. These benefits can be further increased when efficiencies extend into the operational processes that keep the data center running day after day, such as those encompassing network and application delivery network infrastructure solutions.

Realizing Higher Benefits with Leaner Provisioning Processes

F5’s partnership with Microsoft will extend dynamic virtualization capabilities into the network. After all, if the network is not in sync with virtual images being created and/or moved on-demand, you’ve only got a partially dynamic data center, and probably only seeing half the benefits. By integrating with System Center Operations Manager 2008 R2 & Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, F5 enables the same fluidity and flexibility enjoyed by servers, operating systems, and applications today.

DIT-SC is a free, partner-extensible toolkit that provides a framework for creating agile, virtualized IT infrastructures. F5 is doing just that by building on its proven, standards-based control plane, iControl, to integrate via PowerShell to enable customer control and efficiency into the application delivery tier of their virtualized architectures. Using DIT-SC customers can integrate the provisioning of application delivery services such as load balancing for rapid elasticity and automatic scalability.

Providing Complete Network Nutrition Information for More Informed Decisions

You can’t choose a healthy meal without nutritional information on hand and the data center is no different; you can’t make the best scalability and application delivery decisions without the right information. The “nutritional content” of the infrastructure provided to System Center allows the most efficient decisions based on current conditions across the delivery chain – from user to infrastructure to application.

F5’s integration with DIT-SC provides System Center with the network and application network data necessary for informed decisions including factors that may affect the availability and performance of virtualized applications. For example, using System Center Operations Manager with Virtual Machine Manager and F5’s PRO-enabled Management Pack, customers can execute a script that re-provisions F5 BIG-IP to place a newly launched VM into an application pool - enabling it to start receiving end-user requests. While BIG-IP does not make the decision to launch the VM, the decision can be based on BIG-IP provided network, pool, and pool member state data. When invoked, the script executes a series of normally manually executed tasks automatically, moving customers toward a more dynamic - and ultimately both operationally and financially efficient - infrastructure.

By collaborating with Microsoft on extending the DIT-SC for load balancing and scalability services, F5 is enabling the dynamic data center to achieve greater efficiency of operational processes and more effectively control and manage the entire application delivery process.

Don't Miss the Webcast This Week on Thursday, February 25th, 2010!

Dynamic DC Alliance — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:36:00 GMT

Dynamic Infrastructure ToolKit for System Center Deployment: Scenario Walkthrough

Attend this webcast to learn how to set up the foundation for a private cloud in your enterprise with the help of Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (DIT-SC) scenarios such as:

· Enabling independent hardware vendor and system integrator partners to extend the toolkit's powerful extensible features.

· Simplifying IT scenario of end-to-end business unit IT (BUIT) on-boarding.

· Simplifying IT scenario of infrastructure request/allocation processes.

· Enabling end-user self-service portal for virtual machine provisioning.

Join us and find out how NetApp delivered a storage solution to reduce virtual machine storage needs.

Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010

Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Presenters:

1. Suveen Kumar Reddy Vuppala, Senior SDE, Solutions Accelerator Team, Microsoft Corp.

2. Ananthanarayan Sundaram, Senior Product Manager, Virtualization Marketing, Microsoft Corp.

3. Richard Preston, Technical Alliance Manager, NetApp

In case you missed any of the earlier webcasts in our series, you can view them here.

Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (DIT-SC): Sneak peek into “on-boarding”

Dynamic DC Alliance — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:45:00 GMT

Hello. I am Luis Camara Manoel, Senior Group Program Manager with the Solution Accelerators Team at Microsoft. I wanted to give you a peek into the progress we are making on implementing some of the IT scenarios we are building into the Dynamic Infrastructure Toolkit for System Center (DIT-SC- formerly known as DDTK-E).

As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, DIT-SC includes an on-boarding wizard which guides Business Unit IT Managers (BUITs), through: 1^st registering their business unit, and 2^nd in capturing the requirements of their new IT service in an Infrastructure Request. The latter is a process that demands some planning on the BUIT’s part, defining and capturing the infrastructure needed to support these services, such as storage, compute, load-balancing, and network resources, user access, etc.

To gain a better understanding of the hierarchical structure of an Infrastructure Request, consider the following:

1. Infrastructure:

a. Defines the high-level resource requirements and creates a pool from which to build and deliver infrastructure services (defined below).

b. Properties captured at this level include “BU Detail”, “Business Justification”, “Memory”, and “Storage” requirements.

2. Infrastructure Service:

a. Captures IT service-level infrastructure requirements that consume resources for the pool from the Infrastructure requested above.

b. A typical example of an infrastructure service can be a development, test, or production environment.

c. Can include a single or multiple service Roles.

d. Properties captured at this level include “Environment”, “quota”, “network”, “template”, “and access control”, “SAN”.

3. Service Roles:

a. Service Roles define the way a VM would be used and assign resources to those or groups of VMs to be created in the environment.

b. Typical service roles could include “front-end’, “reporting service”, “data store” etc.

c. Properties captured at this level include “role”, “network”, and “load balancing”.

Here’s a visual representation of an Infrastructure Request.

Note that once an Infrastructure Request is submitted, it is sent to a Data Center Administrator (DC Admin), who is then responsible for verifying the availability and capacity of the requested resources in the data center infrastructure. This process might require verification and coordination with network, storage, and other datacenter administrators. If the requested resources are available, the DC Admin will then proceed to provision these assets by mapping them to the Infrastructure Request, and approving the request. At that point, BUITs can access their self-service portal and begin using their environments.

Here are some on-boarding screenshots… bear in mind, this is a pre-beta build, and as usual, all screens are subject to change.

Figure 1- The starting point for a new Infrastructure Request

Figure 2- Capturing requirements for an Infrastructure Service

Figure 3- Capturing Network and Directory requirements

Figure 4- Defining Service Roles and their required Netowrking and Load Balancing requirements

Figure 5- Selecting Templates

Figure 6- Summary page- prior to submission