Cloud Infrastructure Management - IBM VMControl IBM Systems Director 6.3 VMControl 2.4 Thierry Huche IBM France - Montpellier thierry.huche@fr.ibm.com 2010 IBM Corporation
Topics IBM Systems Director / VMControl intro VMControl Virtual Appliances, Image management Demo System Pools support 2
IBM Systems Director Overview Discover, navigate and illustrate systems on the network, visualize detailed inventory and relationships Identify problematic systems and drill down to the root cause Update firmware, drivers, and operating systems, and orchestrate the installation process Update plug-ins to add new functions to the base capabilities Monitor systems in real time and set critical thresholds to notify administrators of emerging problems Manage virtualization Manage energy 3
IBM Systems Director Overview Topology IBM System Director Server Application Logic Database Management Console(s) Web Interface IBM Systems Director Agent Managed Systems (Servers, Desktops, Laptops, SNMP devices, CIM devices) Three-tiered architecture Thousands of managed nodes Upward Integration modules supporting Tivoli, Computer Associates, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft 4
Stages of virtual resource management VMControl Enterprise Edition for cloud computing Increasing business alignment VMControl Standard Edition for rapid deployment OPTIMIZE VMControl Express Edition Create system pools for lifecycle management Automate workload provisioning Dynamically move workloads SIMPLIFY Manage virtual server images Simplify image deployment MANAGE Automate resource provisioning Discover resources Monitor health Manage virtual servers 5 Increasing management simplicity
Power Systems Cloud Solution Positioning Deliver IT without Boundaries Virtualization Foundation Industrial strength virtualization coupled with automated resource balancing and virtual image management Entry Cloud Basic cloud functions including simple self service interface and infrastructure with automated provisioning Advanced Cloud Integrated service management platform with automated IT service deployment, full lifecycle management, metering & chargeback PowerVM, Systems Director, VMControl IBM Starter Kit for Cloud IBM Service Delivery Manager & CloudBurst Cloud Capabilities 6
New in IBM Systems Director 6.3 DB2 installed by default VMControl installed, need to be activated Active Energy Manager installed, need to be activated 7
New in VMControl 2.4 Multidisk support, capture & deploy virtual appliances with more than 1disk, rootvg + other volume group SCS only Storage Copy Services, Fastcopy, use Flashcopy function of storage system if available (SVC, DS8000, SV7000) Image management capabilities for IBM i running in a PowerVM virtual server Support for NPIV Capture and Deploy Note: Not for partition creation & no System Pool support 8
NPIV Options Supported in VMControl 2.4 Discovery and visualization of storage configured via NPIV Storage end-to-end views (Client LPAR to SAN storage device views of NPIV storage) Virtual Server relocation in Virtual farms where the Virtual Server storage configuration is NPIV Delete virtual server Capture virtual appliance for NIM and SCS Deploy virtual appliance for NIM and SCS... To existing virtual server with NPIV-attached storage Multi-disk capture and deploy is support. 9
Topics IBM Systems Director / VMControl intro VMControl Virtual Appliances, Image management Demo System Pools support 10
What challenges does VMControl address? Challenges of virtualization Several interfaces to manage virtual servers across systems New workloads difficult and time consuming to implement Increase in management costs of virtual servers Workload resiliency can degrade in a virtual environment How VMControl address those challenges Consolidates management to a single pane of glass (Systems Director) Automates the management of a virtualized infrastructure Improves workload resiliency Reduces deployment time for new virtual servers 11
What is a Virtual Appliance This is a package that contains A virtual server definition that meets the requirements to run it s associated image, where the image contains the operating system and any software The virtual server image may contain A supported operating system (AIX or Linux on System z) Any software applications that you wish to have run on that operating system The Virtual Appliance is described using the methods described in the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) specification. An industry standard representation of a virtual server that contains a configured, tested operating system and middleware and software applications, along with the metadata that describes the virtual server OS meta-data Virtual Appliance 12
What is a Workload Group virtual servers that contribute to an application workload or service Summarize health and status of the composition of virtual servers Aggregated monitoring A workload is created when you deploy a Virtual Appliance Workload 13
VMControl Images Repository For AIX, you have two options: NIM image repositories VIOS image repositories (SCS) You can set up your AIX environment with either type or with both types. 14
NIM Image Repository NIM Master image repository for virtual appliances containing AIX mksysb and lpp_source images. 15
VIOS images repository Storage Copy services Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) image repository for virtual appliances containing AIX or Linux on Power Systems raw images. 16
Introduction to VMControl Storage Copy Services (SCS) The Common Repository (CR) is A SAN Storage Pool created for SCS use Created in VMControl and associates the Storage Pool with an Image Control Point (VIOS) The CR Storage Pool contains only the raw binary OS images (not mksysb or OVF) OVF information associated with each image/volume in the Storage Pool is kept on the SD Server and also on the Image Control Point The CR Image Control Point (ICP) Is a VIO Server that has Systems Director CAS and CR Subagent installed Is a VIOS that is associated with a Common Repository Contains OVF information (duplicated from SD) associated with each raw image in the CR Can be moved from one VIOS to another in case of VIOS maintenance or failure Can control more that one repository 17
Introduction to VMControl Storage Copy Services (SCS) Storage Copy Service (SCS) based provisioning is A new plugin feature introduced in VMControl 2.3.1 Standard Edition A faster method of capturing and deploying Virtual Appliances A provisioning service that allocates Virtual Servers, SAN resources, and copies OS images via VIOS dd copy or SVC/V7000/DS8000 Fast Copy (for both deploy and capture) A provisioning service that uses VMControl Common Repository to manage and deploy AIX/SUSE/RHEL raw images A method that uses VIOS as the Image Control Point for the CR repository Capable of deploying VAs from a VMControl CR as new Power platform virtual servers or onto existing virtual servers on Power platforms 18
SCS Common Repository Setup and Configuration Basic Steps Install & Activate Common Agent Services (CAS) on VIOS Discover the VIOS OS in Systems Director Install Common Repository Subagent on VIOS Create and Assign SAN Storage for SCS Common Repository Create the SCS Common Repository in VMControl 19
New VMControl 2.4 UI wizard and CLI creates CR image repositories 20
SCS VMControl 2.4 Activation Engine Customization information from UI (ip configuration) is built into an OVF Environment Document ovf.env.xml A virtual optical drive is created and attached to new virtual server and ovf.env.xml document file is loaded into drive. Allows the document to be accessible to the activation engine when the new virtual server boots up Requires at least one VIOS OS be discovered and have access on the host system where new virtual server is deployed Timer is used to remove the virtual optical drive after an hour If director ended and restarted in that hour virtual optical would be removed when virtual server is relocated 21
SMI-S providers for IBM Systems Director A SMI-S provider is a vendor-specific module that is used so that independent management software, such as IBM Systems Director, can manage a vendor device using a standard interface based on the Common Information Model (CIM) protocol. IBM Systems Director communicates with the storage devices through their respective SMI-S providers 22
VMControl and external Storage example Managed System HMC Discover, unlock, inventory Dynamic LUN attachment VIO Server SMI-S Provider For SAN FC switch SAN Fibre Channel switch IBM Systems Director Server 6..2.1 IBM Systems Director VMControl 2.3.1 SMI-S Provider for storage server Dynamic LUN creation 23 Mi range Storage Server
Deploying a Virtual Server Image The VS image meta-data is used to create VS container, allocating the required platform resources. Storage is dynamically allocated and attached to the virtual server. The VS is dynamically attached to the appropriate networks and VLANs. The virtual server is started from the bootable disk image and customized as part of its initial boot. Image Repository OS OS meta-dataos OS meta-data meta-data OS Improved time-to-value Virtual Server Virtual Server Fewer tools and fewer tasks Workload (business) context Virtualization Compute Memory IO / Network OS OS 24 View 2011 IBM In Animation Corporation Mode
Managing Virtual Server Images OS meta-data Import Export Image Repository OS OS meta-dataos meta-data meta-data Capture a Virtual Server The bootable disk image is copied into the image repository. Image meta-data describing the VS container is captured and included as part of the virtual appliance. OS Virtual Server OS meta-data Virtual Server Virtualization Import/Export a VS Image A VS image may be imported to the image repository and cataloged by VMControl. A VS image can be exported from a repository and easily distributed to other systems and environments. Compute Memory IO / Network OS OS 25 View 2011 IBM In Animation Corporation Mode
Comparison times taken from Our Lab environment Operation NIM Based SCS CR DD Copy SCS CR - FastCopy Capture (~5 GB Image) 8 Minutes 2.5 Minutes 15 Seconds Deploy (~5 GB Image) 20 Minutes 6 Minutes 3 Minutes 26
Topics IBM Systems Director / VMControl intro VMControl Virtual Appliances, Image management Demo System Pools support 27
Topics IBM Systems Director / VMControl intro VMControl Virtual Appliances, Image management Demo System Pools support 28
The Evolution of the Platform Managing a pool of system resources with single systems simplicity Virtualize More, Manage Less Mobility OS OS OS Software Operating System Virtual Server Virtual Server Virtual Server Virtualization Compute Memory Storage Network Compute Memory Storage Network Optimized for. Availability Performance Energy Servers Virtual Servers System Pools 29
PowerVM Systems Pools with VMControl Enterprise Edition Simplifying the management of Power Systems Integration with the IBM Systems Director dashboard Dynamic Virtual Server Placement / Mobility Workload Resilience (PFA) Support for P5, P6 and P7 Systems New systems or available capacity from existing systems Support for NIM and SCS Image Repositories Capture, Search, Version and Deploy AIX / Linux Images Discovery of existing mksysb images Dynamic allocation of SAN storage VIOS managed volume groups Non-IBM storage via SVC and TPC Storage System Pools IBM Systems Director VMControl Mobility Power System Pool Image Repository AIX NIM SAN Storage Image Repository 30
VMControl Server System Pool Groups similar hosts with the goals of better resource usage and workload resilience Consists of: Multiple hosts (managed systems) Associated virtual servers Attached shared storage Can be used for: Deploying virtual appliances The target host is selected automatically Once a host is assigned to a server pool, you cannot deploy directly to that host Relocating virtual servers from one host to another host in the pool Manual relocation Automatic relocation using the resilience policy Automatic relocation using command automation Viewing server system pool status using a dashboard Status of all resources in the pool Monitors, such as CPU Utilization Hosts Virtual Servers Shared Storage 31
Supporting Existing Systems and Workloads System Pools can be defined from a combination of new and existing system within the data center. For new systems, all of the systems capacity is added and managed as part of the pool. For existing systems, all of the remaining capacity is added and managed as part of the pool. Any pre-existing workloads are recognized, however not managed within the systems pool. Image Library Existing workloads can be migrated to a system pool. Capture existing workload Deploy workload to System Pools System Pool 32
Deploying a Virtual Appliance to a System Pool Image Library Deploy OS meta-data OS meta-data Capture meta-data OS meta-data Workload A VA representing a multi-tiered applications workload is selected for deployment* Intelligent placement of the virtual servers within the pool of systems provides simplification and optimizations. Understanding of the composition is maintained and used in the ongoing management of the running workload. System Pool 33
Server Pools provide Workload Resilience One of the major goals of server system pools is to provide resilience for your virtual servers and the applications running on them Resilience is provided by relocating one or more virtual servers to another host In the Power environment there are several options for achieving resilience (ISD virtual Farms and System Server pools) 34
Relocation Using VMControl Server Pools Live relocation only Manual relocation VMControl chooses the target; user can accept or cancel the relocation Automatic relocation using resiliency policy Assign hosts to a server system pool; set resilience policy for the pool VMControl monitors host(s) in the workload for a predicted hardware failure If a failure is predicted, VMControl will relocate affected virtual servers to another host in the pool Workload automation policy = Advise; user must approve/disapprove the relocation Workload automation policy = Automate; relocation performed automatically Automatic relocation using an event automation plan Create an event filter to trigger on any event or set of events Create an event action to run smcli vmcrelocate to relocate the affected virtual server(s) basically you are doing a manual relocation under the control of an event automation plan 35
Workload Resilience within a System Pool Relocate Virtual Servers between Hosts within the Pool Determine best host placement within the pool Supports single virtual servers and host evacuation Move virtual servers away from a failing host system Automate relocation and placement of virtual servers in response to predicted host system failures with no disruption. Resilience policy associated with the workload Provide workload resilience yes/no Enables host system monitoring for failures and predictive failures Automates recovery action based on desire level of automation Users can add automation for custom thresholds System Pool Automation policy associated with the workload Automate = Require Approval / Automate Require Approval VMControl recommends actions and requires approval Automate VMControl automates actions 36 View In Animation Mode
System Server Pools Optimization Optimize option 37
Before and After with VMControl Enterprise Edition Power Systems virtualization Micropartitioning Uncapped partitions VIOS Partition Mobility AMS, AME, etc. However: Manual LPAR/VM creation Manual SAN provisioning Manual VIOS configuration Management of individual Power servers Long provisioning time for new VMs Enhancements: Single-wizard LPAR deployment Image versioning Automated SAN provisioning Automated VIOS configuration Management of server system pools Fast provisioning of new VMs 38