Building a Vmware Powered Hybrid Cloud using Ecalyptus

The Cloud means many things to many different persons,but personally I view a Cloud as a distinct pool of  computing resources that can be manage centrally, provides the ability to scale resources via pre configured policies and lastly provides the ability to automate manual requests such as Virtual Machine creation and deployment.

Though not recommended by many IT professionals, I am planning on making our IT department an internal service provider. In this vain it is my vision to build out a Private Cloud that can provide self service to authorized internal clients such as our developers and application administrators.Currently we utilize a Vmware Vsphere platform, but in another few months this platform will possess all the attributes of a true cloud.To provide the functions necessary I have decided that we will look at the Open Source Eucalyptus platform.

Eucalyptus is Open Source so it reduces our initial capital expenditure ,it is compatible with Vmware and it has the ability to support Amazon based workloads thus providing a Hybrid platform mangement tool.

At Stage one, we will roll out a Private Cloud  that will allow authorized internal clients to perform various tasks related to a an assigned blocked of computing resources.

At Stage two we will seek to allow the migration of workloads between Amazon and our Vmware based private cloud,this should provide Disaster recovery and scalability benefits to our group.

 

 

Looking at Dell Force 10

Dell has hit a home run with their force10 line. Born in the world of high frequency trading, Force10 with its huge output buffer provides Dow Jones, twitter and Facebook with low latency switching infrastructures. At prices lower than the nexus line and providing a command line that is syntactically similar to Cisco’s IOS. Force10 represent bridge to a hybrid network where Cisco IOS and force10 FTOS in concert with open standards such as lldp and gvrp gives the enterprise the ability to ensure that we receive the best features at the lowest pricepoints.

 

Multicast Application Design

Multicast is used to distribute data from one source to many receivers.These receivers normally are executing an application which in its underlying logic has joined a multicast group which is essentially a ip address that is able represent multiple nodes on a network. Public multicast ip addresses are rarely available to network managers or application dev teams hence applications should be developed to accept multicast ip address and port information in its initializtion code. This approach allows an application to be ip address agnostic and and allows the app to join any available multicast address

 

Nexus 7000 Virtual Data Centers

Virtual data centers allows enterprises and Service providers to create truly distinct DCs that overlay a single physical infrastructure.The Cisco nexus provides the ability to virtualize all three planes namely the control,forwarding and management planes. For enterprises the ability to create logical virtual networks for testing purposes can provide significant cost savings since the need to buy test equipment is eliminated.

 

My Software Defined Networking Wishlist

The primary goal i would be seeking to meet when i decide to implement Open Flow or some other SDN framework is management simplicity.Below i have listed two things that i hope SDN will address when it becomes main stream in enterprises.

Automatic VLAN Grafting

Connectivity issues resulting from the absence of Vlans on trunk links is a common problem that network techs face when provisioning access ports.SDN can be really valuable if it is able to graft vlans to trunk links based on learnt layer two traffic flow.

Advanced Optimized Edge Routing that integrates QOS

Currently OER/PFR is unable to implement QOS policy decisions on flows that are not operating within a certain threshold. An OPEN FLOW controller that implements QOS policies while managing policies below edge devices such as those in the network core would greatly enhance policy based routing design and overall network architecture design.

 

DATA CENTER + SDN EQUALS TRUE VIRTUAL NETWORKS

Multi Tenant data centers being used to provide cloud services has led to a number of network requirements that are difficult to meet using VRF, Q-In-Q or other tunneling techniques.A Cloud data center customer needs to be able to provision network resources such as virtual switches and RFC 1918 IP addresses  without needing to consider similar resources being used by other tenants. Software Defined networking seeks to provide an END-to-END virtual network that consists of virtual forwarding tables ,virtual routers,virtual switches and controllers.  Software Defined Networking can be used to create logical networks that consist of virtual network gear. SDN tracks the state of the underlying physical data center network along with the overlaying virtual networks.

State changes are recorded and the Physical or Logical components affected by these said state changes are configured to have their settings and operations updated to support the changes made by the data center’s customer. Software defined networking’s ability to provide distributed,rule driven control of large physical network elements presents a new way of virtualizing network resources.

 

 

Trying to Achieve Server Load Balancing on a Cisco 3560 switch.

Server Load Balancing is an advanced feature supported by Cisco Switches in the 45XX and 65XX Line of Multi-Layer Switches.

The Feature allows a Virtual IP address to be configured on the switch. This Virtual Ip Address or VIP will be used to represent a cluster of servers on a given network.Most persons will never require a 65XX or even a 45XX series switch in their Lans but we all would like have highly available systems. While they are Hardware and Software Load Balancing solutions it would be great to leverage your existing investment in your cisco switches so here is an idea may be able to support Server Load Balancing on a Cisco 35XX series switch.

Let say We need to load balance two MS Exchange 2010 front end servers. First Configure a loopback adaptor on each Server. The IP address of the loopback adaptors will be our chosen Virtual IP address. so lets say our VIP is 172.16.1.1  both loop back adaptors will be assigned this address.

On Your 3560 create two Static Routes pointing to our VIP via the Physical Addresses of the Servers.
# Locate VIP
ip route 172.16.1.1 255.255.0.0 172.16.1.2 with 172.16.1.2 being the address of one of the exchange servers
ip route 172.16.1.1 255.255.0.0 172.16.1.3 with 172.16.1.3 being the address of the second  exchange front End
Configure CEF Destination Load Sharing by issuing the command IP load-sharing per-destinantion. This command shares traffic based on source/destination address pairs. We can use IP SLA to track the

reachability of the physical hosts and assign a tracking object to the static route above.

Note I have yet to use the technique above but it should work in theory.

 

Why Choose Liguanea Technology Group ?

Information Technology is a service. Information Technology  tools are used to enable your business processes and in doing so IT helps you to achieve your goals. However there are many companies who do not have the internal resources or skillsets to implement those solutions that generate competitive advantages. Technology  is serious business and IT expenses if mismanaged can be  a stumbling block to your profitability.  We do not requi re long term agreements. With our short term contracts and pay as you go business model, you can develop and maintain IT systems with  minimal costs,we help to reduce  both your capex and opex costs by providing solutions based on best fit and your ability to finance said solutions.

Concentrate on your business and leave your IT needs to LTG. ur company provides the following services

1: Helpdesk services : Our team can be utilized to resolve your IT issues over the phone or if necessary on-site.

2: Remote database and Systems administration including Windows, MYSQL , MSSQL and Linux server support.

3: Network Design and Installation.

We can implement and Troubleshoot large infrastructures utilizing

Linux:  MYSQL Databases, BIND, Trixbox IP Telephony.

Windows: SQL Server Database Servers,Exchange Email,Active Directory

Networking: Cisco switches and Routers, DELL switches, IPsec and SSL VPNs and Wireless Networks

Development: Websites, DOTNET and JAVA.

Virtualization: Vmware Vsphere, VMware View and Virtual Box

 

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