High Availability for RHV-M
Hi folks, so time ago (years?) I wrote about how to put together High Availability for RHV-M. At the time the actual configuration that I proposed was solid, if a little unorthodox. Still, it certainly left room for improvement. In this week’s post, I’m updating the configuration with something that Red Hat fully supports. They refer to the configuration as Self-Hosted Engine.
Why Hosted Engine?
The primary benefits to using the Self-Hosted Engine, or “HE”, is that it provides a fully supported HA configuration for RHV-M as well as a smaller overall footprint as compared to a traditional deployment of RHV. Also, RHV-M is delivered as an appliance for the HE configuration, so the entire process is streamlined. Who doesn’t like that?
Let’s go back to the smaller footprint statement a few times though.. First off, in a traditional deployment of RHV, you have RHV-M, plus hosts. That deployment of RHV may be on a bare-metal host or it may be on a VM in a different virtualization environment. Regardless, you’re already using up resources and software subscriptions that you may not want to use. Not to mention the fact that it may cause you to cross-deploy resource across Continue reading
Basic Docker Networking
After explaining the basics of Linux containers, Dinesh Dutt moved on to the basics of Docker networking, starting with an in-depth explanation of how a container communicates with other containers on the same host, with containers residing on other hosts, and the outside world.
Fast Linux Packet Forwarding with Thomas Graf on Software Gone Wild
We did several podcasts describing how one could get stellar packet forwarding performance on x86 servers reimplementing the whole forwarding stack outside of kernel (Snabb Switch) or bypassing the Linux kernel and moving the packet processing into userspace (PF_Ring).
Now let’s see if it’s possible to improve the Linux kernel forwarding performance. Thomas Graf, one of the authors of Cilium claims it can be done and explained the intricate details in Episode 64 of Software Gone Wild.
Read more ...Technology Short Take #72
Welcome to Technology Short Take #72. Normally, I try to publish these on Fridays, but some personal travel prevented that this time around so I’m publishing on a Monday instead. Enough of that, though…bring on the content! As usual, here’s my random collection of links, articles, and thoughts about various data center technologies.
Networking
- Charles Min-Cheng Chan has a write-up on using IPv6 in Mininet.
- How’s this for Technology Short Take inception—in TST #70, I mentioned the Cumulus topology converter. That prompted Cody Bunch to write this article on setting up a topology with BGP on Linux using the topology converter, which I’m now mentioning in this Technology Short Take. (Does your head hurt yet?)
- PowerShell on Cumulus Linux on a network switch? Pete Lumbis shows you how. (There are some very interesting implications around this combination, but I’ll reserve that for a future discussion.)
- Someone pointed me toward this article on using Sophos UTM for remote access to their home lab.
- Lindsay Hill recently took Simon Wardley’s pioneers/settlers/town planners (PST) model—which is itself based on Cringely’s Accidental Empires book and the commandos/infantry/police model—and applied to it the networking industry. It’s a really good read and Continue reading
Optimize Your Data Center: Virtual Appliances
We got pretty far in our Data Center optimization journey. We virtualized the workload, got rid of legacy technologies, and reduced the number of server uplinks and replaced storage arrays with distributed file system.
Final step on the journey: replace physical firewalls and load balancers with virtual appliances.
A Unikernel eBook from O’Reilly
I am pleased to announce that my FREE unikernel eBook is now available from O’Reilly.
I have been giving talks about unikernels for the past 2 years at conferences throughout North America. This eBook is my attempt to present most of the information from these talks in a written form. It is not a technical HowTo book, but rather an introduction to the basic concept of unikernels and an explanation of their value.
I hope this eBook will be a useful tool for introducing people to the whys and wherefores of unikernels.
You can download your copy here: http://www.oreilly.com/webops-perf/free/unikernels.csp
A Triple-Provider Vagrant Environment
In this post, I’d like to share with you some techniques I used to build a triple-provider Vagrant environment—that is, a Vagrant environment that will work unmodified with multiple backend providers. In this case, it will work (mostly) unmodified with AWS, VirtualBox, and the VMware provider (tested with Fusion, but should work with Workstation as well). I know this may not seem like a big deal, but it marks something of a milestone for me.
Since I first started using Vagrant a couple of years ago, I’ve—as expected—gotten better and better at leveraging this tool in a flexible way. You can see this in the evolution of the Vagrant environments found in my GitHub “learning-tools” repository, where I went from hard-coded data values to pulling data from external YAML files.
One thing I’d been shooting for was a Vagrantfile that would work with multiple backend providers without any modifications, and tonight I managed to build an environment that works with AWS, VirtualBox, and VMware Fusion. There are still a couple of hard-coded values, but the vast majority of information is pulled from an external YAML file.
Let’s take a look at the Vagrantfile that I created. Here’s Continue reading
Temporary Time Out
Hi folks, the Captain is taking a few weeks off as he has a brand new instance being spun up this week, if you catch my drift… 
You know, the kind of instance that takes 9 months to boot… I expect to be back at the keyboard by the end of October, but don’t be alarmed if you don’t see much in the way of posts, demos, or tweets. It’s all good.
The post Temporary Time Out appeared first on Captain KVM.
Why I’m Now Using VirtualBox with Vagrant
One of the things I often tell people is, “Use the right tool for the job.” As technologists, we shouldn’t get so locked onto any one technology or product that we can’t see when other technologies or products might solve a particular problem more effectively. It’s for this reason that I recently made VirtualBox—not VMware Fusion—my primary virtualization provider for Vagrant environments.
I know it seems odd for a VMware employee to use/prefer a non-VMware product over a competing VMware product. I’ve been a long-time Fusion user (since 2006 when I was part of the original “friends and family” early release). Since I started working with Vagrant about two years ago, I really tried to stick it out with VMware Fusion as my primary virtualization provider. I had a ton of experience with Fusion, and—honestly—it seemed like the right thing to do. After a couple of years, though, I’ve decided to switch to using VirtualBox as my primary provider for Vagrant.
Why? There’s a few different reasons:
-
Greater manageability: VirtualBox comes with a really powerful CLI tool,
vboxmanage, that lets me do just about anything from the command line. In fact, the VirtualBox documentation refers to Continue reading
Test-driving arbitrary data publishing over BGP
BGP is a routing protocol known for its strength in scaling and resilience. It is also flexible and extensible. With its Multi-Protocol extension BGP can support distribution of various data types. Still to extend BGP for every new route data type requires introduction of new address family(AFI/SAFI) and making BGP aware of the new data … Continue reading Test-driving arbitrary data publishing over BGP
Integrating RHV & OpenStack with Neutron
Hi folks, I recently posted an article on one of the official Red Hat blogs about the new Neutron integration between RHV and RHOSP. I have to say it’s very cool and might change the way you look at networking capabilities in RHV, at least if you’re also using RHOSP in the same data center.
As a side note, I’ve mentioned my friend and colleague, Tony James in recent posts and he makes another appearance this week. He helped pull together the configuration steps as well as the demo that we recorded. Big kudos to to “Big T”.
Back to the actual integration. If you don’t want to look at the other article, the condensed version of “why should you might care” is as follows:
- Run applications across RHV & RHOSP – front end of the app on RHOSP and the back end on RHV using the Neutron integration to bridge the network gap.
- Add SDN capabilities to RHV via the Neutron integration, even if the app only exists in RHV.
- Manage the SDN network topologies for both RHV and RHOSP from a single management space (web or programmatic).
Those are the 3 big use cases, in a nutshell. If Continue reading
Docker Networking: Introduction to Microservices and Containers
Dinesh Dutt started his excellent Docker Networking webinar with introduction to the concepts of microservices and Linux containers. You won’t find any deep dives in this part of the webinar, but all you need to do to get the details you’re looking for is to fill in the registration form.
Modern Storage Software Erodes Resistant Data Silos
With the record-breaking $60 billion Dell/EMC acquisition now complete, both of these companies and their customers now have more options than ever before to meet evolving storage needs. Joining forces helps the newly minted Dell Technologies combine the best of both worlds to better serve customers by blending EMC storage and support with Dell pricing and procurement.
But there is some trouble in paradise. Even when sold by the same vendor, most storage systems have been designed as secluded islands of data, meaning they aren’t terribly good at talking to each other.
In fact, this silo effect is exacerbated …
Modern Storage Software Erodes Resistant Data Silos was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.
Test-driving EVPN route publishing with GoBGP
In recent times there has been a lot of interest in tunnel based L2 networks, especially for Cloud Networks implemented with VXLAN. The tunnel based networks were initially proposed with the idea of alleviating the 4k limit imposed with VLAN based networks. EVPN based VXLAN tunneled networks use BGP as control plane for L2 learning. … Continue reading Test-driving EVPN route publishing with GoBGP
Is the next big thing VR, AI and Robotics? Or is it already here. Recap of AT&T Shape 2016
Attend any technology conference today (2016) and I bet you there is going to be a track for IoT (Internet of Things), VR (Virtual Reality), AI (Artificial Intelligence) and other buzz words like deep learning, machine learning, big data, robotics et all. Almost all industries across the board either already have something or in the process of inventing something that inches us closer to SkyNet and science fiction. Academia which is always a few years ahead of the industries also heavily invests in these topics. VR, AI, Robotics and Machine Learning are few of the top research topics of 2016 listed by IEEE.
© Arun Sriraman
I was lucky to attend one such conference - AT&T Shape this year (2016) held at AT&T Park in SF on the 15th-16th of July. AT&T Shape is about showcasing future technology - a preview into what's possible & what's coming in the next few years. This year most of the exhibits & demos were VR, Robotics and AI themed. And speaking of machine learning/AI - look at the video above. It's a video generated by Google using the photos & videos I captured during the event. Google automatically has figured out the Continue reading
NFV Platforms with MirageOS Unikernels
Wassim Haddad is at Ericsson Silicon Valley where he currently works on distributed cloud infrastructure. Heikki Mahkonen and Ravi Manghirmalani work at Ericsson Research at Silicon Valley in the advanced Networking and Transport labs. The Ericsson team has a diverse background in different NFV, SDN and Cloud related R&D projects.
The push towards NFV
The Network Function Virtualization (NFV) paradigm breaks away from traditional “monolithic” approaches, which normally build network functions by tightly coupling application code to the underlying hardware. Decoupling these components offers a new approach to designing and deploying network services. One that brings a high degree of flexibility in terms of separating their lifecycle management and enabling much more efficient scaling. Moreover, the move away from specialized hardware coupled with a “virtualize everything” trend is fuelling operators and service providers’ expectations of significant cost reductions. This is undoubtedly a strong motivation behind NFV adoption.
Current NFV market trends point towards two key technologies: Cloud Orchestration (e.g., OpenStack) to provision and manage workflows, and Software Defined Networking (SDN) to enable dynamic connectivity between different workflows as well as network slicing. In parallel, there is also a strong desire to migrate from virtual machines towards microservice enablers, Continue reading
A simple metadata server to run cloud images on standalone libvirt :: KVM Hypervisor
With all the interest in Cloud Computing and virtualization, the OS vendors are providing ever more easier ways to deploy VMs. Most of them now come with cloud images. This makes it really easy for users to deploy VMs with the distro of their choice on a cloud platform like OpenStack or AWS. Here are … Continue reading A simple metadata server to run cloud images on standalone libvirt :: KVM Hypervisor
CyberChaff: HaLVM unikernels protecting corporate networks
Unikernel technologies, specifically the libraries, are applicable in many ways (e.g. the recent Docker for Mac and Windows products). However, unikernels themselves can enable new categories of products. One of the most prominent products is a network security tool called CyberChaff, based on open source HaLVM unikernels. Today Formaltech, a Galois subsidiary, revealed that Reed College is one of their happy CyberChaff users!
Defending a Network With CyberChaff
CyberChaff is designed to detect one of the early and critical steps in a security breach: the point when an attacker pivots from their initial entry point to the more juicy parts of the network. This step, the pivot, typically involves scanning the network for hosts that may be better positioned, appear to have more privileges, or are running critical services.
To impair this step of the attack, CyberChaff introduces hundreds (or thousands) of false, lightweight nodes on the network. These hosts are indistinguishable from real hosts when scanned by the attacker, and are each implemented as their own HaLVM unikernel. See the diagram below where green nodes are the real hosts and the orange nodes are HaLVM CyberChaff nodes. This means that an attacker is faced with a huge Continue reading
Enable nested virtualization on supported hardware. (Fixing WARNING KVM acceleration not available, using ‘qemu’ issue)
 |
| Source: http://samadhisoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/nested-boxes.jpg |
 |
| © Warner Bros |
SSH Jump Host and Connection Multiplexing
Jump Hosts While working with libvirt as my primary hypervisor to launch test VMs I need a way to connect to the VMs easily over SSH. As libvirt uses private network and SNAT for connecting the VMs to external world getting SSH access to the VMs requires Port Forwarding or DNAT. I recently came to … Continue reading SSH Jump Host and Connection Multiplexing