Eric Kraus

datacenter

Microsoft and Open Source

Wanted to share some updates on the work Microsoft is doing in the open source space.

Open Compute Project

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ack in January, we announced a contribution to the Open Compute Project.  Microsoft is sharing what they call their ‘Microsoft cloud server specification‘: the designs for the most advanced server hardware in Microsoft datacenters delivering global cloud services like Windows Azure, Office 365, Bing and others.

We are excited to participate in the OCP community and share our cloud innovation with the industry in order to foster more efficient datacenters and the adoption of cloud computing.

more details on that can be found here.

Port25

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]nother interesting set of investments in open source comes from the Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. team.  It’s a group of people building bridges between Microsoft and non-Microsoft technologies…powering interoperability through open standards and open source.

Here are some of the projects they are working:


Virtualization with Windows Server 2012

Microsoft just recently announced the release of Windows Server 2012.  You can find more on this announcement here ( microsoft.com/ws2012 ).

I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the improvements in Server 2012, specifically around virtualization.  It is a fair statement that Microsoft has been playing a catch up game with virtualization over the first few years of the product existance.

That changed significantly, with Hyper-V on Server 2008, when customers saw an enterprise class hypervisor emerge.  It further improved with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2.   And now…with additions to Hyper-V on Server 2012, Microsoft is leading the industry in hypervisor specifications.  Have a look:

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Windows Server 2012 Standard/Datacenter Editions with Hyper-V Enabled

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Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2012 Improvement Factor
Logical Processors Per Host 64 320* 5x
Physical Memory per Host 1 Terabyte 4 Terabytes* 4x
Virtual Processors per Host 512 2048* 4x
Virtual Machines per Host 384 1024* 2.7x
Virtual Processors per VM 4 64 16x
Memory per VM 64 Gigabytes 1 Terabyte 16x
Maximum Virtual Disk ~2 TB 64 TB* 32x
Nodes in a Cluster 16 64* 4x
Virtual Machine in a Cluster 1,000 8,000* 8x

*= Industry Leading

 

Microsoft’s Private Cloud

On a frequent basis, I am asked by customers to explain “How Microsoft does….” with a wide variety of fill-in-the-blank technologies and scenarios.  I encourage similar request to first check out: “How Microsoft Does IT”.  However, I wanted to answer a popular request now with a current trend around “the cloud.”  Specifically, the Private and Hybrid Clouds.

Let’s first take a stab at defining these concepts.  Private means using resources that are dedicated to your organization, almost always on-premise.  Hybrid, as you may guess, combines on-premise infrastructure with shared infrastructure hosted by a provider.  There are definite trade-offs between these models – including: cost, control and capability.

The definition of “cloud” is more difficult because it depends on the company and the given pain points within IT.  However, most implementations share similar characteristics.  Most private clouds utilize resource pooling, self-service capabilities, elasticity and pay-by-use services that traditional infrastructure can not provide.

The general benefits of a private cloud include increased agility and responsiveness, reduced TCO, and increased business alignment and focus.  In addition, private clouds are more cost effective because of their ability to maintain higher workload densities and resource utilization.

Benefits

Microsoft’s Private Cloud offers four specific benefits.  They are All About The App, Cross-Platform Support, Best-in-Class Performance, Cloud on Your Terms.

All About the App

To an business user, it’s all about the App.  Most business users don’t care whether or not their application uses a “cloud” or a “rainbow” to access their data.  Just as long as it works, works well and works always.

Microsoft allows you to manage applications across the entire application lifecycle from design to deployment to upgrades and decommissioning.  System Center 2012 includes a new technology called Server Application Virtualization which allows organizations to simplify their deployment and management of server applications.

Cross-Platform Support

Microsoft understands that customer needs will vary.  Interoperability and cross-platform support from the metal on up is a core value of Microsoft’s Private Cloud.  Technologies supported include:

Hypervisor – Hyper-V, XenServer, VMware ESX/ESXi
Operating System – Windows, Linux: RedHat, SUSE, CentOS)
Application Development Framework – .NET, Java, PHP, Ruby, Python

crossPlatform

Best-in-Class Performance

Virtualize applications like SharePoint, SQL Server, and Exchange on Hyper-V for best-in-class performance and scalability.  Test lab results show the scale of Microsoft’s Private Cloud solutions:

  • 450,000 concurrent SharePoint 2010 users on 1 physical host (5 virtual guests)
  • 80,000 OLTP users on 1 physical host (4 virtual SQL Server 2008 R2 guests)
  • 20,000 Exchange 2010 mailboxes on 1 physical host (4 virtual guests)

Microsoft is recognized by Gartner as a top-right Magic Quadrant leader in x86 virtualization.

Cloud on Your Terms

Microsoft recognizes that many organizations have investments across on-premise infrastructure, private/hybrid and public clouds.  Microsoft’s Private Cloud offering includes the following common tools that work across all three infrastructure scenarios:

  • management – System Center
  • identity – Active Directory
  • virtualization – Hyper-V
  • development tools – Visual Studio / .NET

These common tools allow customers to move to the cloud as needed by the organization.  Whether the end goal is to move services to the public cloud or to simply become more mature with on-premise services, Microsoft’s Private Cloud offering enables customers to meet the needs of the business today with the option to adapt when the needs of the business change.

image

 

Cost

Microsoft’s Private Cloud solution is a cost effective solution for gaining maturity within your IT service offering.  In order to deliver the same level of cloud capability, VMware costs 4.8x as much as Microsoft.

MSFTvsVMWARE

 

Facts on Microsoft’s Private Cloud Infrastructure.

3,000 host servers (2500 clustered)
15,000 virtual guests

64 blade servers
128 processor sockets, 768 processor cores, 1536 logical processors
12 TB RAM, 16 x 10Gbps Ethernet, 32 x 8Gbps Fibre Channel

MSIT builds 300-400 VMs per month

Migration: MSIT migrated 200,000 configuration manager 2007 clients to 2012 in less than 90 days

 

Sources/Resources

 

Microsoft Private Cloud White Paper
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/3/3/833189A4-87A3-4AE6-8E64-51F70E66EFFE/MicrosoftPrivateCloudWhitepaper.docx

System Center 2012 Capabilities and Feature
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/default.aspx

How Microsoft IT Uses System Center Virtual Machine Manager to Manage the Private Cloud
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/hh748210

How Microsoft IT Developed a Private Cloud Infrastructure
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh378174.aspx