Educational Episodes: Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

Windows Server 2016 enables building a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) with new layers of security and Azure-related approach for hosting business applications and infrastructure. The new Software-Defined Network (SDN) Stack  provides dynamic security and hybrid flexibility by enforcing network policy in the Hyper-V Virtual Switch using the Azure Virtual Filtering Platform (VFP) Switch Extension. Instead of programming network configurations into a physical switch,  the new Microsoft Network Controller delivers the network policy to the Hyper-V Hosts using the OVSDB protocol and is programmed into the VFP extension of the vSwitch by a Host Agent which enforces the policy.

Just recently one of the main virtualization conferences VMworld Europe 2016 has finished. Traditionally, it has been held a while after the main VMworld in the USA. While in the USA VMware was speaking about the new technologies and the future of datacenters, in Europe much more attention was paid to the new features of updated VMware products. The main of them is, of course, VMware vSphere 6.5 server virtualization platform. We’ll start our overview with it.

After the first 2 articles on how to install SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016 Server Core and SCVMM 2016 on Server Core too, we’ll continue with the next product, SCOM 2016. I take a look at the article of Tao Yang to do this installation. My SQL Server is already ready, so I’ll not speak about this in this article.

In a previous article, I explained how to install SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016 Server Core. Through this blog post, I’ll explain to you how to install SCVMM 2016 RTM, on a Server Core. This last version is compatible with SQL Server 2016.

VM Fleet is a collection of scripts that enables to deploy virtual machines which perform I/O to stress the underlying storage system. To achieve I/O, the VMs leverages DiskSpd which is a Microsoft tool. When you implement an infrastructure based on Hyper-V, you usually want to get the maximum IOPS and MB/s that your storage can deliver. This tool helps you to get this information by stressing your storage. In this topic, we will see how to deploy a VM Fleet to benchmark the storage system.

The recent distributed denial of service attack against Dyn, the dynamic DNS service, affected the availability of a row of major websites and Internet services, including Twitter and Reddit. The attack began at 7:10am Eastern Time (12:10pm UK) and was mainly focused on Dyn’s US East Coast name servers. According to Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn, DNS traffic resolved from east coast name server locations was experiencing a service interruption during that time. By 9:20am ET same morning, Dyn had mitigated the attack and services returned to normal.

Because I have a small server at home, I try to win a maximum of space, for the storage and for the memory, by installing VM in Server Core. To note, it is very good for security/patches management. It’s why, after installing my Hyper-V host and my first domain controller, on Windows Server 2016, I tried to install the SQL on a Server Core. To start, I installed the VM and I added a second volume to store databases, logs and TempDb.

It has three years since VMware announced and showcased NSX to the world. Since then everyone and then some has announced their version of SDN. You have players such a Cisco, Cumulus Networks and of course VMware in this space. All doing SDN in their own unique way. Cisco being the biggest network player of course wants to move hardware to your datacenter. Therefore, their way to SDN is to buy new boxes. Another player is Cumulus Networks, again theirs another focus. Here the OS is king. Build on open source components Cumulus Networks deliver the OS for SDN, which run on any white box. If you do not want to build your own white box networks based on Cumulus Networks many vendors have, join Cumulus Networks. Vendors such as HPE, Dell and Supermicro amongst others are selling switches, which comes with Cumulus Networks OS baked in. Even Microsoft is entering the stage of SDN with Server 2016, though one could argue a bit late, but then better late than never.

As far back as 2 years ago at VMworld Europe 2014 conference VMware announced the release of the VMware Horizon FLEX solution. It is a virtualization platform for desktops, which allows running virtual machines locally on users’ computers, both on Mac and with Windows, while connection to the company’s datacenter isn’t available. At the same time, the virtual machine utilized by the user can be Windows-based or have guest OS Linux inside. Many virtual infrastructures administrators still remember that before VMware had VMware ACE and VMware View Local Mode products, which passed long ago and now have been replaced with FLEX technology. Since VMware Horizon FLEX 1.9 version, as well as the new versions of Workstation and Fusion desktop platforms, has been released just recently, let’s look closer at the FLEX solution and consider its key features.