Tag Archives: IBM

Week in Review: Data Center 2020 Blog Series Update on Data Centric Computing

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Welcome to the RackN and Digital Rebar Weekly Review. You will find the latest news related to Edge, DevOps, SRE and other relevant topics.

DC2020: Putting the Data Back in the Data Center

For the past two decades, data centers have been more about compute than data, but the machine learning and IoT revolutions are changing that focus for the 2020 Data Center (aka DC2020). My experience at IBM Think 2018 suggests that we should be challenging our compute centric view of a data center; instead, we should be considering the flow and processing of data. Since data is not localized, that reinforces our concept of DC2020 as a distributed and integrated environment.

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As an industry, we are rethinking management automation from declarative (“start this”) to intent (“maintain this”) focused systems.  This is the simplest way to express the difference between OpenStack and Kubernetes. That change is required to create autonomous infrastructure designs; however, it also means that we need to change our thinking about infrastructure as something that follows data instead of leads it.

Read Post and Full DC2020 Blog Series

News

RackN

Digital Rebar Community 

L8ist Sh9y Podcast

Social Media

DC2020: Is Exposing Bare Metal Practical or Dangerous?

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One of IBM’s major announcements at Think 2018 was Managed Kubernetes on Bare Metal. This new offering combines elements of their existing offerings to expose some additional security, attestation and performance isolation. Bare metal has been a hot topic for cloud service providers recently with AWS adding it to their platform and Oracle using it as their primary IaaS. With these offerings as a backdrop, let’s explore the role of bare metal in the 2020 Data Center (DC2020).

Physical servers (aka bare metal) are the core building block for any data center; however, they are often abstracted out of sight by a virtualization layer such as VMware, KVM, HyperV or many others. These platforms are useful for many reasons. In this post, we’re focused on the fact that they provide a control API for infrastructure that makes it possible to manage compute, storage and network requests. Yet the abstraction comes at a price in cost, complexity and performance.

The historical lack of good API control has made bare metal less attractive, but that is changing quickly due to two forces.

These two forces are Container Platforms and Bare Metal as a Service or BMaaS (disclosure: RackN offers a private BMaaS platform called Digital Rebar). Container Platforms such as Kubernetes provide an application service abstraction level for data center consumers that eliminates the need for users to worry about traditional infrastructure concerns.  That means that most users no longer rely on APIs for compute, network or storage allowing the platform to handle those issues. On the other side, BMaaS VM infrastructure level APIs for the actual physical layer of the data center allow users who care about compute, network or storage the ability to work without VMs.  

The combination of containers and bare metal APIs has the potential to squeeze virtualization into a limited role.

The IBM bare metal Kubernetes announcement illustrates both of these forces working together.  Users of the managed Kubernetes service are working through the container abstraction interface and really don’t worry about the infrastructure; however, IBM is able to leverage their internal bare metal APIs to offer enhanced features to those users without changing the service offering.  These benefits include security (IBM White Paper on Security), isolation, performance and (eventually) access to metal features like GPUs. While the IBM offering still includes VMs as an option, it is easy to anticipate that becoming less attractive for all but smaller clusters.

The impact for DC2020 is that operators need to rethink how they rely on virtualization as a ubiquitous abstraction.  As more applications rely on container service abstractions the platforms will grow in size and virtualization will provide less value.  With the advent of better control of the bare metal infrastructure, operators have real options to get deep control without adding virtualization as a requirement.

Shifting to new platforms creates opportunities to streamline operations in DC2020.

Even with virtualization and containers, having better control of the bare metal is a critical addition to data center operations.  The ideal data center has automation and control APIs for every possible component from the metal up.

Learn more about the open source Digital Rebar community:

Why IBM’s hybrid “no-single-way” is a good plan

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I got to spend a few days hearing IBM’s cloud plans at IBM Interconnect including a presentation, dinner and guest blogging.  Read below for links to that content.

As part of their CloudMinds group, we’re encouraged to look at the big picture of the conference and there’s a lot to take in. IBM has serious activity around machine learning, cognitive, serverless, functional languages, block chain, platform and infrastructure as a service. Frankly, that’s a confusing array of technologies.

Does this laundry list of technologies fit into a unified strategy? No, and that’s THE POINT.

Anyone who thinks they can predict a definitive right mix of technologies to solve customer problems is not paying attention to the pace of innovation. IBM is listening to their customers and hearing that needs are expanding not consolidating. In this type of market, limiting choice hurts customers.

That means that a hybrid strategy with overlapping offerings serves their customers interests.

IBM has the luxury and scale of being able to chase multiple technologies to find winners. Of course, there’s a danger of hanging on to losers too long too. So far, it looks like they are doing a good job of riding that sweet spot. Their agility here may be the only way that they can reasonably find a chink in Amazon’s cloud armour.

While the hybrid story is harder to tell, it’s the right one for this market.

Four Posts For Deeper Reading

The posts below cover a broad range of topics! Chris Ferris and I did some serious writing about collaboration and my DevOps/Hybrid post has been getting some attention. It’s all recommended reading so I’ve included some highlights.

#CloudMinds tackle the future of cognitive in Las Vegas huddle

Rob is part of the IBM CloudMinds group that meets occasionally to discuss rising cloud, infrastructure and technology challenges.

“Cognitive cannot and will not exist without trust. Humans will not trust cognitive unless we can show that our cognitive solutions understand them.”

How open communities can hurt, and help, interoperability

“The days of using open software passively from vendors are past, users need to have a voice and opinion about project governance. This post is a joint effort with Rob Hirschfeld, RackN, and Chris Ferris, IBM, based on their IBM Interconnect 2017 “Open Cloud Architecture: Think You Can Out-Innovate the Best of the Rest?” presentation.”

When DevOps and hybrid collide (2017 trend lines)

“We’ve clearly learned that DevOps automation pays back returns in agility and performance. Originally, small-batch, lean thinking was counter-intuitive. Now it’s time to make similar investments in hybrid automation so that we can leverage the most innovation available in IT today.”

Open Source Collaboration: The Power of No & Interoperability

“Users and operators can put significant pressure on project leaders and vendors to ensure that the platforms are interoperable. “

April 14 – Weekly Recap of All Things Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

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Welcome to the weekly post of the RackN blog recap of all things SRE. If you have any ideas for this recap or would like to include content please contact us at info@rackn.com or tweet Rob (@zehicle) or RackN (@rackngo). 

SRE Items of the Week

Continuous Discussions (#c9d9) Episode 66: Scaling Agile and DevOps in the Enterprise Watch Rob Hirschfeld in this Electric Cloud Podcast held on 4/11.

On the Continuous Discussions (#c9d9) podcast the discussion was on Scaling Agile and DevOps in the Enterprise.

  • What’s between scaling Agile and scaling DevOps?
  • What are some learnings and patterns for scaling Agile, that can be applied for starting and scaling a DevOps transformation in the enterprise?

Podcast Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uffUoX-O3g8
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Rob Hirschfeld on Containers, Private Clouds, GIFEE, and the Remaining “Underlay Problem”
Rob Hirschfeld Q&A with Gene Kim on ITRevolution

INTRO
Back in October of 2016, I was at OpenStack Conference in Barcelona and ran into a long-time friend, Rob Hirschfeld. He surprised me by talking about a problem domain that we have had discussions about for years, reframing it as “the data center underlay problem.”

His provocative statement was that while OpenStack solves many problems, it didn’t address the fundamental challenges of how to run things like OpenStack on actual physical infrastructure. This is a problem domain that is being radically redefined by the container ecosystem.

This is a problem that Rob has been tirelessly working on for nearly a decade, and it was interesting to get his perspective on the emerging ecosystem, including OpenStack, Kubernetes, Mesos, containers, private clouds in general (which include Azure Stack), etc.  I thought it would be useful to share this with everyone.
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Need PXE? Try out this Cobbler Replacement
Rob Hirschfeld Blog (https://robhirschfeld.com)

INTRO
We wanted to make open basic provisioning API-driven, secure, scalable and fast.  So we carved out the Provision & DHCP services as a stand alone unit from the larger open Digital Rebar project.  While this Golang service lacks orchestration, this complete service is part of Digital Rebar infrastructure and supports the discovery boot process, templating, security and extensive image library (Linux, ESX, Windows, … ) from the main project.

TL;DR: FIVE MINUTES TO REPLACE COBBLER?  YES.

The project APIs and CLIs are complete for all provisioning functions with good Swagger definitions and docs.  After all, it’s third generation capability from the Digital Rebar project.  The integrated UX is still evolving.
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Open Source Collaboration: The Power of No & Interoperability
Christopher Ferris, IBM OpenTech

INTRO
It’s a common misconception that open source collaboration means saying YES to all ideas; however, the reality of successful projects is the opposite.

Permissive open source licenses drive a delicate balance for projects. On one hand, projects that adopt permissive licenses should be accepting of contributions to build community and user base. On the other, maintainers need to adopt a narrow focus to ensure project utility and simplicity. If the project’s maintainers are too permissive, the project bloats and wanders without a clear purpose. If they are too restrictive then the project fails to build community.

It is human nature to say yes to all collaborators, but that can frustrate core developers and users.

For that reason, stronger open source projects have a clear, focused, shared vision.  Historically, that vision was enforced by a benevolent dictator for life (BDFL); however, recent large projects have used a consensus of project elders to make the task more sustainable.  These roles serve a critical need: they say “no” to work that does not align with the project’s mission and vision.  The challenge of defining that vision can be a big one, but without a clear vision, it’s impossible for the community to sustain growth because new contributors can dilute the utility of projects.  [author’s note: This is especially true of celebrity projects like OpenStack or Kubernetes that attract “shared glory” contributors]
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Rob Hirschfeld and Greg Althaus are preparing for a series of upcoming events where they are speaking or just attending. If you are interested in meeting with them at these events please email info@rackn.com.

DockerCon 2017 : April 17 – 20, 2017 in Austin, TX
DevOpsDays Austin : May 4-5, 2017 in Austin TX
OpenStack Summit : May 8 – 11, 2017 in Boston, MA  

  • OpenStack and Kubernetes. Combining the best of both worlds – Kubernetes Day  

Interop ITX : May 15 – 19, 2017 in Las Vegas, NV

Gluecon : May 24 – 25, 2017 in Denver, CO

  • Surviving Day 2 in Open Source Hybrid Automation – May 23, 2017 : Rob Hirschfeld and Greg Althaus

OTHER NEWSLETTERS

SRE Weekly (@SREWeekly) – Issue #67

Notes from OSCON Container Podcast: Dan Berg, Phil Estes and Rob Hirschfeld

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At OSCON, I had the pleasure of doing a IBM Dojo Podcast with some deep experts in the container and data center space: Dan Berg (@DanCBerg) and Phil Estes (@estesp).

ibm-dojo-podcast-show-art-16x9-150x150We dove into a discussion around significant trends in the container space, how open technology relates to containers and looked toward the technology’s future. We also previewed next month’s DockerCon, which is set for June 19-21 in Seattle.

Highlights!  We think containers will be considered MORE SECURE next year and also have some comments about the linguistic shift from Docker to CONTAINERS.”

Here are my notes from the recording with time stamps if you want to skip ahead:

  • 00:35 – What are the trends in Containers?
    • Rob: We are still figuring out how to make them work in terms of networking & storage
    • Dan: There are still a lot of stateful work moving into containers that need storage
    • Phil: We need to use open standards to help customers navigate options
  • 2:45 – Are the changes keeping people from moving forward?
    • Phil: Not if you start with the right guidelines and architecture
    • Dan: It’s OK to pick one and keep going because you need to build expertise
    • Rob: RackN experience changed Digital Rebar to microservices was an iterative experience
  • 5:00 Dan likes that there is so much experimentation that’s forcing us to talk about how applications are engineered
  • 5:45  Rob points out that we got 5 minutes in without saying “Docker”
    • There are a lot of orchestration choices but there’s confusion between Docker and the container ecosystem.
  • 7:00 We’re at OSCON, how far has the technology come in being open?
    • Phil thinks that open container initiative (OCI) is helping bring a lot of players to the field.
    • Dan likes that IBM is experimenting in community and drive interactions between projects.
    • Rob is not sure that we need to get everyone on the same page: open source allows people to pursue their own path.
  • 10:50 We have to figure out how to compensate companies & individuals for their work
    • Dan: if you’ve got any worthwhile product, you’ve got some open source component of it.  There are various ways to profit around that.
  • 13:00 What are we going to be talking about this time next year?
    • Rob (joking) we’ll say containers are old and microkernels are great!
    • Rob wants to be talking about operations but knows that it’s never interesting
    • Phil moving containers way from root access into more secure operations
    • Dan believes that we’ll start to consider containers as more secure than what we have today.  <- Rob strongly agrees!
  • 17:20 What is the impact of Containers on Ops?  Aka DevOps
    • Dan said “Impact is HUGE!”  > Developers are going to get Ops & Capabilities for free
    • Rob brings up impact of Containers on DevOps – the discussion has really gone underground
  • 19:30 Role of Service Registration (Consul & Etcd)
    • Life cycle management of Containers has really changed (Dan)
    • Rob brings up the importance of Service Registration in container management
  • 20:30 2016.Dockercon Docket- what are you expecting?
    • Phil is speaking there on the contribute track & OCI.
    • Rob is doing the hallway track and looking to talk about the “underlay” ops and the competitive space around Docker and Container.
    • Dan will be talking to customers and watching how the community is evolving and experimenting
    • Rob & Dan will be at Open Cloud Technology Summit, June 22 in Seattle

 

Seattle Cloud Camp, Dec 2010

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While I was in Seattle for Azure training preparing for Dell’s Azure Appliance , Dave @McCrory suggested that we also attend the Seattle Cloud Camp (SCC Tweets).  This event was very well attended (200 people!).  With heavy attendance by Amazon (at their HQ), Microsoft (in the ‘hood), and Google, there was a substantial cloud vendor presence (>25% from those vendors alone).  Notable omission: VMware.

My reflection about the event by segment.

Opening Sessions:

  • Most of the opening sessions were too light for the audience.  I thought we were past the “what is cloud” level, sigh.
  • Of note, the Amazon security presentation by Steve Rileywas fun and entertaining.
  • Picking on a Dell competitor specifically: calling your cloud solution “WAS” is a branding #fail (not that DCSWA much is better).

Unpanel of self-appointed cloud extroverts experts:

  • The unpanel covered some decent topics (@adronbh captured them on twitter), unfortunately none of the answers really stood out to me.  Except for NoSQL.
  • The unpanel discussion about NoSQL drew 2 answers.  1) It’s not NoSQL, it’s eventually consistent instead of strictly consistent.  (note: I’ve been calling it “Storage++”) 2) We’ll see more and more choices in this area as we tune the models for utility then we’ll see some consolidation.  The suggestion was that NoSQL would follow the same explosion/contraction pattern of SQL databases.

Session on Cloud APIs (my suggested topic)

  • The Cloud API topic was well attended (30+).  The vast overwhelming majority or the attendees were using Amazon.
  • There was some interest in having “standard” APIs for cloud functions was not well received because it was felt to stifle innovation.  We are still to early.
  • It was postulated but not generally agreed that cloud aggregation (DeltaCloud, RightScale, etc) is workable.  This was considered a reason to not require standard clouds.
  • CloudCamp sponsor, Skytap, has their own API.  These APIs are value added and provide extra abstraction levels.
  • It was said that there are a LOT (50 now, 500 soon) smaller hosts that want to enter the cloud space.  These hosts will need an API – some are inventing their own.
  • I brought up the concept discussed at OpenStack that the logical abstraction for cloud network APIs is a “vlan.”  This created confusion because some thought that I meant actual 802.1q tags.  NO!  I just meant that is was the ABSTRACTION of a VLAN connecting VMs together.
  • There was agreement from the clouderati in the room that cloud networking was f’ed up, but most people were not ready to discuss.
  • Cloud APIs have some basics that are working (semantics around VMs) but still have lots of wholes.  Notably: networking, application, services, and identity)

Session on Google App Engine (GAE)

  • GAE is got a lot going on, especially in the social/mobile space.
  • Do not think a lack of news about GAE means that they are going slow, it’s just the opposite.  It looks like they are totally kicking ass with a very focused strategy.  I suspect that they are just waiting for the market to catch-up.
  • GAE understands what a “platform” really is.  They talk about their platform as the SERVICES that they are offering.  The code is just code.  The services are impressive and include identity, mail, analysis, SQL (business only), map (as in Map-Reduce), prediction (yes, prediction!), storage, etc.  The total list was nearly 20 distinct services.
  • GAE compared them selves to Azure, not Amazon.