Overview of VMware ESX / VMware Infrastructure Advanced Features

Introduction

VMware ESX Server and the various VMware Infrastructure Suite (of which ESX Server is a part of) offer many advanced features. While there are many advanced features of ESX Server, itself, many advanced features that most people associate with ESX Server, are typically optional add-ons (products) that are purchased either individually, or more typically, as part of the VMware Infrastructure Suite (or the “VI Suite”). In this article, you will learn what these advanced features are, how they can help you, and how they are packaged and purchased when you consider VMware ESX Server and the VI Suite. As there are so many advanced features, I have chosen the top 10 advanced features of ESX to cover.

#1 ESX Server & ESXi Server

Even if all that you purchase is the most basic VMware ESXi virtualization package at a cost of $495, you still gain a number of advanced features. Of course, virtualization, in general, offers many benefits, no matter the virtualization package you choose. For example - hardware independence, better utilization of hardware, ease of management, fewer data center infrastructure resources required, and much more. While I cannot go into everything that ESX Server (itself) offers, here are the major advanced features:

• Hardware level virtualization – no based operating system license is needed, ESXi installs right on your hardware (bare metal installation).
• VMFS file system – see advanced feature #2, below.
• SAN Support – connectivity to iSCSI and Fibre Channel (FC) SAN storage, including features like boot from SAN
• Local SATA storage support.
• 64 bit guest OS support.
• Network Virtualization – virtual switches, virtual NICs, QoS & port configuration policies, and VLAN.
• Enhanced virtual machine performance – virtual machines may perform, in some cases, even better in a VM than on a physical server because of features like transparent page sharing and nested page table.
• Virtual SMP – see advanced feature #4, below.
• Support for up to 64GB of RAM for VMs, up to 32 logical CPUs and 256GB of RAM on the host.

#2 VMFS

VMware’s VMFS was created just for VMware virtualization. Thus, it is the highest performance file system available to use in virtualizing your enterprise. While VMFS is included with any edition or package of ESX Server or VI that you choose, VMFS is still listed as a separate product by VMware. This is because it is so unique.

VMFS is a high performance cluster file system allowing multiple systems to access the file system at the same time. VMFS is what gives you a solid platform to perform VMotion and VMHA. With VMFS you can dynamically increase a volume, support distributed journaling, and the addition of a virtual disk on the fly.

#3 Virtual SMP

VMware’s Virtual SMP (or VSMP) is the feature that allows a VMware ESX Server to utilize up to 4 physical processors on the host system, simultaneously. Additionally, with VSMP, processing tasks will be balanced among the various CPUs.

#4 VM High Availability (VMHA)

One of the most amazing capabilities of VMware ESX is VMHA. With 2 ESX Servers, a SAN for shared storage, Virtual Center, and a VMHA license, if a single ESX Server fails, the virtual guests on that server will move over to the other server and restart, within seconds. This feature works regardless of the operating system used or if the applications support it.

#5 VMotion & Storage VMotion

With VMotion, VM guests are able to move from one ESX Server to another with no downtime for the users. VMotion is what makes DRS possible. VMotion also makes maintenance of an ESX server possible, again, without any downtime for the users of those virtual guests. What is required is a shared SAN storage system between the ESX Servers and a VMotion license.

Storage VMotion (or SVMotion) is similar to VMotion in the sense that "something" related to the VM is moved and there is no downtime to the VM guest and end users. However, with SVMotion the VM Guest stays on the server that it resides on but the virtual disk for that VM is what moves. Thus, you could move a VM guest's virtual disks from one ESX server’s local datastore to a shared SAN datastore (or vice versa) with no downtime for the end users of that VM guest. There are a number of restrictions on this. To read more technical details on how it works, please see the VMware ESX Server 3.5 Administrators Guide.

#6 VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB)

VMware Consolidated Backup (or VCB) is a group of Windows command line utilities, installed on a Windows system, that has SAN connectivity to the ESX Server VMFS file system. With VCB, you can perform file level or image level backups and restores of the VM guests, back to the VCB server. From there, you will have to find a way to get those VCB backup files off of the VCB server and integrated into your normal backup process. Many backup vendors integrate with VCB to make that task easier.

#7 VMware Update Manager

VMware Update Manager is a relatively new feature that ties into Virtual Center & ESX Server. With Update Manager, you can perform ESX Server updates and Windows and Linux operating system updates of your VM guests. To perform ESX Server updates, you can even use VMotion and upgrade an ESX Server without ever causing any downtime to the VM guests running on it. Overall, Update Manager is there to patch your host and guest systems to prevent security vulnerabilities from being exploited.

#8 VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)

VMware’s Distributed Resource Scheduler (or DRS) is one of the other truly amazing advanced features of ESX Server and the VI Suite. DRS is essentially a load-balancing and resource scheduling system for all of your ESX Servers. If set to fully automatic, DRS can recognize the best allocation of resource across all ESX Server and dynamically move VM guests from one ESX Server to another, using VMotion, without any downtime to the end users. This can be used both for initial placement of VM guests and for “continuous optimization” (as VMware calls it). Additionally, this can be used for ESX Server maintenance.

#9 VMware’s Virtual Center (VC) & Infrastructure Client (VI Client)

I prefer to list the VMware Infrastructure client & Virtual Center as one of the advanced features of ESX Server & the VI Suite. Virtual Center is a required piece of many of the advanced ESX Server features. Also, VC has many advanced features in its own right. When tied with VC, the VI Client is really the interface that a VMware administrator uses to configure, optimize, and administer all of you ESX Server systems.

With the VI Client, you gain performance information, security & role administration, and template-based rollout of new VM guests for the entire virtual infrastructure. If you have more than 1 ESX Server, you need VMware Virtual Center.

#10 VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)

Recently announced for sale and expected to be shipping in 30 days, VMware’s Site Recovery Manager is a huge disaster recovery feature. If you have two data centers (primary/protected and a secondary/recovery), VMware ESX Servers at each site, and a SRM supported SAN at each site, you can use SRM to plan, test, and recover your entire VMware virtual infrastructure.

VMware ESX Server vs. the VMware Infrastructure Suite

VMware ESX Server is packaged and purchased in 4 different packages.

1. VMware ESXi – the slimmed down (yet fully functional) version of ESX server that has no service console. By buying ESXi, you get VMFS and virtual SMP only.
2. VMware Infrastructure Foundation – (previously called the starter kit, the Foundation package includes ESX or ESXi, VMFS, Virtual SMP, Virtual Center agent, Consolidated backup, and update manager.
3. VMware Infrastructure Standard – includes ESX or ESXi, VMFS, Virtual SMP, Virtual center agent, consolidated backup, update manager, and VMware HA.
4. VMware Infrastructure Enterprise – includes ESX or ESXi, VMFS, Virtual SMP, Virtual center agent, consolidated backup, update manager, VMware HA, VMotion, Storage VMotion, and DRS.

You should note that Virtual Center is required for some of the more advanced features and it is purchased separately. Also, there are varying levels of support available for these products. As the length and the priority of your support package increase, so does the cost.

Conclusion

In this article, I covered 10 of the many advanced features of VMware ESX Server & the VMware Infrastructure Suite. You learned what these advanced features are, how they can help you, and how they are packaged & purchased. VMware ESX is certainly the most feature-rich virtualization product available today and, after reading this article, you should have a good understanding of what these advanced features are and the power that they bring to your datacenter.

Windows NTLM Vs Cyberoam Clientless Single Sign On Authentication

Single Sign On (SSO) is the ability of a user to authenticate himself to a network one time, and thereafter to have access to all authorized network resources without additional authentication.

What is NTLM?

NTLM is a suite of authentication and session security protocols used in various Microsoft network protocol implementations. It is used throughout Microsoft's systems as an integrated single sign-on mechanism.

What is CTAS?

Cyberoam introduces Clientless Single Sign On as a Cyberoam Transparent Authentication Suite (CTAS).

With Single Sign On authentication, user automatically logs on to the Cyberoam when logs on to Windows through his windows username and password. Hence, eliminating the need of multiple logins and username & passwords.

But, Clientless Single Sign On not only eliminates the need to remember multiple passwords - Windows and Cyberoam, it also eliminates the installation of SSO clients on each workstation. Hence, delivering high ease-of-use to end-users, higher levels of security in addition to lowering operational costs involved in client installation.

NTLM CTAS OS dependency Yes It can authenticate only systems are running on the Windows platform only. No It can authenticate domain irrespective of the operating system they have on their computers. It works with Windows, Macintosh & Linux. Applications supported Only browser-based applications and Microsoft implementations of SMTP, POP3, IMAP (all part of exchange). User has to authenticate for each application he wants to use. All the applications Re-authentication is not required in order to access any application. Processing load System load increases as each new session gets authenticated when a new browser instance is opened. As the user is authenticated just once and agent polls the log off information, system is not burdened on sending keep alive messages to Cyberoam.

Virtualization is Changing the way IT Delivers Applications

Virtualization has rapidly become the hottest technology in IT, driven largely by trends such as server consolidation, green computing and the desire to cut desktop costs and manage IT complexity. While these issues are important, the rise of virtualization as a mainstream technology is having a far more profound impact on IT beyond just saving a few dollars in the data centre. The benefits and impact of virtualization on the business will be directly correlated to the strength of an organization’s application delivery infrastructure. Application delivery is the key to unlocking the power of virtualization, and organizations that embrace virtualization wrapped around application delivery will thrive and prosper, while those that do not will flounder. As virtualization takes centre stage, shifting roles in IT will require a new breed of professionals with broader skill sets to bridge IT silos and optimize business processes around the delivery of applications.

Going Mainstream
We are moving into a new era where virtualization will permeate every aspect of computing. Every processor, server, application and desktop will have virtualization capabilities built into its core. This will give IT a far more flexible infrastructure where the components of computing become dynamic building blocks that can be connected and reassembled on the fl y in response to changing business needs. In fact, three years from now, we will no longer be talking about virtualization as the next frontier in enterprise technology. It will simply be assumed. For example, today we normally assume that our friends, family and neighbours have high-speed Internet access from their homes. This was not the case a few years ago, when many were using sluggish dialup lines to access the Internet or had no access at all. High-speed Internet is now in mainstream, as it will be for virtualization. Virtualization will be expected; it will be a given within the enterprise. As this occurs, the conversation within IT circles will shift from the question of how to virtualize everything to the question of what business problems can be solved now that everything is virtualized.

Virtualization and Application Delivery
The most profound impact of virtualization will be in the way organizations deliver applications and desktops to end users. In many ways, applications represent the closest intersection between IT and the business. Your organization’s business is increasingly represented by the quality of its user facing applications. Whether large ERP solutions, custom web applications, e-mail, e-commerce, client-server applications or SOA, your success in IT today depends on ensuring that these applications meet the business goals. Unfortunately, trends such as mobility, globalization, offshoring, and e-commerce are moving users further away from headquarters, while issues like data centre consolidation, security and regulatory compliance are making applications less accessible to users.
These opposing forces are pushing the topic of application delivery into the limelight. It is forcing IT executives to consider how their infrastructures get mission-critical, data centre-based applications out to users to lower costs, reduce risk and improve IT agility. Virtualization is now the key to application delivery. Today’s leading companies are employing virtualization technology to connect users and applications to propel their businesses forward.

Virtualization in the Enterprise
The seeds of virtualization were first planted over a decade ago, as enterprises began applying mainframe virtualization techniques to deliver Windows applications more efficiently with products such as Citrix® Presentation Server™. These solutions enabled IT to consolidate corporate applications and data centrally, while allowing users the freedom to operate from any location and on any network or device, where only screen displays, keyboard entry and mouse movement traversed the network. Today, products like Citrix® XenApp™ (the successor to Presentation Server) allow companies to create single master stores of all Windows application clients in the data centre and virtualize them either on the server or at the point of the end user. Application streaming technology within Citrix XenApp allows Windows-based applications to be cached locally in an isolation environment, rather than to be installed on the device. This approach improves security and saves companies millions of dollars when compared to traditional application installation and management methods.
Virtualization is also impacting the back end data and logic tier of applications with data centre products such as Citrix® XenServer™ and VMware ESX that virtualize application workloads on data centre servers. While these products are largely being deployed to reduce the number of physical servers in the data centres, the more strategic impact will be found in their ability to dynamically provision and shift application workloads on the fl y to meet end user requirements. The third major area concerning the impact of virtualization will be the corporate desktop, enabled by products such as Citrix® XenDesktop™. The benefits of such solutions include cost savings, but they also enable organizations to simplify how desktops are delivered to end users in a way that dramatically improves security and the end user experience (compared to traditional PC desktops). From virtualized servers in the data centres to virtualized end users desktops, the biggest impact of virtualization in the enterprise will be found within an organization’s application delivery infrastructure

Seeing the Big Picture
The mass adoption of virtualization technology will certainly require new skills, roles and areas of expertise within organizations and IT departments. Yet the real impact of virtualization will not hinge on the proper acquisition of new technical skills. Rather, by making the most of the virtualization opportunity, organizations will have to focus on breaking down traditional IT silos and adopt end-to-end virtualization strategies. Most IT departments today are organized primarily around technology silos. In many organizations, we find highly technical employees who operate on separate IT “islands,” such as servers, networks, security and desktops. Each group focuses on the health and well-being of its island, making sure that it runs with efficiency and precision. Unfortunately, this stand-alone approach is debilitating IT responsiveness, causing pundits like bestselling author Nicholas Carr to ask whether IT even matters to business anymore. To break this destructive cycle, IT employees must take responsibility for understanding and owning business processes that are focused horizontally (from the point of origin in the data centre all the way to the end users they are serving), building bridges from island to island. IT roles will increasingly require a wider, more comprehensive portfolio of expertise around servers, networking, security and systems management. IT personnel will need to have a broad understanding of all these technologies and how they work together as the focus on IT specialization gives way to a more holistic IT mindset.

Seeking Experts in Delivery
The new IT roles will require an expertise in delivery. IT will need to know how to use a company’s delivery infrastructure to quickly respond to new requirements coming from business owners and end users alike. IT specialization will not completely disappear, but it will not look anything like the silo entrenchment and technical specialization we see today. From this point forward, IT professionals will increasingly be organized around business process optimization to serve end users and line of business owners, rather than around independent technologies sitting in relative isolation. Across the board, the primary organizing principle in IT will shift from grouping people around technology silos to organizing them around common delivery processes. The companies that make this transition successfully will thrive, while those that do not will struggle to compete in an increasingly demanding and dynamic business world. IT organizations of the future will need to develop professionals who can see the parts as a whole and continually assess the overall health of the delivery system, responding quickly to changing business requirements. Employee work groups will continue to form around common processes, but the focus will be less about highly specialized knowledge and more about the efficiency of frequently repeated processes. IT professionals who understand the deep technical intricacies of IP network design, for example, will be in less demand than those who understand best practices in application delivery.

Guidelines for Staying in and Ahead of the Game
If you are not testing the waters of virtualization, you may already be behind. Experiment with virtualization now. Acquire applications and consider how to deliver them as part of your IT strategy. Three key recommendations are: n Change the mindset of your IT organization to focus on delivery of applications rather than installing or deploying them. Think about “delivery centres” rather than data centres. Most IT organizations today continue to deploy and install applications, although industry analysts advise that traditional application deployment is too complex, too static and costs too much to maintain, let alone to try to keep up with changes in the business. Delivering on the vision of an IT organization that is aligned with business goals requires an end-to-end strategy of efficiently delivering business applications to users.

• Place a premium on knowledge of applications and business processes when hiring and training IT employees. IT will always be about technology, but do not perpetuate today’s “island” problem by continuing to hire and train around deep technical expertise in a given silo. If that happens, IT will continue to foster biased mindsets that perceive the world through a technologically biased silo lens, the opposite of what is needed today. IT leaders will increasingly need to be people who understand business processes. Like today’s automotive technicians, they will have to be able to view and optimize the overall health of the system, not the underlying gears and valves - or bits and bytes.
• Select strategic infrastructure vendors who specialize in application delivery. Industry experts agree that the time is right to make the move from static application deployment to dynamic application delivery. IT will continue to use vendors that specialize in technical solutions that fit into various areas, such as networking, security, management and even virtualization. What is important, however, is forming a strategic relationship with a vendor that focuses not on technology silos, but on application delivery solutions. The vendor should be able to supply integrated solutions to incorporate virtualization, optimization and delivery systems that inherently work with one another, as well as the rest of your IT environment.

Eon Network achieves its 100th Enterprise/SMB customer

Eon Networks Pvt Ltd, a leading provider of IT Infrastructure solutions and services to domestic customers, today announced its milestone in achieving its 100th Enterprise/SMB customer in a short span of 1 Year since the inception of Eon Networks. In the face of fierce competition Eon Networks has shown a tremendous growth rate and exceeded the objectives set for its first year. Eon Networks has achieved the feat due to the level of commitment, service, efficient technical team, good hands on exposure on latest technologies, well defined support & delivery mechanism and its competitive pricing policy.

We boast of our Alliance portfolio with the top-tier technology providers like Cisco, D-Link, 3Com, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Symantec, Trend, McAfee, Checkpoint, Cyberoam & SonicWall. Our unique solution-based methodology has enabled us to effectively address the business needs of our clients, optimize the returns on their IT investments, mitigate risk, and focus on growth and profitability.

The vast range of technology solutions which we have provided to our clients in such a short span of time ranges from providing Network Security, Storage, Routing & Switching, and Wireless Network across various verticals like Enterprise & SMBs in the IT, ITES, Construction, Educational, Financial & Consultancy industries.

Here is a list of our selected clientele across various verticals:
ITES: Data world and Rapid process solution.
Government: Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission and Employees Saving and Insurance Corporation.
Insurance: Bajaj Capital.
Educational Institutions: BRCM college of Engineering and Technology and International College of Financial Planning.
Manufacturing: Hindustan Glass and Orient Tiles.
Telecom: Airtel.

Eon Networks specializes in delivering complex network solutions that leverage our technical expertise, extensive experience and broad services offering. Our consultative approach includes a comprehensive delivery methodology and relentless focus on complete customer satisfaction. Our clients trust us to plan, build, and operate their secure converged networks providing them with considerable competitive advantage.

We deliver business driven technology solutions that enable our clients to gain competitive advantage, make their business more responsive to market opportunities and threats, improve productivity and reduce information technology costs.

Eon Networks also takes this opportunity to announce inclusion of some more services in its portfolio like Backup and Data Management so as to be a single interface for its customer for all their IT related .

Eon Network has now become registered partner of Cisco System

Eon Networks Pvt Ltd., an IT infrastructure solution & service provider to domestic customers, today announced its Partnership with Cisco India. This partnership will encourage our passion for the network technology and enable us to deliver various Cisco networking and security solutions to customers in India. This acknowledgement will strengthen our solution disciplines and make us more competent to capture new markets and create new business opportunities.

Eon Networks is proud to be associated with some of the best technology and product vendors in IT. We work with our alliance partners to create integrated solutions that meet the technical and business needs of our customers. Through our joint efforts, customers are able to minimize their risk and maximize their returns.

Eon Networks will provide architecture roadmaps which will help to build a more resilient, adaptive and intelligent network infrastructure. Eon Networks offers a technology vision as well as segment-specific architectures for building a network infrastructure. Its services excel in business processes, agility, security and productivity. Its team of highly skilled and experienced network engineers and design professionals will help its clients implement a robust, lasting and modern network infrastructure.

Organisations today are seeking ways to excel in business processes, agility, security and productivity. An intelligent network builds an existing infrastructure foundation and turns the traditional IT Cost Center into a Strategic Tool that helps enable sophisticated IT functionality. The value of an organisation’s data and communications network must be evaluated by the ability to support business objectives, enhance productivity and provide optimal performance in today’s constantly connected world. Our Managed Services, Infrastructure Solutions and Network Consulting Group concentrate on providing network and communication solutions which can lower the cost and improve the performance of the IT infrastructures of our clients.