sp_p_wp_2013_v1_vmware_technology_stack___opportunities_for_isv_s_final
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VMware provides several technology extensions for ISVs to extend their product capabilities in virtual and cloud environments. These include vSphere client plugins, SRM SRA adapters, VAAI plugins, and vCO plugins. These integration points allow ISVs to integrate their solutions into the VMware ecosystem to deliver value to customers through increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved performance, and ensuring SLAs are met.
sp_p_wp_2013_v1_vmware_technology_stack___opportunities_for_isv_s_final
- 1. SP & P – WHITE PAPER VMware Technology Stack & Opportunities for ISVs Transform your products and platform with the market leaders in virtualization and product engineering!
- 2. SP & P – WHITE PAPER Introduction Over the years enterprises of varying sizes across the globe have adopted virtualization to increase operational efficiency by up to 20%. Ever growing data volume coupled with pressure to reduce CAPEX and OPEX, enterprises are pushed away from physical infrastructure to private/public cloud infrastructures. Recent surveys predict 1/3rd of digital data will be in cloud by 2013 and 2/3rd of enterprise workload is seen in could by 2016. With emergence of hybrid data centers and adoption by enterprises becoming a reality, Storage and Systems ISVs will see new market opportunities by extending capability of their products in virtual world that delivers benefits to end customers through productivity and greater flexibility. This white paper explores the various VMware technology components and how Symphony Teleca’s solution offerings for virtualization platforms can help ISVs to utilize the power of virtualization and cloud technology to its best. This white paper will also discuss how Symphony Teleca can be a strategic partner in devising innovative solutions and productizing them to address the key challenges faced by CTOs and engineering VPs in order to cope up with virtualization and cloud technologies. VMware component vSphere client (vCenter) Plugin SRM- SRA Adaptor VAAI Plugin vCO Plugin VASA Provider Solutions scenario Storage, Network infrastructure adoption for shared/virtualized data centers End-to-End solutions for Disaster recovery & Business continuance. Highly reliable RTOs and RPOs at a much lower cost and level of complexity than traditional disaster recovery solutions for virtualized data centers. Helps storage vendors to provide hardware assistance to speed up VMware I/O operations. More efficiently of cloning and data migration. The open plugin architecture for private cloud deployment. Integration with management applications. Discover and monitor storage array properties based on availability, security and performance. Leverage array services to enforce storage VM SLAs and create end-to-end storage SLA guarantees for each virtual machine eliminating the need for maintaining spread sheets manually. End-User benefits • Simplify shared infrastructure (Storage, Network etc) • Management from a single console. • High reliability DR solution for virtual infrastructure • Ease of management and lower TCO • Lower Storage Infrastructure costs per VM • Lower Opex and Capex • Improved performance and SLA delivery • Provides end–end workflow automation of all the available resources in virtualized infrastructures • Rapid, intelligent provisioning of applications • Application service levels that match available storage. • Better visibility into the available storage pool Top 5 technology components from VMware : Features, Benefits analysis The following sections of this white paper describes the Top five VMware technology components in detail. VMware provides several technology extensions for ISVs to extend capability in their products to address emerging market opportunities in virtual and Cloud world. 01
- 3. SP & P – WHITE PAPER TOP 5 VMWARE TECHNOLOGY COMPONENTS FOR ISV’s The advent of virtualization and cloud technologies has introduced the following challenges for CTOs and Engineering VPs: • Extending or developing solutions to provide integration with ISV’s proprietary technologies, management product suites from within virtualization platforms and cloud infrastructure • Addressing dynamic requirements of enterprises to drive SLAs These challenges can be addressed with innovative solutions developed for virtualization platforms and cloud infrastructures. The industry’s leading virtualization platform i.e. VMware vSphere which also forms a solid foundation for cloud infrastructure, provides several integration points and programs for ISV’s to integrate their products into the VMware ecosystem. VMware provides various product suites such as bare metal hypervisor (ESX/ESXi), management products for virtualization infrastructure (vSphere), cloud infrastructure management (vCloud Director), automation products (VMware vCenter Orchestrator) and disaster recovery solutions (Site Recovery Manager) to mention a few. Vendors can take advantage of various integration points of VMware to integrate their solutions into the VMware ecosystems and extend their capabilities. The table below presents an analysis of Top 5 VMware technology components and different solutions that third-party vendors can build to deliver value to end customers in a hybrid world: VMWARE vSPHERE CLIENT PLUG-IN Overview VMware vSphere client plug-in provides ISV’s the ability to extend the vSphere client. Third-party vendors can extend vSphere client with custom menu selections, toolbar icons, integrated management user interface that provide access to custom capabilities of vendors’ system such as proprietary cloning, integrated network or server management solutions etc. VMware vSphere client plug-in can be developed for vSphere Web client as well as thick client. The web client involves technologies such as Flex and Java. VMware announced that starting vSphere 6.0 release; there will be only vSphere web client (web browser based client) support and support for vSphere Client (thick client) will be stopped. This will require existing ISV’s plug-ins for vSphere client to be migrated to Sphere web client as seen in figure 1 Figure 1 02
- 4. SP & P – WHITE PAPER Solution Highlights • Reduce hardware and operating costs by as much as 50% and energy costs by 80%. • $3,000 per year for every server workload virtualized. • Reduce the time it takes to provision new servers by up to 70% • Accelerate provisioning time by 50-70% Business Benefits vSphere client plug-in offers key business benefits such as: • Increased efficiency of IT staff, reduced expenses on multiple solutions allowing enterprises to reduce the TCO • Increased ROI as a result of better adoption of vendors’ product or services in virtualized data centers. • Reduced down time of business critical applications, services due to integrated unified management solutions. VMWARE SRM SRA ADAPTER Overview The VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) provides disaster recovery capabilities and business continuity for virtual infrastructure with features such as planned migration and automated fail back. VMware SRM provides an option for using vendor’s storage replication adapter (SRA) in order to perform replication of virtual machines residing on to vendors’ storage servers. The SRA allows utilizing vendors’ proprietary replication technology providing finer RPOs and efficient RTOs. The SRM leverages vendors’ SRA for all its CDP and replication needs. As seen in figure 2, the VMware vSphere Replication (VR) can Figure 2 03
- 5. SP & P – WHITE PAPER be used for small virtual data centers and non-critical lower-value second-tier applications. The SRM with VR allows minimum RPO of 15 minutes. Solution Highlights • Eliminate the cost and unpredictability of physical disaster recovery solutions by taking advantage of the inherent flexibility of a 100% virtualized data center • Increased an IT organization’s capacity to support business by a factor of 3, without adding staff • Decreased an organization’s DR costs by 50% whereas DR capabilities increased by a factor of 5 • Reduced maintenance costs by $150,000 per year • Saved $200,000 in yearly payroll costs in an IT department • Eliminated $400,000 in annual costs for a third-party DR Service Business Benefits Storage replication adapter offers key business benefits listed below: • Integrated DR solution with array based replication allows reduced OPEX and CAPEX. • Single click automated fail over ensuring reliable RTO with support from vendors’ SRA. • High availability allowing meeting SLAs even under critical situations. • More granular control over RPO with support from vendors’ SRA. VMWare VAAI Plug-in Overview VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Array Integration (VAAI), also referred to as hardware acceleration or hardware offload APIs, are a set of APIs to enable communication between VMware vSphere ESXi hosts and storage devices. The goal of VAAI is to help storage vendors provide hardware assistance to speed up VMware I/O operations that are more efficiently accomplished in the storage hardware. The APIs define a set of “storage primitives” that enable the ESXi host to offload certain storage operations to the array, which reduces resource overhead on the ESXi hosts and can significantly improve performance for storage-intensive operations such as storage cloning, zeroing, and so on as seen in figure 3. VAAI is available for block storage devices and starting vSphere 5.0 release VAAI is also available for NAS devices. Solution Highlights • Expedite virtual machine provisioning, cloning with native storage array technology support. • Effectively and efficiently utilize storage array with VAAI plug-in for Block or NAS devices. • VAAI removes bottlenecks, and offload tasks that are “expensive” (i.e. place a heavy load on Figure 3 04
- 6. SP & P – WHITE PAPER ESX resources) data operations to storage arrays which in many cases can be in a better spot to support them. This has results improving performance, scale, and efficiency of virtualized environment and cloud infrastructure. Business Benefits The VAAI offers key business benefits listed below: • Reduced cost on storage infrastructure due to efficient utilization of available storage. • Improved performance for provision, cloning of virtual machines allowing meeting SLAs in cloud and virtual data center environments. VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in Overview VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) is an automation/orchestration product for virtualized data centers and cloud infrastructure. vCO provides out of the box workflows that can help administrators automate existing manual tasks. Administrators can utilize sample workflows from VMware vCenter Orchestrator’s workflow library and provide a blueprint for creating additional workflows. Third-party vendors can develop plug-ins for vCO allowing them to provide integration and orchestration of their product or services capabilities in VMware virtualized data centers and cloud infrastructures as seen in figure 4. Solution Highlights • According to a recent survey conducted at VMworld, 45% of the respondent said that it takes data center staff hours, days or even weeks to receive an IP address from the network operations team. • Reduce OPEX with most of the workflows automated with VMware vCO workflow library as well as third-party vendor’s custom workflows. Business Benefits The vCO plug-in offers key business benefits listed below: • Reduced OPEX as a result of automation of various activities performed in virtualized data center or cloud infrastructure. • Support for a solid business continuity plan with the help of custom workflows facilitating lower down time of critical business applications and services. • Integrate with VMware vCloud director providing access to vendors’ product or service capabilities for cloud infrastructure. VMware VASA Provider Figure 4 05
- 7. Overview VMware vStorage APIs for storage awareness (VASA) is a new set of APIs that enable vCenter to see the capabilities of storage array LUNs and corresponding data stores. VASA allows third-party vendors to publish storage capabilities such as RAID level, thin or thick provisioned, replication state and so on be made visible within VMware vCenter. The additional understanding about the storage allows vCenter to select appropriate disk for virtual machine placement. VASA eliminates the need for traditional procedures followed for detailing the storage capabilities of each LUN needed to guarantee the correct SLA to virtual machines. VASA facilitate a new capability in VMware vSphere, called “Profile Driven Storage” as seen in figure 5. Solution Highlights • Leverage the native storage array capabilities to choose correct storage for provisioning virtual machines. • Optimize storage utilization with tiered storage management as per business requirements. • Automate the storage selection process with support of the VASA provider and profile driven storage. Business Benefits • Organizations can spend judiciously on storage requirements because of the proper utilization of available storage in an appropriate manner. • Plan and project storage requirements in much more better manner due to increased visibility of available storage. • Provide business services as per the SLAs in more cost effective manner utilizing appropriate storage as per the business service requirement. • Reduced risk of performance bottlenecks those might result due to virtual machine movements. This can be achieved with the compatible storage attached to virtual machine. TAKEAWAY Today, the adoption of cloud virtualization and cloud by enterprises is a universal phenomenon. However the virtualization technology stack continues to evolve rapidly and provides richer capabilities for ISVs to exploit emerging business opportunity and delivery business value to end customers. While the time to market for these features is critical for ISVs, the engineering challenges to implement these can be daunting. At Symphony Teleca we have made strategic engineering investments to ensure that we are continuously on top of the virtualization technology evolution and can provide just the engineering partnership you need to meet your time to market objectives. Figure 5 06
- 8. ABOUT SYMPHONY TELECA Symphony Teleca Corporation, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is the world’s first services company dedicated exclusively to helping clients manage the global convergence of software, the cloud and connected devices. The company delivers innovative products combined with contemporary product development, systems integration, analytics and managed services to hundreds of organizations around the world. Symphony Teleca’s 6000 employees support customers from 32 offices globally, including delivery centers in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas. For more information visit, www.symphonyteleca.com. © Symphony Teleca Corp. SP & P_WP_2013_V1 SYMPHONY TELECA VALUE PROPOSITION Symphony Teleca works very closely with several leading storage and systems ISVs helping them to build solutions or extend product capabilities around virtualization. Symphony had built end-to-end virtualization solutions such as integration for NAS, hardware acceleration on storage servers in virtualized environments, monitoring virtual platforms as well as cloud platforms. Symphony Teleca also works in areas involving 1.0 release of programs such as VMware vSphere Web Client, VMware SRM SRA adapter, VMware VAAI plug-in for its ISV partners. Symphony Teleca has been working in the areas listed below allowing ISVs to address challenges in providing solutions for virtualization platforms and cloud infrastructure: • VMware vSphere Client Plug-in • VMware SRM SRA Adapter • VMware VAAI Plug-in • VMware vCenter Orchestrator Plug-in • VMware VASA Provider All brands and logos used in this white paper belongs to respective owners