Overview of the new features of System Center 2012 SP1
All fresh invigorating mood!
And so - here it is - January!
I hope that everyone had a great rest for NG - and is full of energy for new achievements - especially since there is already something to work (poking around, puffing, etc.) - because we have SP1 for System Center 2012 !!! Finally!!!
Personally, I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Well, let's take a closer look at the new interesting features in the System Center 2012 session with SP1 . Immediately make a reservation - this is just a tiny review - but you have every right to expect regular and detailed (and therefore interesting !!!) articles on the topic of SP1 innovations.
So…
')
Only the lazy one didn’t talk about clouds in the last few years. Clouds here, clouds there - clouds everywhere. But, as a rule, if we are talking about clouds, then only about one of the types, most often this type is SaaS - Software-as-a-Service can be used in the most applied, but rather narrow sense). However, I personally heard quite a few conversations about the platform for building a cloud in forums and conferences, and finding an adequate and clear description in Russian is something from the field of science fiction. The situation is aggravated by the fact that many experts consider clouds technology (!!!), which is fundamentally wrong. If you start from the definition of NIST, what is cloud computing - then it follows that it is nothing more than a model for the provision of services - from infrastructure to finished business processes. Let's turn to the NIST model and see how Microsoft solutions for cloud solutions relate to the NIST model (Figure 1) .
Figure 1. Correspondence of the Microsoft NIST cloud solution portfolio
If you look at the picture carefully, it becomes clear what is what, and the question “why” does not cause great difficulties in finding answers.
In the context of the topic of today's article, I would like to understand in more detail the type of IaaS services - Infrastructure-as-a-Service and if we speak from the point of view of cloud service models - then this is the Private model (private cloud) and the Hybrid model (hybrid cloud).
Probably one of the most interesting innovations of the server OS market of this year, Windows Server 2012, has created many reasons for discussions and packs of articles and expert speeches. Indeed - rich opportunities in the field of failover and disaster recovery, the unification of the management system and support for open protocols, virtualization of practically everything that comes to mind - from infrastructure to applications and their delivery via VDI - it would seem that everything that is needed for the success of the new OS. which is so sharpened for cloud environments, if not for one thing ...
How interesting were the possibilities of the new OS, just as depressing was the fact that it was simply impossible to manage the flagship OS using the System Center 2012 toolkit, and therefore the entire infrastructure based on WS2012 ... Another new fact added SQL Server 2012 was also impossible.
It would seem that the situation is just awkward, but it was precisely this situation that stopped many from either implementing WS2012 or using System Center 2012 ... But, as was to be expected, everything changes, and fast enough. SP1 is already available for download and installation - and it is this that radically changes the situation, corrects the mistakes of previous days, but also introduces new functionality into the System Center 2012 management pack.
In my opinion, one of the most interesting and unique features of System Center 2012 is the unification of management tools for various hypervisors. In other words, System Center 2012 is quite capable of managing such hypervisors as Citrix XenServer, VMware ESX / ESXi - and everything seems to be fine, except for one. At the time when SC2012 was released, it supported Citrix XenServer 5.x and VMware ESX / ESXi 4.0 / 4.1 - although at that time competing partners had already released versions of XenServer 6 and
ESXi 5.0 (yes, from the 5th generation, VMware left only the ESXi version of the hypervisor), and ESXi 5.1 is already in the yard for quite a long time.
In SP1, the situation has changed (Figure 2) - all the latest versions of hypervisors of the main representatives of the virtualization market are officially supported - and this is good news!
Figure 2. New features for installing and extending support for virtualization platforms
If you remember what is really new and interesting appeared in Windows Server 2012, then you can not ignore such innovations as the updated network protocol SMB 3.0. It allows you to create fault-tolerant file balls, clusters for applications and virtual machines without the help of external storage systems, and means of virtualization and aggregation of local disk arrays. Simply put, virtual machines can now be placed on a file-share. Also, thanks to SMB 3.0 from the point of view of Hyper-V 3.0, it became possible to create replicas of virtual machines between 2 hosts - thereby increasing the resiliency of the virtualized infrastructure without large investments.
Another interesting feature of WS2012 is the inclusion and support of block deduplication mechanisms for logical volumes.
That is, it is a mechanism that allows replacing duplicate data blocks with links to unique ones. This is a very effective mechanism for virtualized (and hence cloud) environments, especially for VDI scenarios, which will increase the density of hosted virtual machines in terms of the disk subsystem.
If you look at it from the point of view of System Center 2012 SP1, then Data Protection Manager now supports backing up both deduplicated volumes and virtual machines that are located on the file ball. And also it is not worth the opportunity to conduct backup operations for virtual machines that are in the state of migration. It is also worth noting the ability to backup virtual machines to the cloud, Windows Azure, if you have a corresponding subscription (Figure 3) .
Figure 3. Registering a Windows Azure subscription with Data Protection Manager 2012 SP1
The SMI-S (Stroage Management Initiative - Specification) management protocol support is also a vendor-neutral protocol for managing disk arrays and tape drives that allows you to manage various hardware, including heterogeneous configurations, without knowing the specifics of the specific hardware. . SMI-S support appeared in System Center 2012, however Windows Server 2012 also supports SMI-S through the Windows Storage Management API (SMAPI) component, and SP1 for SC2012 translates this support into the System Center environment (Figure 4) .
Figure 4. SMI-S protocol support architecture in Windows Server 2012
Well, at the end of the theme of disk subsystems, it remains to add only that support for the virtualization of Fiber Channel adapters that appeared in WS2012 is also translated to SP1
Probably the most interesting novelty that appeared in SP1 (at least, I think so). Now, using System Center SP1 App Controller, you can deploy and manage virtual machines not only in a private cloud, but also in a public one — you just need to register a Windows Azure subscription with the Azure VM option enabled - and you can access all the templates and tools management from a single portal. But this is not the most interesting, but the fact that you now have the opportunity to migrate virtual machines from a private cloud to a public one, import local virtual vhd-disks into Windows Azure as templates, and also the ability to build distributed services (remember about the service model in System Center 2012? ), which involves a hybrid scenario (Figure 5 and Figure 6) .
Figure 5. Managing libraries in the private and public cloud using App Controller
Figure 6. Cloud selection dialog for deploying virtual machines
It should be added that a component such as SPF has appeared (no, this is not SharePoint Foundation, as many might have thought) - Service Provider Foundation. SPF is essentially WebAPI, which is designed for cloud service providers and allows you to use System Center 2012 SP1 as a tool for managing cloud environments, but at the same time customize the appearance of a web portal to provide self-service to the end client. Add to this the billing capabilities that are now available as templates for Service Manager 2012 SP1 (Figure 7) - and you will get a ready-made platform for building cloud hosting on various types of hypervisors with built-in tools for calculating the cost of consumed resources. Cool, is it true !?
Figure 7. Sample template for resource billing in Service Manager 2012 SP1
In general, if you summarize SP1 for the virtualized infrastructure management package and cloud platforms, there will be several conclusions:
1) System Center SP1 is most likely aimed at fairly large enterprises if we are talking about internal use and cloud service providers who are ready to provide a fairly wide range of services based on heterogeneous virtualized environments. Small organizations such opportunities may seem redundant, and also quite difficult to master.
2) The main innovations that are present in SP1 are associated with the emergence of new features in Windows Server 2012. In fact, SP1 "adjusts the bar" of System Center 2012 to the capabilities of Windows Server 2012.
3) SP1 allows you to use such interesting scenarios as hybrid clouds and distributed service models - that is, in fact, integration occurs with Windows Azure services from the point of view of hosting virtual machines and services, as well as from the perspective of backup processes.
4) The product in the finished, installed version is excellent - everything that can come to mind is provided for. In this article, we have considered far from all the innovations in SP1 - a separate article deserves a story about network virtualization and load balancing on virtual services. However, to deploy and implement the product correctly is a serious task for both architects (from a planning point of view) and implementers (a very large number of third-party components that need to be pre-configured before everything is unified from an infrastructure management point of view).
I hope the new features that have appeared in Service Pack1 for System Center 2012, as well as Windows Server 2012, will allow you to take a fresh look at the possibilities and methods in managing your IT infrastructure. It remains to add that the infrastructure is far from the only thing that can be effectively managed using SC2012 - there are many interesting scenarios for integrating with Team Foundation Server for developing and debugging software, including in cloud environments, but this is, as they say, completely different story…
P..S> I completely forgot to say ... System Center c SP1 is also available in Russian (!!!!!) so it will be fun and interesting ...
You can download it here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-RU/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx
With respect,
fireman
George A. Gadzhiev
Information Infrastructure Expert
Microsoft Corporation
And so - here it is - January!
I hope that everyone had a great rest for NG - and is full of energy for new achievements - especially since there is already something to work (poking around, puffing, etc.) - because we have SP1 for System Center 2012 !!! Finally!!!
Personally, I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Well, let's take a closer look at the new interesting features in the System Center 2012 session with SP1 . Immediately make a reservation - this is just a tiny review - but you have every right to expect regular and detailed (and therefore interesting !!!) articles on the topic of SP1 innovations.
So…
Clouds, Clouds and Fireballs
')
Only the lazy one didn’t talk about clouds in the last few years. Clouds here, clouds there - clouds everywhere. But, as a rule, if we are talking about clouds, then only about one of the types, most often this type is SaaS - Software-as-a-Service can be used in the most applied, but rather narrow sense). However, I personally heard quite a few conversations about the platform for building a cloud in forums and conferences, and finding an adequate and clear description in Russian is something from the field of science fiction. The situation is aggravated by the fact that many experts consider clouds technology (!!!), which is fundamentally wrong. If you start from the definition of NIST, what is cloud computing - then it follows that it is nothing more than a model for the provision of services - from infrastructure to finished business processes. Let's turn to the NIST model and see how Microsoft solutions for cloud solutions relate to the NIST model (Figure 1) .
Figure 1. Correspondence of the Microsoft NIST cloud solution portfolio
If you look at the picture carefully, it becomes clear what is what, and the question “why” does not cause great difficulties in finding answers.
In the context of the topic of today's article, I would like to understand in more detail the type of IaaS services - Infrastructure-as-a-Service and if we speak from the point of view of cloud service models - then this is the Private model (private cloud) and the Hybrid model (hybrid cloud).
You're on land - I'm at sea ...
Probably one of the most interesting innovations of the server OS market of this year, Windows Server 2012, has created many reasons for discussions and packs of articles and expert speeches. Indeed - rich opportunities in the field of failover and disaster recovery, the unification of the management system and support for open protocols, virtualization of practically everything that comes to mind - from infrastructure to applications and their delivery via VDI - it would seem that everything that is needed for the success of the new OS. which is so sharpened for cloud environments, if not for one thing ...
How interesting were the possibilities of the new OS, just as depressing was the fact that it was simply impossible to manage the flagship OS using the System Center 2012 toolkit, and therefore the entire infrastructure based on WS2012 ... Another new fact added SQL Server 2012 was also impossible.
It would seem that the situation is just awkward, but it was precisely this situation that stopped many from either implementing WS2012 or using System Center 2012 ... But, as was to be expected, everything changes, and fast enough. SP1 is already available for download and installation - and it is this that radically changes the situation, corrects the mistakes of previous days, but also introduces new functionality into the System Center 2012 management pack.
SP1 - all major x86 hypervisors together
In my opinion, one of the most interesting and unique features of System Center 2012 is the unification of management tools for various hypervisors. In other words, System Center 2012 is quite capable of managing such hypervisors as Citrix XenServer, VMware ESX / ESXi - and everything seems to be fine, except for one. At the time when SC2012 was released, it supported Citrix XenServer 5.x and VMware ESX / ESXi 4.0 / 4.1 - although at that time competing partners had already released versions of XenServer 6 and
ESXi 5.0 (yes, from the 5th generation, VMware left only the ESXi version of the hypervisor), and ESXi 5.1 is already in the yard for quite a long time.
In SP1, the situation has changed (Figure 2) - all the latest versions of hypervisors of the main representatives of the virtualization market are officially supported - and this is good news!
Figure 2. New features for installing and extending support for virtualization platforms
SMB 3.0, NAS, SMI-S and other features of disk arrays
If you remember what is really new and interesting appeared in Windows Server 2012, then you can not ignore such innovations as the updated network protocol SMB 3.0. It allows you to create fault-tolerant file balls, clusters for applications and virtual machines without the help of external storage systems, and means of virtualization and aggregation of local disk arrays. Simply put, virtual machines can now be placed on a file-share. Also, thanks to SMB 3.0 from the point of view of Hyper-V 3.0, it became possible to create replicas of virtual machines between 2 hosts - thereby increasing the resiliency of the virtualized infrastructure without large investments.
Another interesting feature of WS2012 is the inclusion and support of block deduplication mechanisms for logical volumes.
That is, it is a mechanism that allows replacing duplicate data blocks with links to unique ones. This is a very effective mechanism for virtualized (and hence cloud) environments, especially for VDI scenarios, which will increase the density of hosted virtual machines in terms of the disk subsystem.
If you look at it from the point of view of System Center 2012 SP1, then Data Protection Manager now supports backing up both deduplicated volumes and virtual machines that are located on the file ball. And also it is not worth the opportunity to conduct backup operations for virtual machines that are in the state of migration. It is also worth noting the ability to backup virtual machines to the cloud, Windows Azure, if you have a corresponding subscription (Figure 3) .
Figure 3. Registering a Windows Azure subscription with Data Protection Manager 2012 SP1
The SMI-S (Stroage Management Initiative - Specification) management protocol support is also a vendor-neutral protocol for managing disk arrays and tape drives that allows you to manage various hardware, including heterogeneous configurations, without knowing the specifics of the specific hardware. . SMI-S support appeared in System Center 2012, however Windows Server 2012 also supports SMI-S through the Windows Storage Management API (SMAPI) component, and SP1 for SC2012 translates this support into the System Center environment (Figure 4) .
Figure 4. SMI-S protocol support architecture in Windows Server 2012
Well, at the end of the theme of disk subsystems, it remains to add only that support for the virtualization of Fiber Channel adapters that appeared in WS2012 is also translated to SP1
Hybrid Cloud with App Controller
Probably the most interesting novelty that appeared in SP1 (at least, I think so). Now, using System Center SP1 App Controller, you can deploy and manage virtual machines not only in a private cloud, but also in a public one — you just need to register a Windows Azure subscription with the Azure VM option enabled - and you can access all the templates and tools management from a single portal. But this is not the most interesting, but the fact that you now have the opportunity to migrate virtual machines from a private cloud to a public one, import local virtual vhd-disks into Windows Azure as templates, and also the ability to build distributed services (remember about the service model in System Center 2012? ), which involves a hybrid scenario (Figure 5 and Figure 6) .
Figure 5. Managing libraries in the private and public cloud using App Controller
Figure 6. Cloud selection dialog for deploying virtual machines
It should be added that a component such as SPF has appeared (no, this is not SharePoint Foundation, as many might have thought) - Service Provider Foundation. SPF is essentially WebAPI, which is designed for cloud service providers and allows you to use System Center 2012 SP1 as a tool for managing cloud environments, but at the same time customize the appearance of a web portal to provide self-service to the end client. Add to this the billing capabilities that are now available as templates for Service Manager 2012 SP1 (Figure 7) - and you will get a ready-made platform for building cloud hosting on various types of hypervisors with built-in tools for calculating the cost of consumed resources. Cool, is it true !?
Figure 7. Sample template for resource billing in Service Manager 2012 SP1
Conclusion
In general, if you summarize SP1 for the virtualized infrastructure management package and cloud platforms, there will be several conclusions:
1) System Center SP1 is most likely aimed at fairly large enterprises if we are talking about internal use and cloud service providers who are ready to provide a fairly wide range of services based on heterogeneous virtualized environments. Small organizations such opportunities may seem redundant, and also quite difficult to master.
2) The main innovations that are present in SP1 are associated with the emergence of new features in Windows Server 2012. In fact, SP1 "adjusts the bar" of System Center 2012 to the capabilities of Windows Server 2012.
3) SP1 allows you to use such interesting scenarios as hybrid clouds and distributed service models - that is, in fact, integration occurs with Windows Azure services from the point of view of hosting virtual machines and services, as well as from the perspective of backup processes.
4) The product in the finished, installed version is excellent - everything that can come to mind is provided for. In this article, we have considered far from all the innovations in SP1 - a separate article deserves a story about network virtualization and load balancing on virtual services. However, to deploy and implement the product correctly is a serious task for both architects (from a planning point of view) and implementers (a very large number of third-party components that need to be pre-configured before everything is unified from an infrastructure management point of view).
I hope the new features that have appeared in Service Pack1 for System Center 2012, as well as Windows Server 2012, will allow you to take a fresh look at the possibilities and methods in managing your IT infrastructure. It remains to add that the infrastructure is far from the only thing that can be effectively managed using SC2012 - there are many interesting scenarios for integrating with Team Foundation Server for developing and debugging software, including in cloud environments, but this is, as they say, completely different story…
P..S> I completely forgot to say ... System Center c SP1 is also available in Russian (!!!!!) so it will be fun and interesting ...
You can download it here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-RU/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx
With respect,
fireman
George A. Gadzhiev
Information Infrastructure Expert
Microsoft Corporation
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/165955/
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