The Frustrations of Applied Machine Learning – A Not So Common Case Study

By Torsten Volk on Dec 17, 2017 1:33:54 PM

Now that I’ve predicted that in 2018 machine learning will be available to ‘average Joe developer,’ let me share my experience from this weekend. Note that I’m not trying to be a ‘cool geek’ by doing some hands on work (I’m way too old to still be cool), but based on all the machine learning and artificial intelligence buzz in 2017, I thought my use case should be quick, simple, and most importantly solving a problem that could otherwise not be solved.

Continue Reading

EMA Enterprise Decision Guide: Container Management in Production and at Scale

By Torsten Volk on Oct 9, 2017 11:09:24 AM

I’m excited to kick off this project, as no other topic in IT seems to have so many different aspects to consider and so many points to attack it. As, hopefully, in all our EMA research projects, we will look at this topic from all angles without any predetermined outcomes. The project will be exclusively guided by what’s best for the customer when it comes to ramping up a container strategy.

Continue Reading

VMworld 2017 – vRealize 2017 Announcement

By Torsten Volk on Sep 12, 2017 8:14:29 AM

Accelerated Deployment and Lower OPEX

Faster time to value, lower OPEX and deeper multi cloud support are the key elements of VMware vRealize Suite 2017, as it was presented at VMworld 2017
in Barcelona. The new vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSCLM) provides
one central user interface tying together the formerly fragmented and complex deployment process for new vRealize environments. Additionally, vRSCLM enables health monitoring, product con guration, IAM integration, and simpli ed upgrades.

[embed width=500]https://youtu.be/Mk3b5UVaFIU [/embed]
Should You Care about the Release of vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager?

VMware vRealize Suite has received much criticism in the past for its complicated and too brittle deployment, con guration, and integration process. Considering that vRSCLM addresses exactly this critical issue by offering a uni ed installation wizard and a centralized operations dashboard for one or multiple vRealize Suite environments, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) can only conclude that this new release is signi cant and deserves a close look.

New Deployment Wizard

The new vRS deployment process has been simplified and reduced to the following few steps:

Select whether to import an existing vRS environment or install a new one.

The “import” option lets enterprises manage and upgrade existing vRS environments. The installation process begins as follows:

  • Review the compatibility matrix
  • Select the target version for each component
  • Pick a deployment sizeSelect target data center for new deployment
    Select the vRealize Suite license to apply directly from MyVMware.com Provide the required network details, certi cates and product parametersReview the summary and start the installation process. Due to the new pre-checks it is now less likely for the installation process to fail and in the event of failure, the installation can be resumed from the administration panel, once the root cause has been addressed.

New Operations Management Dashboard

The vRLCM admin panel provides provides a UI to manage, upgrade, and con gure all corporate vRS environments, even across data centers or clouds, through a single pane of glass. vRLCM leverages vRealize Operations (vROps) for health monitoring and root cause analysis and enables administrators to set alerts in case of con guration drift.

Upgrade preparation: Before an upgrade, admins can create a complete snapshot of the environment and view the compatibility matrix.

Upgrades through GUI or Con g File: While the rst upgrade will often be done through the UI, future upgrades could simply leverage the con guration le created through the UI-driven process.

Best practice con guration: vRLCM tracks con guration drift, enables admins to restore previous con gurations, and apply best practice architectural principles.

Leverage VMware Identity Manager: Admins can either leverage an existing installation of VMware Identity Manager or use vRLCM to install a new one.

Final Words

After the initial private cloud hype died down, the race for market leadership is on once again. EMA research shows that in 2017 private cloud is high up on the list of investment priorities for enterprises
of all verticals and sizes. Vendors who will succeed in capturing a signi cant market share have to check the following boxes:

Support any cloud, offer developer friendly APIs and provide customers with a near turn-key deployment experience. With its recent announcements –Vmware Cloud Services, VMware Cloud on AWS, and Pivotal Container Service- Vmware is doing all the right things to be successful.

And then there’s of course one thing that’s needed to juggle apps between clouds and data centers: software de ned networking, where VMware is strategically well positioned with its NSX solution.

Continue Reading

VMware Goes SaaS-Ops and Multi Cloud: Launch of VMware Cloud on AWS and Six VMware Cloud Services for Consistent Data Center and Cloud Management

By Torsten Volk on Aug 28, 2017 7:45:57 AM

At VMworld 2017, VMware announced the availability of VMware Cloud on AWS and of the six initial VMware Cloud Services. VMware Cloud on AWS offers customers the long expected capability of deploying VMware's Cloud Foundation Suite of SDDC products (vSphere, NSX and vSAN) to AWS. VMware Cloud Services enable operators, developers, security experts and compliance staff to consistently deploy and operate application infrastructure across today's most popular clouds: AWS, Google, Azure and vSphere. Today, both offerings, VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud Services are available from AWS U.S. West (Oregon Region), but can be used worldwide. VMware and Amazon are planning to roll out both offerings worldwide during 2018.

Continue Reading

EMA Top 3 Product Selection Process

By Torsten Volk on Jun 16, 2017 5:14:24 PM

(You can read more about the content of the EMA Top 3 - Enterprise Decision Guide in my first Post)

Continue Reading

The EMA Top 3 Report: Ten Priorities for Hybrid Cloud, Containers, and DevOps in 2017

By Torsten Volk on Jun 15, 2017 4:34:31 PM

(Click here to jump to the next part and read about how EMA selected its Top 3 products)

Continue Reading

Full Stack Container Monitoring – A Whole New Animal

By Torsten Volk on Apr 19, 2017 11:52:20 PM

Traditional IT infrastructure monitoring focuses on hypervisor hosts, storage and VMs. Application impact is tracked through vSphere resource tagging. This simple and mostly static drilldown approach to full-stack monitoring no longer works for modern microservices based computing.

Continue Reading
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Lists by Topic

see all

Posts by Topic

see all

Recent Posts