What does “going virtual” really mean in today’s IT world?

Virtualization as a concept is not new; computational environment virtualization has been around since the first mainframe systems. But recently, the term “virtualization” has become ubiquitous, representing any type of process obfuscation where a process is somehow removed from its physical operating environment. Because of this ambiguity, virtualization can almost be applied to any and all parts of an IT infrastructure. For example, mobile device emulators are a
form of virtualization because the hardware platform normally required to run the mobile operating system has been emulated, removing the OS binding from the hardware it was written for. But this is just one example of one type of virtualization; there are many definitions of the term “virtualization” floating around in the current lexicon, and all (or at least most) of them are correct, which can be quite confusing.

Before considering any type of data center virtualization, it’s important to define what technology or category of service you’re trying to virtualize. Generally speaking, virtualization falls into three categories:

Operating System, Storage, and Applications.

These categories are very broad and don’t adequately delineate the key aspects of data center virtualization. It’s helpful to distill these broader categories into specific categories to thoroughly understand the differences (and similarities) between the definitions of virtualization.

Operating System Virtualization

The most prevalent form of virtualization today, virtual operating systems (or virtual machines) are quickly becoming a core component of the IT infrastructure. Generally, this is the form of virtualization end-users are most familiar with. Virtual machines are typically full implementations of standard operating systems, such as Windows XP, Vista, 7 or RedHat Enterprise Linux, running simultaneously on the same physical hardware.

Virtual Machine Managers (VMMs) manage each virtual machine individually; each OS instance is unaware that 1) it’s virtual and 2) that other virtual operating systems are (or may be) running at the same time. Companies like Microsoft, VMware, Intel, and AMD are leading the way in breaking the physical relationship between an operating system and its native hardware, extending this paradigm into the data center. As the primary driving force, data center consolidation is bringing the benefi ts of virtual machines to the mainstream market, allowing enterprises to reduce the number of physical machines in their data centers without reducing the number of underlying applications. This trend ultimately saves enterprises money on hardware, co-location fees, rack space, power, cable management, and more.

Application Server Virtualization

Application Server Virtualization has been around since the first load balancer, which explains why “application virtualization” is often used as a synonym for advanced load balancing. The core concept of application server virtualization is best seen with a reverse proxy load balancer: an
appliance or service that provides access to many different application services transparently. In a typical deployment, a reverse proxy will host a virtual interface accessible to the end user on the “front end.” On the “back end,” the reverse proxy will load balance a number of different servers and applications such as a web server.

The virtual interface—often referred to as a Virtual IP or VIP—is exposed to the outside world, represents itself as the actual web server, and manages the connections to and from the web server as needed. This enables the load balancer to manage multiple web servers or applications as a single instance, providing a more secure and robust topology than one allowing users direct access to individual web servers. This is a one: many (one-to-many) virtualization representation: one server is presented to the world, hiding the availability of multiple servers behind a reverse proxy appliance. Application Server Virtualization can be applied to any (and all) types of application deployments and architectures, from fronting application logic servers to distributing the load between multiple web server platforms, and even all the way back
in the data center to the data and storage tiers with database virtualization.

Application Virtualization

While they may sound very similar, Application Server and Application Virtualization are two completely different concepts. What we now refer to as application virtualization we used to call “thin clients.” The technology is exactly the same, only the name has changed to make it more IT-PC (politically correct, not personal computer). Softgrid by Microsoft is an excellent example of deploying application virtualization. Although you may be running Microsoft Word 2007 locally on your laptop, the binaries, personal information, and running state are all stored on, managed, and delivered by Softgrid. Your local laptop provides the CPU and RAM required to run the software, but nothing is installed locally on your own machine. Other types of Application Virtualization include Microsoft Terminal Services and browser-based applications. All of these implementations depend on the virtual application running locally and the management and application logic running remotely.

VIRTUALIZATION DEFINED

Management Virtualization

Chances are you already implement administrative virtualization throughout your IT organization, but you probably don’t refer to it by this phrase. If you implement separate passwords for your root/administrator accounts between your mail and web servers, and your mail administrators don’t know the password to the web server and vise versa, then you’ve deployed management virtualization in its most basic form. The paradigm can be extended down to segmented administration roles on one platform or box, which is where segmented administration becomes “virtual.” User and group policies in Microsoft Windows XP, 2003, and Vista are an excellent example of virtualized administration rights: Alice may be in the backup
group for the 2003 Active Directory server, but not in the admin group. She has read access to all the fi les she needs to back up, but she doesn’t have rights to install new fi les or software. Although she is logging into the same sever that the true administrator is logs into, her user experience differs from the administrator. Management virtualization is also a key concept in overall data center management. It’s critical that the network administrators have full access to all the infrastructure gear, such as core routers and switches, but that they not have admin-level access to servers

Network Virtualization

Network virtualization may be the most ambiguous, specific definition of virtualization. For brevity, the scope of this discussion is relegated to what amounts to virtual IP management and segmentation. A simple example of IP virtualization is a VLAN: a single Ethernet port may support multiple virtual connections from multiple IP addresses and networks, but they are virtually segmented using VLAN tags. Each virtual IP connection over this single physical port is independent and unaware of others’ existence, but the switch is aware of each unique connection and manages each one independently. Another example is virtual routing tables: typically, a routing table and an IP network port share a 1:1 relationship, even though that single port may host multiple virtual interfaces (such as VLANs or the “eth0:1” virtual network adapters supported by Linux). The single routing table will contain multiple routes for each virtual connection, but they are still managed in a single table. Virtual routing tables change that
paradigm into a one:many relationship, where any single physical interface can maintain multiple routing tables, each with multiple entries. This provides the interface with the ability to bring up (and tear down) routing services on the fly for one network without interrupting other services
and routing tables on that same interface.

Hardware Virtualization

Hardware virtualization is very similar in concept to OS/Platform virtualization, and to some degree is required for OS virtualization to occur. Hardware virtualization breaks up pieces and locations of physical hardware into independent segments and manages those segments as separate, individual components. Although they fall into different classifi cations, both symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing are examples of hardware virtualization. In both instances, the process requesting CPU time isn’t aware which processor it’s going to run on; it just requests CPU time from the OS scheduler and the scheduler takes the responsibility of allocating processor time. As far as the process is concerned, it could be spread across any number of CPUs and any part of RAM, so long as it’s able to run unaffected. Another example of hardware virtualization is “slicing”: carving out precise portions of the system to run in a “walled garden,” such as allocating a fi xed 25% of CPU resources to bulk encryption. If there are no processes that need to crunch numbers on the CPU for block encryption, then that 25% of the CPU will go unutilized. If too many processes need mathematical computations at once and require more than 25%, they will be queued and run as a FIFO buffer because the CPU isn’t allowed to give out more than 25% of its resources to encryption. This type of hardware virtualization is sometimes referred to as pre-allocation. Asymmetric multiprocessing is a form of pre-allocation virtualization where certain tasks are only run on certain CPUs. In contrast, symmetric multiprocessing is a form of dynamic allocation, where CPUs are interchangeable and used as needed by any part of the management system. Each classification of hardware virtualization is unique and has value, depending on the implementation. Pre-allocation virtualization is perfect
for very specifi c hardware tasks, such as offloading functions to a highly optimized, single-purpose chip. However, pre-allocation of commodity hardware can cause artifi cial resource shortages if the allocated chunk is underutilized. Dynamic allocation virtualization is a more standard approach and typically offers greater benefit when compared to pre-allocation. For true virtual service provisioning, dynamic resource allocation is important because it allows complete hardware management and control for resources as needed; virtual resources can be allocated as long as hardware resources are still available. The downside to dynamic allocation implementations is that they typically do not provide full control over the dynamicity, leading to processes which can consume all available resources.

Storage Virtualization

As another example of a tried-and-true technology that’s been dubbed “virtualization,” storage virtualization can be broken up into two general classes: block virtualization and fi le virtualization. Block virtualization is best summed up by Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) technologies: distributed storage networks that appear to be single physical devices. Under the hood, SAN devices themselves typically implement another form of Storage Virtualization: RAID. iSCSI is another very common and specific virtual implementation of block virtualization, allowing an operating system or application to map a virtual block device, such as a mounted drive, to a local network adapter (software or hardware) instead of a physical drive controller. The iSCSI network adapter translates block calls from the application to network packets the SAN understands and then back again, essentially providing a virtual hard drive.File virtualization moves the virtual layer up into the more human-consumable fi le and directory structure level. Most file virtualization technologies sit in front of storage networks and keep track of which fi les and directories reside on which storage devices, maintaining global mappings offile locations. When a request is made to read a fi le, the user may think this fi le is statically located on their personal remote drive, P:\My Files\budget.xls; however, the file virtualization appliance knows that the file is actually located on an SMB server in a data center across the globe at //10.0.16.125/finance/mike/budget-document/budget.xls. File-level virtualization obfuscates the static virtual location pointer of a fi le (in this case, on mike’s P:\ drive) from the physical location, allowing the back-end network to remain dynamic. If the IP address for the SMB server has to change, or the connection needs to be re-routed to another data center entirely, only the virtual appliance’s location map needs to be updated, not
every user that needs to access their P:\ drive.

Service Virtualization

Finally, we reach the macro definition of virtualization: service virtualization. Service virtualization is consolidation of all of the above definitions into one catch-all catchphrase. Service virtualization connects all of the components utilized in delivering an application over the network, and includes the process of making all pieces of an application work together regardless of where those pieces physically reside. This is why service virtualization is typically used as an enabler for application availability.

For example, a web application typically has many parts: the user-facing HTML; the application server that processes user input; the SOA gears that coordinate service and data availability between each component; the database back-end for user, application, and SOA data; the network that delivers the application components; and the storage network that stores
the application code and data. Service virtualization allows each one of the pieces to function independently and be “called up” as needed for the entire application to function properly. When we look deeper into these individual application components, we may see that the web server
is load-balanced between 15 virtual machine operating systems, the SOA requests are pushed through any number of XML gateways on the wire, the database servers may be located in one of five global data centers, and so on. Service virtualization combines these independent pieces and presents them together to the user as a single, complete application.

While Service virtualization may encompass all the current definitions of virtualization, it’s by no means where IT will stop defining the term. With the pervasive and varied use of the word (as well as the technologies it refers to), there may never be a “fi nal” defi nition for virtualization; it will continue to evolve and expand as more and more technologies become less and less dependent on rigid operating environments.

HOTEL KEY CARDS!!!!

Something to think about....... ........ I was talking with a colleague this morning who is working on a hotel project, This is pretty good info. I really never even thought about key cards containing anything other than an access code for the room! But wow HOTEL KEY CARDS contain a lot more so :

Have you ever wondered what is on your magnetic Hotel key card?

Answer:
a.. Customer's name
B. Customer's partial home address
c. Hotel room number
d. Check-in date and out dates
e. **Customer's credit card number and expiration date!

Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee reissues the card to the next hotel guest.. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically 'overwritten' on the card and the
previous guest's information is erased in the overwriting process.

But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, it usually is kept in a drawer at the front desk with
***YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!****
The bottom line is: Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them.
******** NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket.
******** NEVER turn them into the front desk when you check out of a room.

They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning device card reader..

For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in an airport trash basket. Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the
electronic information strip!

If you have a small magnet, pass it across the magnetic strip several times..Then try it in the door, it will not work. It erases everything on the card.

PLEASE FORWARD to friends and family*

You’ve got passion. You do. Really. Don’t believe me? Look at your list.

If you’re going to make it as an entrepreneur, you better have passion for what you’re doing. It’s cause and effect—passion begets persistence and persistence begets success. If you do what you love you won’t give up until you succeed. Pretty basic, right?

While this message is 100% simple and 100% true, finding your passion can feel like a mystery you’ll never solve. Until today.

If you have the desire to succeed in business but aren’t sure what you really want to do, here’s a surefire way to figure it out. Make a list of answers to the following questions:

1. What’s the first thing you want to do when you get some free time? What activities do you find yourself saying, “yes” to most weekends? What do you like to do on vacation?

2. What do you love most about your job? Which tasks do you look forward to doing? What aspects of your job come easy to you?

3. When you look back on your life, what were your proudest moments?

4. What causes do you feel passionate about? What have you volunteered for or donated money to in the past?

5. Outside of work tasks, what do you Google most often? What type of blogs do you gravitate to; what kind of books do you read? What are your hobbies?

6. What are the most outrageous daydreams you’ve had about your life?

7. When you were a kid, what do you want to be when you grew up? List all of them—even Wonder Woman.

8. If you could go back to school and be guaranteed a fantastic, crazy-good job in your field right after graduation, what would you study? Or, if you had loads of free time and didn’t have to worry about a degree or a job, what would you like to learn more about?

9. If you never had to worry about money again, what would you do with your time?

10. If the movie of your life was up for a Best Picture Academy Award, which clip would they show on Oscar night?

The entrepreneur’s path can be rocky. You’re going to get knocked down. A lot. So you better build your business around what lights you up inside, otherwise you won’t have the will to get back up.

You’ve got passion. You do. Really. Don’t believe me? Look at your list.

How to Make Custom iPhone Ringtones for Free

1. 1

   Open iTunes.

2. Step 2

   Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.

3. Step 3

   Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.

4. Step 4

   Write down the start and stop times of the clip.

5. Step 5

   Right-click the song and select "Get Info."

6. Step 6

   Click the "Options" tab.

7. Step 7

   Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Start Time" in the minutes:seconds (i.e. 2:01) format.

8. Step 8
   

   Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Stop Time." Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long.

9. Step 9

   Click "OK."

10. Step 10

    Right-click your song again and select "Convert Selection to AAC." Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.

11. Step 11

    Right-click the ringtone and select "Delete."

12. Step 12

    Click on the "Keep Files" button.

13. Step 13

    Find the file. It's usually in your User folder under Music > iTunes > iTunes Music and under the band's name. It will have an extension of "m4a."

14. Step 14
    

    Replace the "m4a" extension of your ringtone with "m4r". You can either double-click slowly to rename your file, or right-click and select "Get Info" on a Mac or "Rename" on a Windows PC.

15. Step 15
    

    Click "Use .m4r" or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.

16. Step 16
    

    Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library.

17. Step 17

    Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.

Excellence in any given field. Just Random Thoughts

It's hard to believe that we're coming to the end of another calendar year. It seems like the days just fly by. When I was younger, each day seemed to stretch on forever. I remember having a hard time going to sleep without knowing what events were planned for the coming day. These days, it seems difficult to find the time to do all of the things that I WANT to do, while keeping up with the things I HAVE to do.

I realize that one of the most important things I can do with my time is to prioritize those things that really matter to me. I just finished reading a book called "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin. In it, he explores what the determining factors are for excellence in any given field. What he finds is that regardless of any myths we have been told about being "born with a gift" in a particular area, without exception it is those individuals who put in countless hours of practice, research and study in a given field are the ones who rise to stardom and notoriety. But beyond just putting in the hours, the type of practice that these people do pushes them beyond their current abilities and outside of their existing comfort zone. They have to be willing to fail repeatedly in order to achieve their highest ambitions.

What would it be like if we applied this philosophy to our relationships? What if we had to go beyond what we knew we were capable of in order to communicate with and support the ones we love? Or what if we applied this same philosophy to the workplace? How many of us are willing to put ourselves out there for possible failure and rejection in order to stretch the boundaries of our professional life? How much time, effort and risk are we willing to put into these areas of huge consequence in our lives?

Perhaps the more important question is: what if we DON'T take the risks needed to become the best possible spouses, siblings, parents, creators, workers, human beings we can be? Is playing it safe really that safe in the long run? I encourage all of us to think about not just the time we are putting in, but also how much of our SELVES we are putting into our everyday activities. Perhaps we would be richer for the experience...

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Numerous vulnerabilities in VMware products

Interesting Info from TP

VMware has advised of a total of 93 vulnerabilities in several of its products, including ESX Server, Server, VirtualCenter and vCenter. Most of the vulnerabilities are in Java, Tomcat and the kernel and have been known for some time. Some of them can be exploited to compromise a system, however, the advisory notes that flaws in the Service Console kernel and JRE can only be exploited when an attacker has access to the Service Console network.

Currently, updates have only been released for some of the affected products, such as ESX 4.0 and vCenter 4.0. According to VMware, security updates for the other products are pending completion .

See also:

• VMSA-2009-0016 VMware vCenter and ESX update release and vMA patch release address multiple security issue in third party components, advisory from VMware.
• UPDATED VMSA-2009-0002.2 VirtualCenter Update 4 and ESX patch update Tomcat to version 5.5.27, advisory from VMware.