Details

Managing any flavour of virtualization: openQRM in the enterprise data center

von Matthias Rechenburg (freelancer)

Mittwoch, 30.05.2007, Saal 3: Berlin, 12:00-13:00 Uhr

Getting the best out of the different virtualization technologies which are available today is one of the most challenging goals in data-center management. Being independent from a specific virtualization technology but using the appropriate virtualization method for different application services in a dynamic and flexible way to get the most benefits for customers and the system-administrators are the base features of the openQRM data-center management platform.

To conform with current mainstream virtualization technologies, e.g. VMWare, Xen, Qmeu and Linux-VServer, a generic virtualization layer in openQRM, the "partition-bridge", is designed. The different virtualization options are implemented by separated openQRM add-on packages , which are plug-in's for the "partition-bridge". The openQRM-server manages physical systems in the same way as virtual machines. The system administrator may decide at any time to run a specific server-image on real hardware, move it to a VMWare partition, from there to a Xen-partition and back to a real, physical existing server without any changes on the server-image or hassling with the different virtualization configuration files. An advanced server-and partition-image management paired with an intelligent storage server integration using LVM2 enables the system administrator to create new file system images for virtual machines within seconds by cloning existing server-templates ("golden-image").

OpenQRM's unique virtualization features combined with its powerful system management capabilities including, e.g. enhanced monitoring via Nagios, automated Vlan- and Ip-Administration, LDAP-authentication, fully automatic deployment and multi-architecture support makes this platform an essential tool in modern data-centers.

This presentation deals with the specific abstractions and implementations of the different virtualization technologies and gives a detailed introduction about the management of virtualized data-centers. It covers a detailed explanation about the specific features of the openQRM virtualization plug-ins and provides an overview about a typical reference installation.

Über den Autor Matthias Rechenburg:

Matthias Rechenburg is the author of the openMosixview and kiscsiadmin project and the project manager of the openQRM project. Since some years he is involved in all kinds of data-center related open-source projects like high-performance and high-availibility clustering, consolidation, network and enterprize storage management. He is a contributor of various linux-related events, lives in Bonn, Germany, and is working as a freelancer developing for Qlusters. Mostly, he enjoys to code in his home-lab but also likes traveling, meeting other linux-people and joining all kinds of linux-related events. He is a frequent speaker at different conferences (LinuxTag, Linux-Kongress, FOSDEM, SANE, Linuxdays, linux.conf.au, t-dose, etc.).