Telematique, water and fire.

The Missing Piece in Cloud Computing: Middleware Virtualization

This is an interesting piece about the role of middleware (the "classic" tiers and APIs) and of virtualization in attaining the real benefits of utility computing and Cloud Computing (though I'm still hardpressed to distinguish the two terms in a meaningful way). 

What caught my eye particularly is the approach they've taken at Gigaspaces to virtualization for the application container. This notion of bundling and consolidating the logic needed to enforce SLAs and simultaneously meet the requirements of the application architects is an approach for which I have great respect, and which we're employing in our efforts regarding network virtualization at Replicate Technologies.

Nati Shalom's Blog: The Missing Piece in Cloud Computing: Middleware Virtualiztion

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In the current server-centric world we use middleware to provide common infrastructure services, such as application containers, data and messaging. To make that same model work in a cloud environment we need to virtualize all of those components. That is, we need to virtualize the container, the data and messaging. By doing so we abstract the application from the fact that it is running on a "cloud" and make the transition from a server-centric model to cloud computing relatively seamless. How do we achieve that?
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The SLA-driven container takes an application bundle and manages the deployment of that bundle over a set of containers based on Service-Level Agreements. The SLAs define the clustering topology (e.g., partitioning, size of the application pool, scalability, fail-over policies, etc.). It is used to map the available physical compute resources to the application needs. It is also used to provide self-healing capabilities to our application. For example, we can set an SLA to ensure that at any point in time we always have primary and backup instances for each node in our environment - and that each node's primary and backup must run on separate physical machines. In case a primary fails, the system will dynamically set the backup as the new primary, and will launch another backup on another machine.

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The new challenges for your network management software

Peter Williams of Bloor Research does a nice job of describing the issues facing IT's management of networks as well as the vendor's challenges in delivering the right network management systems.  The piece then goes on to be a plug for Entuity's 'Eye of the Storm' network management suite, but it's done in this context. The advertizing not withstanding, I liked the staging and premise on which it was written.

Stormy times for your networks? Time to re-assess your network...

Those who provide network fault and performance management software have been experiencing new challenges as technologies advance and new software emerges. Enterprises using network management software unchanged for only two years will be behind the curve; in fact the vendors themselves are struggling to keep up.

Think of the challenges. There is virtualisation—of the servers, storage pools and the networks—which builds in extra (hidden) layers of complexity in continually mapping the virtual to the physical. Various trends include a shift towards more server-based shared applications and content management, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and software as a service (SaaS). Conversely, there is also peer-to-peer networking, as well as converged data and voice sharing the same wire, and wireless networking for both.

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Yankee Group gets religion about Virtual Appliances from ISVs

Given the amount of web-space that's been dedicated to virtualization, soft appliances in general, and virtual appliances, this seems a bit of a let-down.  The point is, of course, that they're correct.

What few people seem to be talking about, however, is the role virtual appliances will play as the delivery mechanism of choice for network appliances.  Think about this for a bit.  I've been spending a lot of time on it lately. The results are some startlingly different ways to think about network function and the OAM&P (operation, administrative, management and provisioning) functions.

Yankee Group Says ISVs and Customers Will Reap Tremendous Benefits from Virtual Appliances : VMblog.com - Virtualization Information

As virtualization progresses and the concept gains acceptance, virtual appliances may become the predominant and only platform for ISVs. Some of the benefits of virtual appliances for ISVs and customers are:

• Lower support costs: Supporting a myriad of customer OSs, all with different versions, patch levels, and configurations is becoming a support nightmare.
• Better quality software: By removing the variables of customer-installed and -configured operating systems, ISVs can have complete control of their software operating environment.
• Easy scalability: Virtual appliances can easily be moved to a faster machine.
• Quick deployment: Virtual appliances plug into existing virtual infrastructure and come pre-installed, pre-configured and ready to start.

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Componentizing IOS!! But ... when?

Cisco's reorganization of the development group is truly significant.  If the company can actually commit to this self-administered genetic engineering ... no mean feat ... they have my admiration.   I spent a day or two this past week thinking about it, and wondered what I would consider a clear indicator of commitment to the new path.  Well, folks, this is it... opening up IOS.

This is a game-changing move for the company, but only if it's a timely move.  How quickly will they do it? How quickly can it be done?

Cisco opening up IOS - Network World

... "It's a significant step forward for us," said Don Proctor, senior vice president of Cisco's newly formed Software Group, at last week's C-Scape 2007 analyst conference. "Software turns out to be a key way that we can do what [we've] been talking about for some time, which is link business architecture to technology architecture in a meaningful way."

Cisco plans to "componentize" IOS – developing only one implementation of a specific function instead of several, depending on the image – dynamically link IOS services and move the software onto a Unix-based kernel. Cisco then plans to open up interfaces on IOS to allow third-party and customer-developed applications to access IOS services.

However, no timeframe for doing so was provided.
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