Tag Archives: Analogy

The Matrix & Surrogates as an analogies for VMs, Containers and Metal

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010312_1546_2012CloudOu1.jpgTrench coats aside, I used The Matrix as a useful analogy to explain visualization and containers to a non-technical friend today.  I’m interested in hearing from others if this is a helpful analogy.

Why does anyone care about virtual servers?

Virtual servers (aka virtual machines or VMs) are important because data centers are just like the Matrix.  The real world of data centers is a ugly, messy place fraught with hidden dangers and unpleasant chores.  Most of us would rather take the blue pill and live in a safe computer generated artificial environment where we can ignore those details and live in the convenient abstraction of Mega City.

Do VMs really work to let you ignore the physical stuff?

Pretty much.  For most people, they can live their whole lives within the virtual world.  They can think they are eating the steak and never try bending the spoons.

So why are containers disruptive?  

Well, it’s like the Surrogates movie.  Right now, a lot of people living in the Cloud Matrix are setting up even smaller bubbles.  They are finding that they don’t need a whole city, they can just live inside a single room.  For them, it’s more like Surrogates where people never leave their single room.

But if they never leave the container, do they need the Matrix?

No.  And that’s the disruption.  If you’ve wrapped yourself in a smaller bubble then you really don’t need to larger wrapper.

What about that messy “real world”?

It’s still out there in both cases.  Just once you are inside the inner bubble, you can’t really tell the difference.

Who’s the grown-up here?  It’s the VM not the Iron!

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This ANALOGY exploring Virtual vs Physical Ops is Joint posting by Rob Hirschfeld, RackN, and Russel Doty, Redhat.RUSSEL DOTY

babyCompared to provisioning physical servers, getting applications running in a virtual machine is like coaching an adult soccer team – the players are ready, you just have to get them to the field and set the game in motion.  The physical servers can be compared to a grade school team – tremendous potential, but they can require a lot of coaching and intervention. And they don’t always play nice.

Russell Doty and I were geeking on the challenges of configuring physical servers when we realized that our friends in cloud just don’t have these problems.  When they ask for a server, it’s delivered to them on a platter with an SLA.  It’s a known configuration – calm, rational and well-behaved.  By comparison, hardware is cranky, irregular and sporadic.  To us, it sometimes feels like we are more in the babysitting business. Yes, we’ve had hardware with the colic!

Continuing the analogy, physical operations requires a degree of child-proofing and protection that is (thankfully) hidden behind cloud abstractions of hardware.  More importantly, it requires a level of work that adults take for granted like diaper changes (bios/raid setup), food preparation (network configs), and self-entertainment (O/S updates).

And here’s where the analogy breaks down…

The irony here is that the adults (vms) are the smaller, weaker part of the tribe.  Not only that, these kids have to create the environment that the “adults” run on.

If you’re used to dealing with adults to get work done, you’re going to be in for a shock when you ask the kids to do the same job.

That’s why the cloud is such a productive platform for software.  It’s an adults-only environment – the systems follow the rules and listen to your commands.  Even further, cloud systems know how to dress themselves (get an O/S), rent an apartment (get an IP and connect) and even get credentials (get a driver’s license).

These “little things” are taken for granted in the cloud are not automatic behaviors for physical infrastructure.

Of course, there are trade-offs – most notably performance and “scale up” scalability. The closer you need to get to hardware performance, on cpu, storage, or networks, the closer you need to get to the hardware.

It’s the classic case of standardizing vs. customization. And a question of how much time you are prepared to put into care and feeding!

VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO) is smart move, it’s like using a Volvo to tow your ski boat

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I’m impressed with VMware’s VIO (beta) play and believe it will have a meaningful positive impact in the OpenStack ecosystem.  In the short-term, it paradoxically both helps enterprises stay on VMware and accelerates adoption of OpenStack.  The long term benefit to VMware is less clear.

From VWVortex

Sure, you can use a Volvo to tow a boat

Why do I think it’s good tactics?  Let’s explore an analogy….

My kids think owning a boat will be super fun with images of ski parties and lazy days drifting at anchor with PG13 umbrella drinks; however, I’ve got concerns about maintenance, cost and how much we’d really use it.  The problem is not the boat: it’s all of the stuff that goes along with ownership.  In addition to the boat, I’d need a trailer, a new car to pull the boat and driveway upgrades for parking.  Looking at that, the boat’s the easiest part of the story.

The smart move for me is to rent a boat and trailer for a few months to test my kids interest.  In that case, I’m going to be towing the boat using my Volvo instead of going “all in” and buying that new Ferd 15000 (you know you want it).  As a compromise, I’ll install a hitch in my trusty sedan and use it gently to tow the boat.  It’s not ideal and causes extra wear to the transmission but it’s a very low risk way to explore the boat owning life style.

Enterprise IT already has the Volvo (VMware vCenter) and likely sees calls for OpenStack as the illusion of cool ski parties without regard for the realities of owning the boat.  Pulling the boat for a while (using OpenStack on VMware) makes a lot of sense to these users.  If the boat gets used then they will buy the truck and accessories (move off VMware).  Until then, their still learning about the open source boating life style.

Putting open source concerns aside.  This helps VMware lead the OpenStack play for enterprises but may ultimately backfire if they have not setup their long game to keep the customers.

a Ready State analogy: “roughed in” brings it Home for non-ops-nerds

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I’ve been seeing great acceptance on the concept of ops Ready State.  Technologists from both ops and dev immediately understand the need to “draw a line in the sand” between system prep and installation.  We also admit that getting physical infrastructure to Ready State is largely taken for granted; however, it often takes multiple attempts to get it right and even small application changes can require a full system rebuild.

Since even small changes can redefine the ready state requirements, changing Ready State can feel like being told to tear down your house so you remodel the kitchen.

Foundation RawA friend asked me to explain “Ready State” in non-technical terms.  So far, the best analogy that I’ve found is when a house is “Roughed In.”  It’s helpful if you’ve ever been part of house construction but may not be universally accessible so I’ll explain.

Foundation PouredGetting to Rough In means that all of the basic infrastructure of the house is in place but nothing is finished.  The foundation is poured, the plumbing lines are placed, the electrical mains are ready, the roof on and the walls are up.  The house is being built according to architectural plans and major decisions like how many rooms there are and the function of the rooms (bathroom, kitchen, great room, etc).  For Ready State, that’s like having the servers racked and setup with Disk, BIOS, and network configured.

Framed OutWhile we’ve built a lot, rough in is a relatively early milestone in construction.  Even major items like type of roof, siding and windows can still be changed.  Speaking of windows, this is like installing an operating system in Ready State.  We want to consider this as a distinct milestone because there’s still room to make changes.  Once the roof and exteriors are added, it becomes much more disruptive and expensive to make.

Roughed InOnce the house is roughed in, the finishing work begins.  Almost nothing from roughed in will be visible to the people living in the house.  Like a Ready State setup, the users interact with what gets laid on top of the infrastructure.  For homes it’s the walls, counters, fixtures and following.  For operators, its applications like Hadoop, OpenStack or CloudFoundry.

Taking this analogy back to where we started, what if we could make rebuilding an entire house take just a day?!  In construction, that’s simply not practical; however, we’re getting to a place in Ops where automation makes it possible to reconstruct the infrastructure configuration much faster.

While we can’t re-pour the foundation (aka swap out physical gear) instantly, we should be able to build up from there to ready state in a much more repeatable way.