What a MP3 player and Cloud Computing have in common

When thinking of IaaS Cloud Computing most of the time it is like a MP3 player. You can easily let users create and start, stop and destroy their own VMs and ... not really much more.

If this is not enough for you

    or

If you like Cloud but still would like to deploy your systems (VMs and "bare-metal") in a regular (non-AMI) way

    or

If you are looking for 100% IT service automation including automatic highavailability, automatic monitoring, automatic backup+restore, automatic IT-documentation, automatic DNS/Network/DNS/DHCP/VLAN management, automatic out-of-band management (including Green IT), automatic application deployment and configuration etc.

... then you should take a look at the openQRM Enterprise datacenter infrastructure and IaaS Cloud Computing solution!

Compared to the MP3 player you can think of openQRM as a full featured Music-Studio application. It can play all kinds of music files (not just MP3s), it lets you record, cut, paste and re-arrange different tracks and song parts, it gives you full control and lets you adjust every bit and pinch of the songs you play and provides you with "super hero power" for your complete music collection.

openQRM Enterprise Datacenter Infrastructure is the "magic potion" for system administrators. It provides a generic Server deployment work-flow which integrates and combines common and custom system administration tools and solutions into a powerful single management console for your complete IT-service Infrastructure; from "A" as in Ansible to "Z" as in Zabbix.

On top of that openQRM Enterprise IaaS Cloud Automation turn your existing openQRM Enterprise Datacenter Infrastructure into a flexible and 100% automated private, public and hybrid Cloud Computing environment including an user-friendly "VM and Bare-Metal Server" Self-Service - no matter which virtualization, storage or network technologies you use.

More infos at http://www.openqrm-enterprise.com/

Was ein MP3-Player und Cloud Computing gemeinsam haben

Oftmals ist IaaS Cloud Computing wie ein MP3-Player. Man kann einfach Benutzern ermöglichen ihre eigenen VMs zu erstellen, zu starten/stoppen und zu entfernen ... und nicht wirklich viel mehr.

Wenn das für Sie nicht genug ist 

    oder
 
Wenn Sie nach einer Cloud Lösung suchen, die Ihre Systeme (VMs und "bare-metal") in einer herkömmlichen Weise (nicht AMI Image basiert) bereitstellt.
 
    oder
 
Wenn Sie es auf eine 100% automatisierte IT-Service Umgebung abgesehen haben die automatische Hochverfügbarkeit, automatische System- und Service Überwachung, automatisches Backup/Wiederherstellung , automatische IT-Dokumentation, automatisches DNS / Netzwerk / DNS / DHCP / VLAN-Management , automatisches Out-of-Band Mangement (einschließlich Green IT) und automatische Anwendungsbereitstellung und Konfiguration bietet

... dann sollten Sie einen Blick auf die openQRM Enterprise Datacenter-Infrastruktur und IaaS Cloud Computing Lösung werfen!

Im Vergleich zum MP3-Player kann man sich openQRM als voll ausgestattete Ton-Studio Musik Anwendung vorstellen, die alle Arten von Musikdateien abspielen kann und mit der man aufnehmen, zuschneiden und neu mixen kann. Es gibt Ihnen die volle Kontrolle über jedes Bit, jeden Takt und jede Note Ihrer Songs und macht Sie zum "Super Helden" Ihrer komplette Musiksammlung.

openQRM Enterprise Datacenter-Infrastruktur ist der "Zaubertrank" für Systemadministratoren. Es bietet einen generischen Server-Bereitstellungs Work-Flow der unabhängig von der Virtualisation Technologie auch physikalische Systeme ("bare-metal") voll unterstützt. Zudem beinhaltet openQRM Enterprise Datacenter-Infrastruktur eine Integration mit Standard Systemadministrations-Werkzeugen die zusammen mit eigenen Tools in einer leistungsfähigen Management-Konsole für Ihre komplette IT-Service Infrastruktur zusammengefasst werden, von "A" wie in Ansible bis "Z" wie in Zabbix.

Als Aufsatz für openQRM Enterprise Datacenter-Infrastruktur verwandelt openQRM Enterprise IaaS Cloud Datacenter Automation Ihre IT Umgebung in ein flexibles, zu 100% automatisiertes Selbstbedienungs-Portal für VM- und "bare-metal" Systeme, unabhängig welche Virtualisierungs- oder Storage-Technologie Sie verwenden.

Mehr Infos unter http://www.openqrm-enterprise.com/

(cliparts von http://openclipart.org)

... simple dependencies

Some facts about running datacenters and web services

Today I would like you to "start from the scratch" when looking at your datacenter services!

Starting from the upper endpoint, the end-user of your service, I will go down and list the dependencies of the service from one step to the next.

Please notice that those dependencies are also true for any type of Cloud Computing services!


Dependencies:

• End-user (Person)

A "Person" requests services via a client program (web-broswer, mail-program, ftp-client etc.) The Request itself is "Software".

• The Request (Software)

The Request goes to an IP-address (or hostname) and port-number (may further depends on DNS resolving)

• IP-address and Port (Software)

The IP-address and open port depends on a running operating system. Furthermore the operating system also needs to take care of running a server-program "behind" the IP-address and port number to actually "serve" the client (for a webserver e.g. with the reply to a GET request). All this dependencies are "just" based on Software.

• Operating System (Software)

The operating system needs "hardware" to run on. Of course nowadays many operating systems are running within Virtual Machines, a great advantage and start to actually made the service "hardware-independent". A Virtual Machine is still "Software" only.

• A Virtual Machine (Software)
  

A simple fact: Virtual Machines needs physical system to run on!

• Physical Systems (physical Hardware!)

The actual running Virtual Machine still fully depends on physical hardware!


Conclusion:

• Datacenter services should be high-availabe.

• The actual service is "software" only.
  

• The service sadly still depends on "hardware" (even if virtualized).

• ... and hardware will break at some point in time

Lessons learnt:

If any kind of the service configuration and/or data is "stored" locally on the physical systems (the Virtualization host) a failure of the hardware will also cause a failure (and possible outage) of the service.


About "physical hardware" in our Universe:

Everything (i really mean everything) in this Universe is constantly changing. The only thing which is not changing is that everything IS changing. This means every physical system will break at some point in time!

... or lets rephrase it via Murphy's law:

Rule 1) Don't trust faulty hardware.

Rule 2) All hardware is faulty.

Solution:

Very easy!

Make absolutely sure that no bit of data belonging to the service is stored locally on physical systems (Virtualization Hosts). Avoid binding any of your services (software only) to physical server (hardware)!

Enjoy,

Matt

openQRM 4.9 released - Cloud Zones, native VMware ESX support and more

With Cloud Zones, native VMware vSphere/ESX support and lots of improvements to the base system and plugins, openQRM 4.9 opens up new dimensions in professional datacenter management.

---

These are the highlights of the new version:

• Cloud Zones
  Implement Cloud Computing services across multiple datacenter locations, each running their own openQRM infrastructure - seamlessly managed with a new infrastructure layer on top of it all.
• Rewritten VMware vSphere/ESX support
  openQRM now natively manages VMware ESX(i) hosts and guests, using the latest and greatest features the VMware vSphere/ESX API has to offer.
• Comprehensive, automatic Linux and Windows installation
  Seamlessly attach existing Cobbler, FAI, LinuxCOE and/or Opsi environments to your openQRM infrastructure and forget about initial provisioning hassle.

For more details please have a look at the Changelog.

The new openQRM 4.9 release is now freely available under GPLv2 license for download at https://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/files/

The project's subversion repository got updated with the 4.9 release code.

Thanks for this release are especially going to the openQRM Enterprise team for sponsoring new features and contributing a lot of development and QA effort. Many thanks go to everybody in the openQRM community, as well, for providing us with useful feedback and bug reports.

Matt Rechenburg
Project Manager openQRM, on behalf of the openQRM Team

Deploying a 100 KVM VM cluster with openQRM Cloud

Just deployed a 100 KVM VM cluster in our openQRM Cloud QA environment via the Visual Infrastructure Designer (screenshot below)


... dragging and dropping VMs in the openQRM Cloud is almost too simple.
(and actually those are 102 nodes)

openQRM 4.6 - Love the new UI Design

Screenshots telling more than words ....



This video provides some details about the new features in openQRM 4.6



Please find screenshots and more details about the tons of new cool functionalities in the new release at :

http://www.openqrm-enterprise.com

Enjoy !