Update: @SSauer points out that this is vShield, and posted some information here: A New Generation of vShield Security Products

vSwitch, vNetwork, vShield?

Most hypervisor products include an internal virtual network switch, but VMware’s ESX has multiple choices. The original “dumb” virtual Ethernet switch was augmented by vSwitch back in the ESX 3 days, bringing more-advanced configuration options.VMware improved and renamed the vSwitch in vSphere 4, creating the vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS).

But it was the introduction of vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) in vSphere 4 that really set VMware’s network capabilities apart. The champion of this field is Cisco, whose Nexus 1000V virtual switch extends their NX-OS datacenter networking OS right into the ESX world.

The Cisco Nexus 1000V runs both the supervisor and Ethernet modules inside the virtual ESX environment

As illustrated above, the Nexus 1000v consists of two key components:

1. The Virtual Supervisor Module is an implementation of NX-OS on an ESX virtual machine, and provides the interface and configuration of the virtual network
2. The Virtual Ethernet Module runs at a lower level in ESX, replacing the vSwitch for networking between VMs

One can think of the Cisco Nexus 1000v as a specialized replacement for the more-generic vNetwork Distributed Switch. Both include plug-in vSwitch replacements and centralized management, and both implement more-advanced network protocols like private VLANS and receive-rate limiting as well as supporting vMotion. But Cisco’s 1000v goes much further, adding PortChannel, LACP, security and QoS, and advanced management features.

See this comparison of vSwitch, vSS, vDS, and 1000v as well as Rich Brambley’s vSS/vDS post

From a technology standpoint, the key to both vDS and 1000v is the ability to replace the core ESX vSwitch with a more-capable alternative. Now let’s turn to what VMware might be introducing next.

What Do We Know?

Howie Xu, VMware Director of R&D, released a video discussing his sessions at VMworld, entitled ”The Future Direction of Networking Virtualization” (TA8361). This video begins with a quick pan past Xu’s whiteboard (pictured below) and includes a discussion of the state of the art, vision, and product and technology roadmap for VMware’s networking-related efforts.

The part that really piqued my interest was later in the video, when Xu talks about creating a “networking virtual chassis or hypervisor” to allow third-parties to develop and roll-out advanced networking devices within vSphere. VMware has already steamrolled through the heart of server-based applications, making VMware-based virtual appliances as common an installation format as the DVD. Now the company is turning its attention to the network. This is huge!

Xu speaks of both a platform and a service to support this ”open extensible networking virtual chassis platform,” and goes on to suggest that it could be used by “networking security, load balance, application acceleration, IP address management, and performance management” products. The virtual appliance marketplace is already populated by the familiar names in networking, from F5 to Bluecoat to Checkpoint. Therefore, VMware must be talking about something much deeper and more advanced than merely encouraging the creation of more virtual appliances!

The core question is whether VMware is opening up the “green box” in my diagram above to run third-party applications and what level of system access they will get.

Consider this a vFabric pre-intro!

Then there is the name. The whiteboard prominently includes the words, “vFabric Intro” in the corner. Judging by the rest of the readable content, this indicates that this new technology will indeed be called “vFabric” as Stu speculated.

Update: It appears that vFabric is not the name of this virtual chassis (thanks, Stu and Howie!). Good thing, too, since the name, “vFabric” is a registered trademark of QLogic Corporation, for “computer software for managing computer hardware, namely switches used in networks.”

What’s Coming?

I’m more of a storage guy, so I rang up my friend Greg “Etherealmind” Ferro and ran some ideas past him. Greg and I talked about the needs of network-based devices, and how they differ from traditional server-based applications.

Greg suggests that vFabric will really assist vMotion

Networkers have been conditioned with the belief that custom silicon is the best way to achieve low latency and high performance for network devices. The same could be said of the storage world, where companies like HDS, 3PAR, and BlueArc pride themselves on their custom ASICs. But EMC, HP, and others are proving that Intel’s server-class CPUs and peripheral busses now have the guts to go head-to-head with custom silicon. The networking world is no different, with many newer companies basing their products around industry-standard hardware.

But deploying these systems in a virtual environment is more challenging. Can a virtual machine hypervisor prioritize threads for network devices? Can it handle the overhead related to networking operations in real-time? What happens in the event of a DDoS or network flood? Most network devices run real-time operating systems like VxWorks or QNX to ensure packet throughput, but virtual environments are notorious for “overflow” of I/O or CPU load between guest machines.

The whiteboard provides some hints as to how VMware will tackle these issues. First, we spot the term, “latency-aware queueing,” which suggests that a mechanism will monitor the hypervisor and alter the queues for virtual network devices as the load changes. As latency rises, the hypervisor can move workloads to different processor cores or even alternate hardware using vMotion. We also spot a reference to “non-blocking”, suggesting an asynchronous I/O mechanism will reduce the likelihood that one of these virtual network devices will have to wait for data.

Both of these technologies are hallmarks of real-time operating systems (RTOS), and are critical to the design of scalable hypervisors like VMware’s ESX. It is likely that the company is developing an advanced hypervisor environment for these specialized devices, an evolution of vDS and the API that allows the Cisco Nexus 1000v to run its Virtual Ethernet Module.

Stephen’s Stance

If our assumptions are true, then this is an exciting development indeed. If VMware exposes the “green box” in our diagram above to third-party developers, we could see an entirely new and more-powerful ecosystem evolve around VMware vSphere. Running virtual network devices in a quasi-real-time environment will enable even-greater integration and flexibility.

The Nexus 1000v has not eliminated purchasing of Cisco hardware, and vFabric will not destroy the larger network device market. But we expect wide vendor support for the concept, especially those involved in lower-end and remote-office applications. We would love to see Palo Alto Networks, Infoblox, SolarWinds, and Vyatta, to name a few, developing next-generation applications for vFabric. Virtualization-aware integrated networking shouldn’t be the sole domain of Cisco.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | A VMware Hypervisor For Networkers?
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

One of the great things about being a Microsoft MVP is the access I get to Microsoft software and staff. As I mentioned in my post about the 10 cool storage features from the 2009 Microsoft MVP Summit, I was able to preview a lot of what Microsoft is doing with their Server software and storage features. And the best part is that the Microsoft product teams are keenly interested in our feedback and suggestions. I’m told, for example, that the awesome iSCSI Quick Connect feature in the new Windows iSCSI initiator software was developed based on my feedback!

As I note on my Windows Storage Server 2008 preview on Gestalt IT, Microsoft has always kept WSS close to the vest. It’s only available to OEMs, not retail customers, and has never even been shared with TechNet or MSDN subscribers in the past. So I was really pleased when Microsoft gave the File System Storage MVPs access to a beta version of WSS 2008 so we could get a feel for all of the new features. I’ve also had some great conversations this week with the Microsoft product managers responsible for it.

What’s exciting about Windows Storage Server 2008?

1. It includes all of the storage enhancements in Windows Server 2008, including SMB 2.0 for much much faster file servicing over higher-latency links, SMfS, FSRM, enhanced VDS, and failover clustering.
2. WSS is the only way to get access to Microsoft’s iSCSI target software. It’s been improved in many ways from the prior releases, but its support for what Microsoft calls dual-active clustering is probably its most notable feature: You can’t share the same active LUN between cluster members, but each can have its own active LUNs and the can all fail over in the event that one member goes down.
3. The included single-instance storage (SIS) file-based deduplication has been much improved, scaling to 128 volumes per server and millions of files. It’s still not as effective capacity-wise as block-level deduplication (which I’d love to see, hint hint), but the performance is solid enough to use it for primary storage with production applications.
4. Probably the coolest feature exclusive to Windows Storage Server 2008 is its new browser-based remote administration capability. Just point your browser to the Storage Server machine (for example, “http://wss/desktop”) and you’ll get a full ActiveX version of RDP. Don’t use Internet Exploder? Firefox and Linux users will get a Java-based RDP instead! I will cover this feature more in the future, but let’s just say that every operating system should offer this!

Want to try Windows Storage Server for yourself? Breaking from the past, Microsoft will soon (like next week!) allow TechNet subscribers to download the full install. OEMs have a sekrit back-door site to try it out, too.

One more thing… This will be the last release of Windows Storage Server. There won’t even be a special Storage Server version of Server 2008 Service Pack 2! Starting now, Storage Server is just an optional feature of Windows Server. Purchasing and production use will still be limited to storage OEMs, but Microsoft has finally reconciled Storage Server with the rest of the Windows Server world. I imagine that most OEMs will release Service Pack 2 updates for their Storage Server customers shortly, and that future versions of the product will come closer to the base Server versions than WSS 2008. Although I can’t share what I know, I will say that Microsoft is continuing active development on their iSCSI target, single-instance storage, and other Storage Server features. I imagine that Windows Server 2008 R2 will support storage systems in the very near future!

On a personal note, reading A Brief History of Windows Storage Server Releases from the Microsoft Storage Server blog reminded me of the original unveiling of Windows Storage Server at Storage Decisions Chicago in June, 2003. The company loaded us all on one of those lake cruise boats with some celebrity impersonators, chocolate “Oscar”-style statues, an open bar, and a band. Good times ensued!

For more details, check out my Gestalt IT piece, Windows Storage Server-Based Systems Step Into 2008

Microsoft is detailing the new version of Windows Storage Server 2008 in a webcast Thursday at 8 AM Pacific. You should also check out the Microsoft Storage Server blog.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | I Can Finally Talk About Windows Storage Server 2008!
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Microsoft delivered a solid MVP Summit

Note: Every one of these items has previously been discussed by Microsoft. I can’t yet talk about any other storage features I might have seen…

1. iSCSI Quick Connect – No more fumbling through tabs and popups, just enter an IP address and you’re connected! Yeah, baby!
2. Wire-speed 10 Gb iSCSI – The software iSCSI initiator can saturate a 10 Gb Ethernet link to a NetApp FAS3070; 1,174 megabytes per second
3. BranchCache – Accelerated access for workers in remote offices; it can use peer-to-peer sharing of hashed chunks if a Windows server isn’t available to cache data
4. VSS LUN Resync – The awesome VSS API is extended with the ability to resync a LUN from a snapshot; supports both software and native array capability
5. VSS Express Writer – Now there’s no excuse for applications to not be VSS backup-compatible
6. PowerShell – The very-sweet command line and scripting environment works with many server areas, including some parts of the storage world. Please implement it everywhere, Microsoft!
7. Transparent Caching – Administrators can allow Windows 7 clients to transparently cache file content from SMB servers when links are slow
8. Background file sync – Windows 7 will synchronize offline files in the background
9. Native VHD Support – VDS now supports a virtual drive just like any other – create, expand, compact, etc… And Server Backup stores its data in VHDs too!
10. Windows Home Server Drive Extender – WHS has file-level data protection and flexible disk management – it reminded me of DROBO! Not new, but I hadn’t ever heard about it… Thanks to Donavon and Alex for the info!

“Hate Microsoft” is a popular meme, but it’s misplaced. The Windows Server team, and the storage folks in particular, keep moving the ball forward, and the whole world of IT infrastructure benefits. My laptop may have a fruit on the lid, and my focus may be on three-letter storage and server companies, but Microsoft is a key part of our world, too.

The MVP Summit wasn’t just a great learning opportunity – it was a blast! We’ll see how much of that leaks out, but there might be an incriminating YouTube video of yours truly on stage at the Experience Music Project, Donavon tagging Steve Ballmer for WHS, and a lot of MVPs letting their PC love fly for the camera. There was also a Twitter tribute to Frank McCallister an MVP who passed away shortly before the Summit.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | 10 Cool Storage Features From the 2009 Microsoft MVP Summit
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Although most folks haven’t heard about it, Simple SAN is Redmond’s way to force vendors to improve interoperability and ease of installation for networked SAN storage, whether it is Fibre Channel or iSCSI.

How does this help us? Simply, Microsoft forced participating vendors to pair up qualified hardware and an integrated driver set with easy documentation, including a one-page poster for installation. Think TiVo easy.

And it works. I went up to EqualLogic on Monday and set up an iSCSI SAN myself. It was easy to get the thing started without cracking the books. Sadly, though, their poster ended right where I needed help – configuring Microsoft’s iSCSI initiator software, which proved to be a frustratingly multi-click, multi-tab, search-everywhere-and-click-advanced operation. Claude Lorenson promises to make it easier in the next rev… If I had cracked the books, I would have had all the answers, though.

All in all was so easy I got silly and started trying to do stupid stuff with it. Which I did! Since EqualLogic lets you write to snapshots, I made one and added it to a dynamic disk group of regular volumes. This is highly dumb, but it was fun to see it work. It was also fun to watch Victory by Design stream from one array while migrating the volume to another… But now I’m digressing!

Go see for yourself. Check out a Simple SAN product and be amazed what you can do. Despite some frustration, I bet any Windows admin could have a SAN up and running in under an hour. Which was the whole point…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Microsoft’s best-kept secret
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.