10 ms·

If I understand it right, this gives companies ability to shift their services to and from AWS relatively painlessly. Do other cloud provides offer anything com

If I understand it right, this gives companies ability to shift their services to and from AWS relatively painlessly. Do other cloud provides offer anything comparable?

Alupis 10y ago
> shift their services to and from AWS relatively painlessly Couldn't you already do this? AWS lets you import/export in OVA (an open, standardized format which is cross-hypervisor compatible) and VMDK (VMware's proprietary virtual disk format)[1] [1] http://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/import-vm-image.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/import...
- nolite 10y ago
  Kinda sucks for images that license to the network interface. They added elastic network interfaces, but you can't use those for eth0 (which a lot of software licenses to), so you're still screwed
  - Alupis 10y ago
    How do you mean? I've never personally dealt with software that licenses to a network interface (and the idea does seem silly...), so I can't fully comment on your situation, but it seems you could find out what specifically the license is attaching to and set that up again (if it's MAC, you just override the MAC, etc...). The software I've used that bound to the CPU (which is silly as well) always had a mechanism to "de-register" the software specifically for migrating to new hardware. So you could setup your vm, install all your software, etc... then de-register the software (but leave it installed). Make your "appliance" image (OVA), import to the new "cloud" and re-register your application.
    - sithadmin 10y ago
      >I've never personally dealt with software that licenses to a network interface (and the idea does seem silly...) This is super, super common with legacy software products narrowly scoped to very specific business functions.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Very common with niche analysis/grid computing apps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher
    - Keyframe 10y ago
      I've never personally dealt with software that licenses to a network interface (and the idea does seem silly...) This was super super super super fun on IRIX when NIC died. Usually in the midst of work chaos.
  - technion 10y ago
    I'll just be happy when I can stop dealing with products that license by USB dongles. Try putting THAT in AWS.
  - illumin8 10y ago
    I'm not sure you understand what was announced. The VMware Cloud on AWS will use standard vSphere Distributed Switch and NSX overlay networking. This means you can completely control what MAC and IP addresses get assigned to all of your VMs, and can hard code MAC addresses for those troublesome applications that hard-code their license to your NIC's MAC address. tl;dr In the VMware world you've always had the ability to specify your own MAC and IP address. In VMware Cloud on AWS you'll have the same ability.
    - nolite 10y ago
      re-reading my comment, I have no idea what I was thinking at the time... thanks
- sithadmin 10y ago
  Aside from cases where you can just shoot a guest VM in the head and respawn it elsewhere (still relatively uncommon, especially in big vSphere shops), vSphere -> AWS has historically been a mostly one-way migration path, whereby the guest VM that's migrated lands in a new ecosystem that is beyond the reach of whatever vSphere management tools you have on hand (unless you're doing very heavy customization and extension of vRO+vRA). This move opens the gate to more seamless migration of workloads between on-premises vSphere clusters and AWS, and extends native vSphere management and configuration functions into AWS. For big vSphere shops with large investments in the platform (especially those running legacy workloads), this product offering is a very, very big deal. If the costs are right, it will put true hybrid cloud operating models into reach of a lot of Enterprises for which the pricing or level of effort to get there previously didn't make sense.
  - chx 10y ago
    shoot a guest VM in the head? That particular wording indicates you might have been doing Linux HA a little bit too much :)
    - GauntletWizard 10y ago
      No, actually, it's very common terminology among people managing large enough installations to "treat servers as cattle, not like pets". Re-deploying the entire service, with a copy of the previous data or without, should be a common exercise.
      - chx 10y ago
        Is it really? I've never heard this particular wording before (and neither had Google, mind you) but it very strongly resembles Shoot The Other Node In The Head (STONITH).
      - ckozlowski 10y ago
        We (I work for AWS) call it "Architecting for Failure", but yes, you could call it that too. =) In an ideal application, instances are a commodity. Not every workload is there yet, so there's a need still for individual instance recovery. But it's something we and our customers strive for.
ensignavenger 10y ago
Anyone who uses OpenStack, or Joyents Smart solution, Or Redhats cloud solution, or any number of other open source cloud platforms have this ability.
- tw04 10y ago
  Those are all absolutely valid options, none of those "have this ability". Nothing in the open source world currently matches NSX's ability to extend the network from on-prem to the cloud. I really wish they did, but it's not even a discussion.
  - ensignavenger 10y ago
    Sorry, maybe I am misunderstanding what feature you are talking about. Al of the solutions mentioned are ones you can run on your own hardware, as well as their respective 'cloud' services, using the same APIs. Are you wanting some sort of live migration of vms between the two?
- caraboga 10y ago
  Openstack doesn't have the in-product hooks to detect hardware failures on the host machine to prompt an automatic, vm-state preserving live migration to other hosts. If you are using kvm w.r.t. openstack, the vm machine actually is suspended by way of acpi, then moved, then unfrozen again. VMware doesn't do that in vmotion. All your problems with clock skew, dropping of network traffic are lessened (they don't completely go away) with vmotion.
antaviana 10y ago
I suppose that Microsoft with the combination of Azure+HyperV could end up owning this space.
drieddust 10y ago
Yes and no. This isn't any different from managed VMware solution provided by hosting companies but it's called cloud so naturally will get sold. Most Enterprise Customer's don't want to take any pain of redeploying the application to suit cloud. This becomes a tick in the box.
jdc0589 10y ago
Azure has a "Azure in your datacenter" thing. I can't remember what its actually called though.
- sithadmin 10y ago
  Azure Stack.
Thaxll 10y ago
You move from AWS to something else that runs on AWS I mean what can you gain from that? Definitively not the price / resiliency.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Cheaper to move workloads onto your own gear sometimes. AWS margin is insane (upwards of 30-40%).
  - mrep 10y ago
    28.5% according to this article: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/01/how-amazoncom-incs-cloud-business-is-doing-in-5-nu.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/01/how-amazonc...
  - technion 10y ago
    Yet AWS is much cheaper than vCloud Air. Although it's hard to compare, due to the way it's usually bundled with ISP agreements. This service will either need to choose between being much more expensive than raw AWS, and effectively killing Air overnight, regardless of the current claims.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Ehh, in the end, cloud orchestration is only going to get easier (lowest common denominator of primitives) and as long as you don't marry yourself to cloud provider-specific tooling, you'll be able to push your VMs and/or containers to where you can optimize for performance, cost, whatever. I think containers are hyped _far greater_ than the benefit that they provide, and I still think it'd be swank if you could have CDNs retrieve containers and run them at the POPs if your workflow allows for it. Interesting times and all that jazz.

If I understand it right, this gives companies ability to shift their services to and from AWS relatively painlessly. Do other cloud provides offer anything comparable?

Alupis 10y ago

> shift their services to and from AWS relatively painlessly Couldn't you already do this? AWS lets you import/export in OVA (an open, standardized format which is cross-hypervisor compatible) and VMDK (VMware's proprietary virtual disk format)[1] [1] http://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/import-vm-image.html http://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/import...

nolite 10y ago
Kinda sucks for images that license to the network interface. They added elastic network interfaces, but you can't use those for eth0 (which a lot of software licenses to), so you're still screwed
- Alupis 10y ago
  How do you mean? I've never personally dealt with software that licenses to a network interface (and the idea does seem silly...), so I can't fully comment on your situation, but it seems you could find out what specifically the license is attaching to and set that up again (if it's MAC, you just override the MAC, etc...). The software I've used that bound to the CPU (which is silly as well) always had a mechanism to "de-register" the software specifically for migrating to new hardware. So you could setup your vm, install all your software, etc... then de-register the software (but leave it installed). Make your "appliance" image (OVA), import to the new "cloud" and re-register your application.
  - sithadmin 10y ago
    >I've never personally dealt with software that licenses to a network interface (and the idea does seem silly...) This is super, super common with legacy software products narrowly scoped to very specific business functions.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Very common with niche analysis/grid computing apps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Publisher
  - Keyframe 10y ago
    I've never personally dealt with software that licenses to a network interface (and the idea does seem silly...) This was super super super super fun on IRIX when NIC died. Usually in the midst of work chaos.
- technion 10y ago
  I'll just be happy when I can stop dealing with products that license by USB dongles. Try putting THAT in AWS.
- illumin8 10y ago
  I'm not sure you understand what was announced. The VMware Cloud on AWS will use standard vSphere Distributed Switch and NSX overlay networking. This means you can completely control what MAC and IP addresses get assigned to all of your VMs, and can hard code MAC addresses for those troublesome applications that hard-code their license to your NIC's MAC address. tl;dr In the VMware world you've always had the ability to specify your own MAC and IP address. In VMware Cloud on AWS you'll have the same ability.
  - nolite 10y ago
    re-reading my comment, I have no idea what I was thinking at the time... thanks
sithadmin 10y ago
Aside from cases where you can just shoot a guest VM in the head and respawn it elsewhere (still relatively uncommon, especially in big vSphere shops), vSphere -> AWS has historically been a mostly one-way migration path, whereby the guest VM that's migrated lands in a new ecosystem that is beyond the reach of whatever vSphere management tools you have on hand (unless you're doing very heavy customization and extension of vRO+vRA). This move opens the gate to more seamless migration of workloads between on-premises vSphere clusters and AWS, and extends native vSphere management and configuration functions into AWS. For big vSphere shops with large investments in the platform (especially those running legacy workloads), this product offering is a very, very big deal. If the costs are right, it will put true hybrid cloud operating models into reach of a lot of Enterprises for which the pricing or level of effort to get there previously didn't make sense.
- chx 10y ago
  shoot a guest VM in the head? That particular wording indicates you might have been doing Linux HA a little bit too much :)
  - GauntletWizard 10y ago
    No, actually, it's very common terminology among people managing large enough installations to "treat servers as cattle, not like pets". Re-deploying the entire service, with a copy of the previous data or without, should be a common exercise.
    - chx 10y ago
      Is it really? I've never heard this particular wording before (and neither had Google, mind you) but it very strongly resembles Shoot The Other Node In The Head (STONITH).
    - ckozlowski 10y ago
      We (I work for AWS) call it "Architecting for Failure", but yes, you could call it that too. =) In an ideal application, instances are a commodity. Not every workload is there yet, so there's a need still for individual instance recovery. But it's something we and our customers strive for.

ensignavenger 10y ago

Anyone who uses OpenStack, or Joyents Smart solution, Or Redhats cloud solution, or any number of other open source cloud platforms have this ability.

tw04 10y ago
Those are all absolutely valid options, none of those "have this ability". Nothing in the open source world currently matches NSX's ability to extend the network from on-prem to the cloud. I really wish they did, but it's not even a discussion.
- ensignavenger 10y ago
  Sorry, maybe I am misunderstanding what feature you are talking about. Al of the solutions mentioned are ones you can run on your own hardware, as well as their respective 'cloud' services, using the same APIs. Are you wanting some sort of live migration of vms between the two?
caraboga 10y ago
Openstack doesn't have the in-product hooks to detect hardware failures on the host machine to prompt an automatic, vm-state preserving live migration to other hosts. If you are using kvm w.r.t. openstack, the vm machine actually is suspended by way of acpi, then moved, then unfrozen again. VMware doesn't do that in vmotion. All your problems with clock skew, dropping of network traffic are lessened (they don't completely go away) with vmotion.

antaviana 10y ago

I suppose that Microsoft with the combination of Azure+HyperV could end up owning this space.

drieddust 10y ago

Yes and no. This isn't any different from managed VMware solution provided by hosting companies but it's called cloud so naturally will get sold. Most Enterprise Customer's don't want to take any pain of redeploying the application to suit cloud. This becomes a tick in the box.

jdc0589 10y ago

Azure has a "Azure in your datacenter" thing. I can't remember what its actually called though.

sithadmin 10y ago
Azure Stack.

Thaxll 10y ago

You move from AWS to something else that runs on AWS I mean what can you gain from that? Definitively not the price / resiliency.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Cheaper to move workloads onto your own gear sometimes. AWS margin is insane (upwards of 30-40%).
- mrep 10y ago
  28.5% according to this article: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/01/how-amazoncom-incs-cloud-business-is-doing-in-5-nu.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/01/how-amazonc...
- technion 10y ago
  Yet AWS is much cheaper than vCloud Air. Although it's hard to compare, due to the way it's usually bundled with ISP agreements. This service will either need to choose between being much more expensive than raw AWS, and effectively killing Air overnight, regardless of the current claims.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Ehh, in the end, cloud orchestration is only going to get easier (lowest common denominator of primitives) and as long as you don't marry yourself to cloud provider-specific tooling, you'll be able to push your VMs and/or containers to where you can optimize for performance, cost, whatever. I think containers are hyped _far greater_ than the benefit that they provide, and I still think it'd be swank if you could have CDNs retrieve containers and run them at the POPs if your workflow allows for it. Interesting times and all that jazz.