Gartner September Analyst Briefing is behind us. ๐ ๐ ๐
September started the way we like it best – with meetings. We appreciate Gartner’s events for the relaxed atmosphere, interesting panels and networking, and Ewa Szymczak appreciates delicious breakfasts as well ๐ ๐ ๐
We also had the unique opportunity to have a 1:1 conversation with a Gartner analyst, who expanded our perspective on observability and the direction of our future path.
Thank you Martin Caren for this opportunity.
The future of IT looks truly heavenly ๐ because, as it resounded at the meeting, “Cloud is no longer a product, but a lifestyle” and in the next few years digital transformation will go full steam ahead. โ โ ๐
MultiCloud, Observability, OpenTelemetry, applications – that’s what we’ll be focusing our attention on.
At Indevops, we are always on top of the latest trends and share them with our customers. We direct our attention to the most interesting solutions, which we are faithful to.
Monitoring and automation are becoming even more important and the sooner we realize this, the better.
Business does not like stagnation, so we keep moving forward. ๐ ๐ช
There are more September ๐ ๐ meetings ahead. Feel free to follow our Linkedin.
Meanwhile, see how the Gartner September Analyst Briefing looked like through my lens. ๐
Special thanks for the invitation to the invaluable Barbara Brandon. ๐
In the technologies that we implement at INDEVOPS , my colleagues are experts.
Conversation with them is always a solid portion of knowledge, sprinkled with a decent dose of good humor.
Provided that the equipment does not play tricks on us during the recording of the material. ๐๐ Unfortunately, it did.
Well, now let’s have a test from what I remember – as befits the beginning of the school year. ๐
The topic of my assignment. Why is it a good idea to implement OS agents in VMware Aria Operations?
The starting point was my understanding of what an OS or operating system is which Marcin Rzepa explained to me swiftly in a very illustrative way:
Windows, which I have installed, is my OS
the remote desktop I run on is also my OS
the difference between one and the other is that the laptop is the physical infrastructure (I can touch it, move it) while the desktop is my program, where I access and it is my virtualized laptop.
Here we come to another concept: virtualization. Well, virtualization, to put it simply, is to install, for example, multiple Windows on a single server, that is, such a much more powerful laptop.
Readers know more about virtualization than I do, so I won’t elaborate on that ๐
Well, but what’s the deal with those Agents?
In VMware Aria Operations we have 2 types of agents. For metrics there is the Telegraph agent. For logs there is the Fluentd agent or the native Aria Operetions for Logs agent. The agents allow you to collect metrics and logs, not only from the operating system itself, (because these metrics can be collected by Aria through VMTools – an agent that is built into the vSphere platform that virtualizes OSes) but specifically from the applications installed in it. This provides an easy way to look deeply into our application, and thus we can more easily and quickly detect undesirable situations and errors in it. And since it’s faster, we save time and therefore, money.
This begs the question of why is it easier to troubleshoot by adding an agent to the OS?
On the one hand, VMware Aria Operations monitors and collects information from the physical infrastructure and virtualization software remotely through plug-ins (management packs and content packs), and on the other hand, we can get additional metrics (indicators) of application performance on that system (thanks to the agent). Meaning to monitor performance (metrics) as well as errors (logs), or even its behavior itself (logs). Behavior, because applications generate logs, you can increase the levels of accuracy of the logs in the application, and the agent captures all this and sends it to VMware Aria Operations, where it is parsed and you can build your own analysis and tracking methods out of this. On top of that, in turn, you can impose appropriate conditions and alarms that are triggered, or just tracked.
In addition, VMware Aria Operations can automatically build relationships between monitored objects. As we have an agent (Telegraf) such a relationship is also built to the OS on which it is installed. Moreover, if the agent detects application components, it also represents them in Aria. Then the operator has a visualized picture of the application’s architecture in graphical form, i.e. exactly what components the application is built of and can trace the entire path of its dependencies on the other components: databases, virtualization and physical layer. Such visualization is particularly useful when . On the one hand, when the infrastructure fails, we can see if and which applications are affected. On the other hand, when an application has a problem, we can see if and what infrastructure component can affect it.
Example of built relationships between objects
So it’s easier, because see the bigger picture. Data from all plugged-in elements “flows down” into one place. We have visibility into metrics and logs from the entire IT stack.
So what does the full IT picture look like?
By default, Aria has a number of built-in views or dashboards prepared for different types of objects and for different audiences, such as a dashboard that shows in graphical form all virtual machines depending on their CPU load, or a dashboard view of databases across the entire environment (our customer has 500 instances and sees them all on one dashboard).
Additionally, you can create custom dashboards in VMware Aria Operations. This may not be anything extraordinary nowadays, but the extraoridinary seems to us that we at Indevops specialize in listening to our Customers ๐ and making their dreams come true ๐
Thus, we have plenty of dashboards which we deliver during our implementations and which allow to look more conveniently and extensively at the monitorised world – from agents to infrastructure.
Example of an application dashboard
I hope I was able to capture and illustrate the topic well ๐.
If you have any questions, let me know. Our team is ready to meet your needs.
Social Media, for me, is a space full of mysteries ๐ @Ewa navigates here much better, but I also occasionally allow myself some publications. And although I definitely prefer concrete work on the backend to glamour, ๐ you know very well that what is most appreciated is what you see on the front end. As the “founding father” of our organization, it therefore falls to me to speak up from time to time and direct your attention to what I do with my team ๐
The opportunity to do so is perfect, because next month it will be 2 years since we got seriously, as a team, involved in the Kubernetes project.
During this period we have not only carried out some interesting implementations of VMware Tanzu Kubernetes (both “with vSphere” and TKGM versions), but also migrated several sizable applications to these environments. We are also developing our own modules for “Keight’s”๐: yes, that’s because we are creating our own Container Storage Interface (more about it in the future) and maintaining our own K8s platform, which has managed to leave microK8s and switch to Vanila K8s (more about that in the future, too).
And what is so fascinating about it? Oooo… here I would have to go into a decent way and list its features, describe them, justify them, etc. etc. I thought to myself that it would be better if I supported myself with the Team ๐
I wrote down the following statements during the interviews 1:1, natural, written down as they were spoken, without correction. Read.
Kacper
What fascinates you about K8s?
What fascinates me about K8s? That this project is so big and open source. I like that the code is open and you can look into it. You can see each component with your own eyes, not just in theory. I really like the documentation: extensive explains everything. Kubernetes changes very quickly and you have to stay up to date, but it has super mechanisms with versioning. You can move forward without losing compatibility. I really like the range of possibilities that K8s gives. We can practically automate everything. And at the same time be sure that HA will be provided. This kube-apiserver (and more key components, ed.) is replicated on control plane nodes. Transparency of operators and resource management. This is unified by APIs and objects that are held in etcd. Anyone who is interested in creating a solution based on K8s can create their controllers/operators that allow flexible state management of such a cluster.
What fascinates me is that it (K8s) gives you tools that allow you to interact with the components of the physical nodes and the physical infrastructure. It’s this flexibility that allows you to create environment-specific solutions. I’m thinking of CSI, CNI, Cloud…. just can’t remember what it was called….interface for integration with cloud solutions.
Well, and the whole idea of this technology being based on containerization. And the idea, to create solutions that are stateless and replicated, that are also fault-tolerant. (Thanks to which) we are able to create upgrade canary deployments using K8s mechanisms, which ensure smoothness in the operation of applications and the lowest possible downtime.
Bลaลผej
Are you fascinated by K8s?
Of course I am.
Why?
The answer is one. Because of its complexity. I’m fascinated by the complexity of this whole environment, but also, how it’s being developed all the time. I haven’t had much to do with it yet, but as I’m getting to know it, it’s interesting to see how many management tools there are directly in K8s. How well provisioning is solved, how super the API is used and the fact that we can gather information with it and control what’s going on. It’s very fascinating how it all works together. Also how the resources are assigned, how if something is missing, how they work together so that everything works and doesn’t crash. All the orchestration makes that it all plays together….
The management tools are interesting, and that you can create your own.
Provisioning is interesting, how much you can know about what’s going on, how to control it, what’s happening to it (the application), how there are some corner cases. There is also good feedback, what is worth controlling and what is worth fixing (improving).
This is not a tool that can be learned in a moment. It requires a lot of knowledge, gathered in practice and in theory, to fully understand it. And something that is difficult to understand is certainly interesting ๐
Lukas
Are you fascinated by Kuberentes?
I am fascinated by its capabilities.
Why?
(…long silence…) I like the change in approach to running applications relative to previous patterns…. and that the limitations it imposes allow you to create interchangeable modules. You can write a CSI driver and any application that supports it will work, the same is true for networking, service mesh, it doesn’t have too many components by itself, but adding external components is simple-easy. Even these components can be interchanged which is important, e.g. microK8s uses dqlite instead of etcd. The architecture is very nicely done, it allows for virtually any expansion of capabilities. That is, we don’t just have containers themselves, but also, for example, VM management, K8s operators and objects. Well, and I think it’s very well done, because it was done by Google people, after they did their own soft yet without containers, I think Borg, and the architecture is done in such a way that those things I mentioned before allow extensibility, well, and it’s open source. And it’s well thought out.
And how does Tanzu fit into this?
Tanzu expands K8s from all possible angles. And everything that can be done (in K8s ed.) Tanzu does. Going from the bottom up: storage (CSI driver to consume vsphere disks), networking, the whole Antrea integrated with NSX, which allows for network observables, even between K8s’ clusters, well and loadbalancers, you have management, sort of a level up, It’s awesome, because even the cluster supervisor is also K8s and a thing that creates clusters, it’s an operator. So the supervisor cluster itself is something of a K8s of K8s. Easy to manage, upgrade, destroy, it’s automated. To manually stage it to make it comparable is very hard, because it’s technically complicated. You have to know a lot of components and how to connect them. And it stands on the shoulders of giants, namely stable vSphere.
And how would you relate it to Sarkan?
We have the storage done. We don’t have all these components. We don’t have supervisor cluster, but when we will have it, it will be compatible not only with vSphere. But our solution only requires disks and Ubuntu, and as long as these are maintained, it all works out of the box. To have Tanzu then you must have compatible servers and storage. So for now, if you want to have it mainly for storage, then Sarkan will be simpler and cheaper.
And what is so wow?
MP that we write to Flopsar ๐…but with K8s…. this compatibility, as you have these components, the application will work everywhere, on any distribution, as long as it is not somehow messed up, in the sense of specifically adapted.
Arek
Are you fascinated by Kuberentes?
Of course I am ๐
And what fascinates you about it?
…starting with containerization and microservices and moving on to K8s…because sort of the whole topic is fascinating. And K8s gives a lot of support for management. It can be divided into different tiers, which fascinates me. Parts: operator, developer, ecosystem, community. From development to just management, scalability, this reliability in accessing systems, from operator’s point of view: monitoring, optimization even in terms of cost, just how we have scalability, it’s hard to estimate, and with K8s we can optimize it. In terms of scalability, as we have an application that is unevenly loaded, K8s allows, where there is an increased load to handle it…this is a very cool feature of K8s…
I don’t know what else…. it also certainly simplifies application deployment. And here with the support of microservices, we are able to divide the team into smaller teams and we can develop them in parallel….automating various activities has a big plus. And it’s cool that we manage (resources ed.) in a declarative way. We define the requirements of the application and K8s provides us with that….don’t know I think I’ve exhausted…
But what is mega awesome, so much that you would say: “how brilliantly figured out!”?
Hmmmm… … … well, I guess, it will be so general …. But the management of these applications. And operators and security mechanisms.
Benny
Are you fascinated by Kuberentes?
Yes.
Why?
Um… Because it’s a cool tool… It makes it possible to… hmmm… it sort of… just works… Provides a lot of cool stuff for both… hmmm… some hobbyist application deployment, as well as for some large enterprise clusters. It lets you not worry about things like loadbalancing and scalability. It takes care of the big stuff for the user. Admittedly, the entry threshold is quite high and you have to learn a lot, but once you grasp the basics, you can easily do deployments. It takes care of rollout and rollbacks, if something doesn’t go right in deployment, K8s undoes it. Updating applications is much more seamless. All in all, too, technology has a way of liking to break down, services and hardware break down. And the K8s’ ability to selfheal allows it to monitor itself, check what’s going on in the app and possibly tries to fix any problems itself. We don’t have to do anything and K8s does it for us…In short, it’s a cool tool simply put.
But is it any awesome?
Well it is awesome…. what to say…. ๐… the thing that blows my mind is that this solution works brilliantly given how complex it is ๐ …. or the ability to extend its functionality, that we can literally create custom K8s resources and act on them as if they were the default ones…. great thing…. creating native K8s applications that run and communicate with the K8s cluster…. that’s an awesome thing ๐…
Piotrek
Are you fascinated by Kuberentes?
All in all, I was somehow not very familiar with K8s. Although during my first assignment on Sarkan, the guys let me get acquainted with it and I even told them that I was shocked at how it works. And not having seen it before, I was able to say that it works cool.
Why does it fascinate you?
Hm… …I think it’s cool that we don’t have to personally watch over the containers, the whole applications built from those containers. He does it for us. So that there is no interruption when something breaks, he will stage it again. What else? It’s cool that we can specify the processing power and RAM memory for these containers, and I guess that’s it. It’s nice that such a tool was created and you don’t have to do all this manually.
But what is so really awesome?
Well then on voffice (virtual all-day collaborative work using Teams, because we work remotely – editor’s note)… I said I was shocked, because when I removed the metadata server, and he changed the leader himself, then put up a new server himself…. I didn’t know it worked like that yet, maybe that’s why…. for now, I think so much of what was so awesome…. I guess…
To summarize the opinion of colleagues, it fascinates me because it has:
rollback mechanism for applications deployed on it
built-in HA and scalability
modularity of components and running services
“transparency” of complex architecture
great documentation
ability to flexibly extend, easily add functionality for specific use-cases
observability
self-healing
Personally, “my favorite” is Service Mesh ๐ .
And what fascinates you about Kubernetes that I haven’t cited here yet?
VMware Summer Partner Day sprinkled with summer rain.
Success or fiasco?
An outdoor event should take place in the sunshine. The word summer obliges, evoking only warm feelings. The weather is not under our control, but the atmosphere that was created already is, and this one was excellent ๐.
Provocatively, I started with the rain, although it only added to the charm of the event. The most important thing was the emotions with which I left the meeting, because it is we the people who are the most important. We are the ones who have the power to make and create what surrounds us.
I recently got my hands on the book “Relationship Marketing.Relationships, ties, connections….
Have you noticed that we are all connected to each other, and nothing happens in life by chance?
Building relationships, is the key to success and I will, repeat it like a mantra. At INDEVOPS we know this and we don’t have to build it, because, it just happens.
The VMware Summer Partner Day meeting was supposed to look exactly like this ๐.
Beautiful, smiling people, from small-talk to discussions, exchange of positive thoughts, integration on full ๐ You could sense that there was a hunger for the other, all natural.
I have a feeling that on a daily basis we often forget that in business it can also be spontaneous and relaxed.
That’s how I felt, and so it was. The smell of flowers, the warm evening, the bustle. Everything I was looking forward to, I got.
We were beautifully hosted by VMware, and the Tranquil restaurant was not like that at all that evening, and that’s a big plus ๐.
Although here with the CEO we have a different feeling, because Pawel Orzechowski thinks it was peaceful. Well, we’re both right, because individual experiences count and that’s great!!!
Participating in the school event “Interesting profession of a parent”, my daughter asked me: “Dad, what do you actually do at your work?”. And something what seems is obvious to me, in the first moment. And I realised that in the first moment I could not explain just like that something what seems obvious to me. It’s not so easy to explain in an understandable way to a ten-year-old girl what architecture design, business automation process, virtualization system or the very meaning of the word “deployment” is. What’s more of that to talk about it in an interesting and understandable way in front of so-called “lodge of mockers” what her peers stand forย .
After a moment of reflection and analysis of the recent issues I faced, I told her how in the 21st century, we save something that, in my opinion, is the most precious – time. How to reduce the amount of “gray hair” on her colleagues’ parents’ heads by eliminating repetitive activities from their livesย
So briefly today by using the example of the INDEVOPS team’s involvement in a relatively simple issue. Let’s take a look at the major monitoring system for infrastructure, services, applications based on the vRealize Aria Operations solution. It has been expanded over the years and now it uses more than 4,000 EP Ops agent instances. Since the 8.4 version supporting only the telelgraph agent, the long-awaited day had come when those several thousand EP Ops objects had to be “upgraded” to Telegraph objects. Unfortunately, with no upgrading access, this meant not only redefining, but also reconfiguring several thousand new objects.
If anyone of you have manually configured Telegraph objects, then you are well aware of the Sisyphean task you need to face. I’ve already seen the enthusiasm of administrators in clicking on the GUI all the objects one by one. We’ve already seen the satisfaction on the faces of executives of quickly executed reconfigurations and maintaining continuity in monitoring. If it’s only a matter of clicking a few up to several objects, once in a while, using the standard interface system can be fun.
However, in a situation when we have to recreate 4000 thousand objects in a short period of time, reconfigure more objects, introduce naming conventions, we are no longer enthusiastic to the manual execution of the constantly repeating activities. What’s worse, human mistake can always occur, which can prolong the process and make it more annoying. And with this number it means about several months of work.
Therefore, we were given a task to complete:ย ย Please recreate in the Telegraph agent all HTTP/TCP/ICMP checks, processes and EP Ops services, maintaining the accepted naming convention and continuity of monitoring. Deadline – one month.
We got down to work, as our paramount goal is timeliness, and thus customer satisfaction.
In the first step, an analysis and inventory of all EP ops facilities was performed.
Among other things, we used vrops’ reporting module, which helped us exclude objects that no longer exist or generate errors.
Then our development team, for whom nothing is impossible, developed a configuration tool:
HTTP/TCP/ICMP checks
Linux process
Windows services
It should be mentioned that the solution prepared by us is able to retrieve the current object configuration from the vROPS instance and adapt it to the Telegraf agent configuration template. The administrator, before the final launch, can verify if the data is correctly entered, and if the systems on which the objects will be configured have the Telegraf agent installed.
Each run ends with a summary report listing the objects on which the configuration failed.
Using the tool, the migration process of more than 7,000 objects was completed within 5 days.
Naming standardization has been simplified. And with the simultaneous use of logical grouping rules in the system, objects are automatically assigned to the correct application, environment (production, test), custodian.
Currently, administrators in their daily work actively use the tool when adding more applications to monitoring. Including Telegraf to the monitoring of each successive application reduces the execution time by 50%.
Of course, at my daughter’s school I did not talk about the above example. My speech was a presentation on the use of technology, modern solutions that make our daily life easier and eliminate activities that simply make us people bored by repeating them all the time.
Surprisingly the “lodge of mockers” received my speech with great interest. In the same manner they had many interesting ideas and solutions for eliminating from their lives the everyday activities of going to school and learning.
Access to data on fees for the use of IT systems allows you to answer the question “How much does it cost?”. But with the help of a module, where you can find reports and billing statements, you will also be able to make key decisions about your IT environment. The module will prove equally invaluable when looking for savings, planning a budget or when you want to compare offers from different suppliers.
Why is it worth accounting for costs in IT environments?
The answer to this question is simple. Each participant in the process wants to know how much and for what exactly they are paying. It can be assumed with a high degree of certainty that the question “How much will it cost me?” is going to be raised at some stage of decision making (e.g. budget planning for a new system). It is important to determine at the outset whether migration to a new environment will generate savings for the business.
Cost allocation in IT environments can be considered from two points of view: from the IT infrastructure ownerโs standpoint and from the perspective of the end user or the ordering party.
Benefits to owners or suppliers of infrastructure
What will the owner or supplier of IT infrastructure gain thanks to the implementation of the VMware vRealize Operations Manager (vROPS) module and a payment policy in VMware vRealize Automation (vRA)?
The most important benefits include:
Defining a pricing policy flexibly – it can be individually negotiated, while also taking into account the type of application, environment (production, test, development), as well as location.
Options to verify the current pricing policy based on financial performance.
Access to reports which allow you to identify entities generating the highest costs.
If the contractor has access to official price lists of other cloud providers, it is possible to perform comparative simulations for a single application or a given client.
An option to generate reports and statements of charges which can be attached to end-of-month invoices.
Fees for using a virtual machine are automatically determined based on the costs associated with the cloud infrastructure (e.g. for internal entities that use the same infrastructure).
Benefits to end users or purchasing entities
How can a company ordering or using a cloud environment take advantage of access to cost information?
End users can:
make informed decisions on whether to continue using or to opt out of services based on quantified cost and fees data, such as reports and detailed views;
check accounts on an ongoing basis in any time interval, e.g. daily, monthly or yearly;
compare charges over a given billing period, e.g. annually;
estimate its daily or monthly cost when planning a new system;
easily plan the budget for the coming months;
analyse the fees for cloud environment and compare them with the official price lists of other providers;
look for savings on the CPU/Memory/Storage level if it turns out that the current architecture of the environment is overestimated in relation to the actual needs;
ย easily control expenses at the level of a particular, internal entity or application thanks to constant access to statements of current charges.
How do we do it at INDEVOPS?
Defining a pricing policy
Formulating a pricing policy underlines our operations within vRealize Automation. This is the very policy that enables us to settle entities precisely. It includes rates for CPU/Memory/Storage and any additional services (such as the use of licenses or IT support).
In the case of complex systems with very large budgets, an approval of senior management is often required on the part of the client. In such situations, we define a pricing policy which subjects the deployment of a new system to its price.
Cost dashboards for infrastructure owners
We utilise vRealize Operations Manager as a cost, reporting and billing module. All expenses that the owner of cloud infrastructure incurs in connection with its maintenance are entered into the cost module. These may include licence purchases, charges for electricity used e.g. for cooling servers, insurance, IT support services, purchasing software and additional applications, creating backups, renting space in the server room, etc.
The reports we prepare contain a summary of costs per single virtual machine, host, cluster, data center or location. Service providers can quickly see what the profit-to-cost ratio is, which allows them to measure and analyse business profitability and make informed decisions about further investments.
Billing information for final users
Final customers using the vROPS module have access to statements where they can check the current amount of fees on an ongoing basis. In this module, they can also view the number of systems currently running, along with the costs generated by them.
Billing statements are also very helpful when systems have been overestimated at the design stage and savings are required. The module gives end customers access to historical data, thanks to which they can compare charges from different settlement periods.
This part of the module also includes official price lists of the largest cloud providers operating on the market, such as Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), Google (GCP) – this is a valuable source of information for people who want to compare service offers.
Do you already know why allocating costs to virtual machines is one of the most important aspects of IT automation? If you have any questions about it, please get in touch.
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ย Please recreate in the Telegraph agent all HTTP/TCP/ICMP checks, processes and EP Ops services, maintaining the accepted naming convention and continuity of monitoring. Deadline – one month.
