VMware ESX 4 New features

According to VMware, the future of the VMware Enterprise Edition Virtualization which name as ESX 4 will be launched earlier next year, will contain some of the features which been show case during the seminar to the public. Below is some of the information which had been shared by VMware for reference

1. 64 bits kernel VS the current 32 bits kernel on ESX server
2. Thin Provisioning
3. Fault Tolerance
4. 8 way virtual SMP
5. 256 GB memory per single VM

There are also more to come in the roadmap of year 2009 which will specify on the vcloud, virtual data center and etc. At lease for today, this had been public demostrate to the end user about some of the technology roadmap and features in the next version. ESX 4 is still under private beta test at this moment, which aim to be launched at 1st quater next year.

VMware Workstation 6.5.1 Release

VMware had just official released the Workstation 6.5.1. There are some new features will be impress with the latest build number of 126130

For more information, please view it over at the link below

VMware Workstation 6.5.1

VMware Server 2.0

VMware Server 2.0 is free and open source version, which is different with enterprise ESX 3i which also a free version from VMware. In term to utilize VMware server 2.0, you will require to have a Windows or Linux install on your machine or server, and install VMware Server 2.0 on top of the operating system to enable the hypervisor to be executed. This is different with ESX 3i which is not require any Operating System to be installed.

We may see this is comparison which compete with VMware workstation 6.5 which recently launched. If you ask my opinion, I will say that both are on different product range. VMware Server 2 can be consider as alternative to the business users, who may not need the advance technology & features to simplify their IT environment with minimal administration require. This product is more suitable for the Small Medium Enterprise users which may not have a Data Center for their working location. I will say that a Junior IT professional will easily able to manage the VMware Server and take the opportunity as a entry level for Enterprise Virtualization with VMware Server 2. Besides that, it does provide opportunity for every users to have virtualization in place for their business to provide better ROI in term of hardware investment and utilization.

If we look VMware workstation, it provide more features and ability to the IT pro users to perform their test and development environment on their laptop, workstation or desktop which reduce the amount of servers require for a corporate to perform their application development. Somehow, ESX is targeting Enterprise level, 3i is provide for free which some cases we may not require VMotion and HA capability.Management wise, Workstation is simple and easy. You may not require to browse through the web console and easily can be launched as a program from your machine, but you will lost the administration features on the network. VMware Workstation has ACE integrated, drag and drop features and etc, which may not require for most of the VMware Server users for hosting purpose. VMware Server 2 will require a web browser for your management, and you able to manage it through LAN network. There is a tomcat installed while you configure you VMware server at the 1st time.

As well, you may compare the VMware Server 2 with XEN hypervisor free version. I believe in term of features, VMware always have better comparison. User freindly & Reliability are always important for a consumer when they consider the investment to a certain software.

Equallogic VS FC SAN

Economy Crisis this year has encouraged users to consider the ISCSI SAN Vs FC SAN today. Data Storage growth will never stop unless the business is stop. In order to keep the environment growth, the IT architect will have to provide a cost effective solution in the finance critical timing like now.

Performance wise, we may know that the Equallogic ISCSI might not beat the huge SAN box which easily cost you double as your TCO on ISCSI. I would like to share my finding relevant on the features it bundle with equallogic. In FC SAN, we are able to achive performance and functionality, which require always additional license cost and expensive infrastrucutre to support it. Today, ISCSI provide more flexibility in term of FC due to the common understanding we all have on the IP technology which we deal with it everyday.

In Equallogic ISCSI, you will entitle every features which bundle together with the storages you purchase.

• Snapshot Volume Manager
• Thin Provisioning
• Raid 5, Raid 50, Raid 10
  
• Auto Load Balancing
• Web Base Console
• DR Replication
• Storage Replication
• Volume Clone

The details of the available features is more than what I am stated here of course. Imagine if you own a FC SAN today, you may end up paying additional charges for every piece of licenses you require of the functionality. Beside this, Virtualization and VMware is become a main player for every Data Center today. Same with Equallogic, it had also become a powerful competitor to compete with the major vendor like Netapps, EMC, HP, HDS, IBM and etc.

Whithout comparing the cost and performance, I am really impress with the simplify management provided by Equallogic. You will not require to be long waiting of the web console, and it is user friendly and easy to be managed. Compare to FC SAN, you will require certain level of skillsets and patient for administration which you may suffer from the slow loading from the console always. Additional to that, FC SAN will become slower when the number of spindle and workload is increase, but equallogic has it advantage with every array will increase the processing power and throughput. Personal experience, I am only require less than 10 minutes to setup and configure my Equallogic Storage array, and able to start provisioning right after the configuration done. Is Really Fast!!

I run the performance test on my ESX server to compare the I/O performance Vs FC SAN, I realize that the performance is acceptable with the amount of money we pay for it. Simply becoz you may not virtualize the servers which require the real I/O intensive performance. I am able to achieve approximately 140MB/s with FC SAN for read/write, with Equallogic, I manage to achieve 115MB/s as maximum throughput in my VM. Again, this may be impacted due to the software ISCSI initiator. ISCSI HBA will able to improve the performance with minimize the overhead on ESX host. For my test, I only manage to run with single array. If we have more array in the future, it will able to increase the disk performance and storage throughput. 10Gb Ethernet are also on the way to the market next year. Equallogic are also design for SRM solution which provide by VMware to simplify the DR solution. With this storage solution, we will no longer require a big pipe for SAN storage replication as we did for the FC SAN previously.

Latest array PS 5500E are providing 48TB in RAW with SATA, which will be a good option for DR solution to provide cheaper hardware cost & better functionality. If I has been asked to reduce my CAPEX for SAN purchase, the only option I can think now is ISCSI as my option. Cisco 3750 is the recommended switches for DELL Equallogic, it is much more cheaper if we compare to the brocade FC SAN swithces.

Never the less, FC SAN are still the best option in term of reliable and performance, but as it is a tough time now for budget spending, I believe Equallogic has provide us an additional option with limited budget.