Paralyz[ed]

I am about to introduce a topic that I am sure you’ve heard or read about many times over. I will do my best to give you real-life experience from my years in the data center, and hopefully, I’ll stir your thinking a little.

Let’s take a quick look at two definitions of the word paralyze.

Render (someone) unable to think or act normally, especially through panic or fear.

Bring (a system, place, or organization) to a standstill by causing disruption or chaos.

The words panic, fear, standstill, disruption, and chaos got me thinking. While working in the data center, was I ever brought to a place of panic? Or, for that matter, fear? Was I ever stopped in my tracks or felt like there was chaos all around me? As I reflected, thoughts on how to write an article on the topic, Single-pane-of-glass, became apparent.

I think everyone can relate to the moment when you get your first service ticket or helpdesk call regarding an unresponsive application, or sometimes worse, just slow. You sense the frustration from the end-user, but then, management is alerted to the problem. You begin to feel hot, and you can sense your heart beating faster. You take a deep breath, exhale, and start to troubleshoot the issue. Let’s open vCenter and sift through logs and alerts. Then, look at networking or turn to your Syslog. Maybe something points to the storage, so you jump into the storage management console. Using several screens and working diligently to compare and analyze across multiple consoles, eyes glazing back and forth, more tickets, more calls, and worst of all, management asks, “have you been able to figure out what is causing the problem”? At this point, it is common for panic, fear, and even frustration to settle in. Interruptions distract your train of thought. Managers begin to look over your shoulder, thinking they may be able to help somehow. Or, maybe micro-management shows up. At this moment, your world is suddenly in complete chaos, and you feel paralyzed. You are at a complete standstill. 

I will be the first to raise my hand and acknowledge that this has happened to me. I am also confident it was not just a single event in my career. And the situation is always uncomfortable. It isn’t easy to determine a root cause or a quick fix when you have multiple technologies, vendors, and management consoles to sort through. Sometimes, you end up lost in a cluster of management interfaces where you overlook the problem entirely.

Have you experienced the feeling of being paralyzed?

Has the approach to management evolved?

Do modern datacenter solutions solve our problem? If you ask most vendors, they undoubtedly say yes. But is it a reality?

Let’s first take a look at traditional virtualized infrastructure. In large deployments, typically, you see a separate management cluster. This cluster typically scales to four nodes. It runs your organization’s vCenter, vSphere Cloud Orchestrator (vCO), vSphere Cloud Automation Center (vCAC), Single Sign-On (SSO), vSphere Management Assistant (vMA), vCenter databases. And more. Your typical VMware stack.

As we shift towards hyper-converged infrastructure and the modern data center, we need to consider VMware’s solution, VxRAIL. Here, management requires several tools, including vRealize Log Insight, VxRAIL Manager, RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines (RPVM), vSphere Data Protection (VDP), Site Recovery Manager (SRM), VMware vRealize Orchestrator (vRO), and Realize Automation (vRA).

It is apparent, in both traditional and modern solutions, the VMware stack does not deliver a simple, single management pane. And if they suggest simplicity or single-pane-of-glass, it is pure marketing fluff. Part of what VMware has done to give the appearance of simplified management is to offer Virtual Cloud Foundation (VCF) for VxRAIL. Read on!

What is VCF?

TL;DR
Yet another management silo.

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) provides an integrated stack that bundles Compute Virtualization (VMware vSphere), Storage Virtualization (VMware vSAN), Network Virtualization (VMware NSX) and Cloud Management and Monitoring (VMware vRealize Suite) into a single platform.

VMware Cloud Foundation is fully integrated software composed of (vSphere, NSX, vSAN, and SDDC Manager) based on the concepts of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure or HCI, which accelerates the delivery of Virtual Infrastructure (VI) or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI.

VMware Cloud Foundation uses VMware vCenter Server for virtual machine (VM) management, monitoring, and provisioning.

SDDC Manager is used to automate the bring up, configuration, and provisioning of the entire SDDC stack.

vSAN eliminates the need for external storage and also simplifies virtual machine provisioning.

NSX for vSphere which provides network and security for our vSphere Environment and NSX T (focussed on emerging application frameworks) and vRealize Suite (vRealize Log Insight, vRealize Operations, vRealize Automation) is also integrated with cloud foundation enabling administrators to provision an application environment in a rapid, automated way versus the traditional manual process.

Cloud Foundation introduced a new abstraction known as Workload Domains which consists of one or more vSphere clusters, provisioned automatically by SDDC Manager.

Workload domains are resource containers with specific policies configured for performance, availability, and security, and are of two types – Management domain and Compute Workload domain, where the later is further categorized as Virtual Infrastructure VI workload domains and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI workload domain.

About VMware Cloud Foundation

Does this sound less complex? Or, have we introduced yet another management silo?

Now, my intent is not to focus solely on VMware. But, the reality is if you look at the industry’s current hyper-converged platforms, they are designed for VMware to run on top. But, I’ll take a moment to highlight management complexities with other hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. How about HyperFlex? You need to use both VMware vCenter and Cisco UCS Manager to accomplish all of your management tasks. And, HyperFlex requires multiple software products with different management interfaces. Intersight, HX Connect, CloudCenter, and Workload Optimization Manager, to name a few. 

Nutanix Delivers Natively Integrated Management.

Nutanix, on the other hand, actually eliminates multiple management tools and delivers a simplified consumer-grade management experience. We call this, Prism.

Prism takes an approach that flattens hierarchy, enables efficiency, and achieves the following objectives:

• It provides powerful search capabilities to deal with scale.
• Prism retains intuitive click-based interaction to aid in discovery and learning.
• Tightly integrates search and click-based interaction so users can easily change between them and use whichever mechanism is more appropriate for their current workflow.

There is a common focus that with AHV, you use Prism for all management tasks. What often gets overlooked is Prism management capabilities when you run VMware ESXi on top of Nutanix. Prism supports Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations of your virtual machines, so admins do not need to leverage vCenter for everyday management tasks. This same management interface enables one-click hypervisor, firmware, system BIOS updates, which further simplifies management. 

Prism eliminates the silos of management just as the Nutanix platform eliminates infrastructure silos. How much better would it be if you had one management interface to access when dealing with unexpected application issues? Think about the manager that stares over your shoulder, waiting for you to figure out what is wrong. Imagine the confidence you can have navigating through a single-pane-of-glass and the power of a single tool to analyze the entire stack. 

I remember the feeling of panic. I recall the pressure building as time passed without a resolution to a problem while someone was looking over my shoulder, wondering asking why I had not isolated the issue.

Consider a platform that offers unprecedented change—a platform designed to bring everything together.

Don’t be paralyz[ed]
…ever again!

Just a few of screenshots!