TWA : Taking Advantage of Virtualisation on IBM Platforms

1. TWS Education TWA : Taking Advantage of Virtualisation on IBM Platforms Taking advantage of Virtualisation

2. Taking advantage of Virtualisation Agenda • Definitions • Base Support • Advanced scenarios • Conclusions

3. Taking advantage of Virtualisation Virtualisation vs Cloud • Virtualisation is a technology acting at the level of a machine (intended as OS) • Cloud is a set of methods and technologies that impacts the whole DataCenter (IT, Business, Organisation) • Cloud relies heavily on Virtualisation • Impossible to draw a precise line when passing from one to the other

4. Support for Virtualised platforms - Scenario • Obtain regular support through the whole chain • Sometimes includes equivalence clauses: Problems are supported unless they cannot be reproduced outside the virtualised platform, etc. • Precise instruction for installation or additional tech notes • Obtain base capacity data Taking advantage of Virtualisation

5. Support for Virtualised platforms – State of the art • A documentation wiki page gives all up-to-date details here. • Some platforms are the object of legal discussion might include conditions for support. • Commonly used hypervisor are also used inside IBM and have very good knowledge base. • TWS is not a picky product to the hypervisor • Rare cases of virtualisation-specific failures • Exceptions in the installation (for inst. Solaris Zones) Taking advantage of Virtualisation

6. So you are virtualised! What more? • Several direction can be taken • Use virtualisation for High Availability (software) • Use virtualisation to sustain Business SLAs • Use virtualisation to accelerate provisioning and deprovisioning action • Use virtualisation for Disaster Recovery Taking advantage of Virtualisation

7. Virtualisation for HA • TWS Blueprint suggests to cover • central network parts (MDM, BMDM, Broker server) with hard HA. • Agent parts (dynamic agents) with soft HA • Avoid any confusion! • Virtualisation manipulates only machines, and performs HA at such level • TWS manipulates workloads and performs HA by rerouting • Be very careful when you want to implement both • Key difference is the policy engine • Who decides the pieces that have to move • Explored policy engines • Tivoli System Automation Multi-Platform • HACMP (AIX) • Microsoft Cluster Administrator (Windows) Taking advantage of Virtualisation

8. Virtualisation for HA • Soft HA has been described in previous ASAP • 2011, W403 High Availability on Windows Cluster through Dynamic Load Rerouting • Soft HA with System Automation Multi-Platform has been covered in a redbook. • Most advanced policies to switch loads according to multiple criteria. • Explanations for HACMP is in the TWS documentation Taking advantage of Virtualisation

9. Virtualisation to sustain Business SLAs • In the general idea, the flexibility of virtualisation is put to serve SLAs by providing pools of nodes, on which computation can be accelerated. • Bigger pool = quicker result • Needs an application capable of exploiting multiple nodes • Take advantage of Workload Service Assurance • Avoid any confusion with provisioning actions • Serving the SLA through Workload Service Assurance is very quick • Acts as an optimisation and “shock absorbing” mechanism • Collaborates with provisioning actions Small pool 2h Big pool 1h Taking advantage of Virtualisation

10. IT Administrator TWA Administrator Create VM Templates Define time-windows reqs Define QoS/SLAs Model, schedule, monitor and manage WA jobs Templates Llibray Cloud Mgmt Platform (TSAM) Configure Scheduler Provision environment Monitor environment Elastic scale Deprovision Enterprise Scheduler Linux Servers pool Reporting App Database Accounts DB Virtualisation to accelerate provisioning • The environment is undergoing constant change • Requires applications that exploit the scaling of nodes • Requires Template Library • Typical Cloud scenario • Supported by IBM products like IBM Service Delivery Manager, or IBM SmartCloud Provisioning • Also possible on raw VMWare stack, but more complicated • Differences: rights, image handling, pre-installed and pre-configured TWS agent • Deprovision is always harder • Pools help defining persistent vs non-persistent data • TWS workflows should always include cleaning the local node from any important information Taking advantage of Virtualisation

11. Taking advantage of Virtualisation Virtualisation for Disaster Recovery • Idea: capability to recreate a production environment from a template in rapid times • Requires a higher level of environment description • Requires a joint description of environments and workloads • Big savings can potentially be realised

12. So, what’s the take out? • Applications are a big gating factor • What is supported, how flexible are they • Enterprise introduction should follow Business and Application interest • Observed interest is prioritised like • High Availability > Optimisation > Provisioning • It’s a constructive roadmap • Early steps support later steps • Deployment can climb the layers from virtualisation to cloud. Taking advantage of Virtualisation