Currently, FreeBSD is well proven as a base for routers
(pfSense, OPNSense,
BSDRP) and NAS (FreeNAS,
zfsGuru, NAS4Free).
However, FreeBSD-based solutions are almost completely absent in
the virtualization area, and ClonOS is one of
the attempts to change that.
ClonOS is a new free open-source FreeBSD-based platform for
virtual environment creation and management. In the core
platform are:
The long-standing trend toward on-premises virtualization has helped
many enterprises to increase operational efficiency and to wring out as
much value from their data center as possible. Along the way, they have
built up a substantial repertoire of architectural skills and
operational experience, but now find that they are struggling to match
public cloud economics and the AWS pace of innovation.
Because of this, many enterprises are now looking at the AWS Cloud
and like what they see. They are enticed by the fact that AWS has data
centers in 35 Availability Zones across 13 different locations around
the world (with construction underway in five more) and see considerable
value in the rich set of AWS Services and the flexible pay-as-you-go model,
and are looking at ways to move in to the future while building on an
investment in virtualization that often dates back a decade or more.
VMware + AWS = Win In
order to help these organizations take advantage of the benefits that
AWS has to offer while building on their existing investment in
virtualization, we are working with our friends at VMware to build and deliver VMware Cloud on AWS.
This new offering is a native, fully managed VMware
environment on the AWS Cloud that can be accessed on an hourly,
on-demand basis or in subscription form. It includes the same core
VMware technologies that customers run in their data centers today
including vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), Virtual SAN (vSAN), and the NSX network virtualization platform and is designed to provide a clean, seamless experience.
VMware Cloud on AWS runs directly on the physical hardware,
while still taking advantage of a host of network and hardware features
designed to support our security-first design model. This allows VMware
to run their virtualization stack on AWS infrastructure without having
to use nested virtualization.
If you find yourself in the situation that I described
above—running on-premises virtualization but looking forward to the
cloud—I think you’ll find a lot to like here. Your investment in
packaging, tooling, and training will continue to pay dividends, as will
your existing VMware licenses, agreements, and discounts. Everything
that you and your team know about ESXi, vSAN, and NSX remain relevant
and valuable. You will be able to manage your entire VMware environment
(on-premises and AWS) using your existing copy of vCenter, along with tools and scripts that make use of the vCenter APIs.
Plenty of Options
VMware Cloud on AWS will give you a lot of different options when it
comes to migration, data center consolidation, modernization, and
globalization:
On the migration side, you can use vSphere
vMotion to live-migrate individual VMs, workloads, or entire data
centers to AWS with a couple of clicks. Along the way, as you migrate
individual components, you can use AWS Direct Connect to set up a dedicated network connection from your premises to AWS.
When it comes to data center consolidation, you can migrate code and data to AWS without having to alter your existing operational practices, tools, or policies.
When you are ready to modernize, you can take advantage of unique and powerful features such as Amazon Aurora (a highly scalable relational database designed to be compatible with MySQL), Amazon Redshift (a fast, fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse), and many other services.
When you need to globalize your business, you can spin up your existing applications in multiple AWS regions with a couple of clicks.
Traditional management methods are rooted in the days of steam trains
and textile mills and need to be updated to cope with a workforce that
has to make decisions on the spot, says Jim Whitehurst. His name might
not be familiar to you, but since becoming CEO of the open source tech
company Red Hat eight years ago he’s transformed it into a powerhouse
with more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in annual revenues and a $13bn market cap.
So he probably knows a thing or two.
‘Traditional management developed in the late 1800s, basically to
co-ordinate uneducated people to perform rote tasks in a very static
environment’ he tells MT. ‘The problem is in the intervening 150 years
the world has fundamentally changed. Rote tasks have or are being
automated, so generally the people we hire now are hired to apply a
degree of initiative, judgement or creativity to their jobs. This whole
concept of a static environment where you say "let me plan what I want
to do and then tell people how to do it just doesn’t work anymore – the
world is moving too fast.’
Most executives still try to use these old school solutions they
learned at business school, he suggests, and as a result they’re failing
to get the best out of their workforce. Here are his suggestions for
making sure your organisation keeps up with the changing times.
Give workers meaning and context
The role of today’s manager, says Whitehurst, is to ‘create a context
in which people can do their best work.’ An important part of that is
giving the work they do some meaning. ‘You need to start off with the
mission of the company, why we’re doing it, why it transcends just a
paycheck – meaning is absolutely critical.’
Mission statements are a bit old hat now but it’s nonetheless true
that workers want to have a non-financial reason to do their job. At Red
Hat that’s an obsession with the philosophy of ‘open source’ software
development. A more down-to-earth example could be as simple as helping
customers try great food or manufacturing the highest-quality widgets in
the country.
Workers also need to see their role in delivering on that purpose.
‘People need to understand the strategy of the company and how they fit
that strategy deeply,’ says Whitehurst. ‘They need to understand the
context of how to make the right decisions.’
Don’t be ‘terminally nice’
Whitehurst was previously COO at Delta Airlines. ‘When Delta was in
bankruptcy some of the advisers had a term: ‘terminally nice’. Companies
often end up in that situation because people aren’t willing to have
tough conversations. That happens a lot in business.’
While co-operation is good, sometimes sparks need to fly for things
to progress. ‘You get better decisions if people have straightforward,
open, honest conversations – even if they’re painful,’ he says. The role
of managers is to get rid of the ‘elephant in the room’ to make sure
that people are willing to have them.
Hire people that will fit in
‘As soon as you recognise that people aren’t emotional cogs, that
they are emotional beings, you have to recognise that you’re not just
hiring for skill sets, you have to hire for cultural fit as well,’ says
Whitehurst. Lots of managers do that, but it’s often implicit, rather
than explicit.
At Red Hat, ‘we recognise that we need people who are comfortable
with ambiguity, that are very self-starting that actually thrive in a
world where there’s not a lot of rules.’ One way they do that is by
pro-actively hiring through employee referrals – ‘nobody knows a
red-hatter like another red-hatter.’
It's a controversial tactic - focusing too much on cultural fit means
closing your business to different ideas that could help it thrive.
Managers need to tread the balance between hiring people that will work
well within their organisation and bringing in identikit yes men.
Make decisions inclusively
In many businesses, ‘change management’ is about making a decision at
a high level and then communicating the reasons for it to employees.
Whitehurst says that’s the wrong way around. ‘It’s so much more
effective to engage people in making the decision and then you have no
"change management" – it happens during the decision-making process.
That’s partly about improving the decisions that are taken – ‘I’ve
been shocked at how much better the decisions are because the people
close to the problems are involved,’ says Whitehurst. But it’s also
about making people feel they have a say. ‘In the less hierarchical
socially connected world we live in today, the millennial type of people
that you want to hire expect that they’re going to be heard.’
That doesn’t mean you have to do what they say, of course. ‘People
don’t necessarily expect their opinion to win,’ says Whitehurst. They
just want to have a say.
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is an open infrastructure and
management platform for servers and workstations with robust security
capabilities. It is built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Kernel-based
Virtual Machine (KVM) technologies and enables customers to virtualize
both traditional and cloud-native applications. Red Hat Enterprise
Virtualization is the open alternative. It offers a high-performing,
fault-tolerant, and more secure platform for mission-critical,
virtualized Linux and Windows environments. Red Hat reduces the cost and
complexity of proprietary virtual machines (VM) through improved
economics, interoperability, and agility of virtualization. Backed by
Red Hat’s certified ecosystem of software and hardware partners, Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization offers unparalleled performance, scale, and
flexibility to support a broad range of critical workloads.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg are famous
names that we always heard of on the news and internet. But have you
heard about Jeff Bezos; CEO of Amazon.com – the largest and most
successful internet retail company in the world? Jeff Bezos currently
tops Fortune’s latest list of the world’s greatest leaders. Let’s have a
look on the leadership lessons that he practices that turned Amazon.com
from a garage operated company to a multi-million dollar business:
Be Stubborn and Flexible
“We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.”
This is what Bezos says when it comes to business. According to him, if
you are not persistent enough to pursue your dreams, you will easily
give up on the trial and error that you do for yourself/company. At the
same time, you need to be flexible on the details to see the bigger
picture when it comes to problem solving. In a nutshell, any
entrepreneur need to have these two characteristics in order to excel.
Never Stop Experimenting
“If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.”
Experimentation and willingness to invent has always been a part of the
culture in Amazon. It’s how new innovations are born and how they stay
competitive in the market.
Be Willing to Invent
Bezos lived by rule of rapid experimentation and invention. Invention
is really important to him and his team at Amazon. He looks for people
that like to invent and are always looking for ways to make products
better.
Think long-term
Thinking long term requires a tremendous amount of patience. This is
especially true when you’re the CEO who needs to focus on day-to-day
operations. Since its establishment in 1994, Bezos encountered numerous
obstacles and challenges in setting up the company as people barely know
what the internet is.
Obsess About Customers
“Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.” At Amazon, the team practices to always start with the customer and “working-backward” approach to upgrade your service. When you work backwards, you start with the customer and their needs and problems.
Take on new and unique experiences
Innovative leaders always embrace new experiences as a means to
engage in interactive learning. It’s important to approach new
activities with an open mind. When you’re working with a variety of
people, processes and products or solving new, complex problems, you’ll
see a big boost in creative thinking and you’ll gain new perspectives on
the world around you.
7. Work in a Call Centre
We live in a digital age where everything will go viral especially
when it comes to complaints and customer service. Bezos asks thousands
of Amazon managers, including himself, to attend two days of
call-center training each year. The end result: humility and empathy for
the customer.
Every day is a new day for Internet
We still have so much to learn on the World Wide Web. In an
interview, Bezos says that they treat every day as a new day for the
internet as there is so much to learn and discover.
Insist on the Highest Standards
Leaders have relentlessly high standards – many people may think
these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising
the bar and driving their teams to deliver high quality products,
services and processes. They ensure that defects do not get sent down
the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
Hire and Develop the Best
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire
and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move
them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take
seriously their role in coaching others.
The C# client (AKA Desktop Client/thick client/vSphere Client for Windows) will not
be available for the next version of vSphere. Current versions of
vSphere (6.0, 5.5) will not be affected, as those will follow the
standard support period. You’ve heard this from us in the past, but
we’ve been waiting for a sufficient replacement before finally moving
forward. Second, we want to talk about the recent vSphere HTML5 Web
Client Fling, user adoption, and VMware’s focus on bringing a great user
experience. Like the Embedded Host Client Fling (which made it into
vSphere in 6.0U2), we plan on bringing this product into a supported
release soon.
We’ll be referring to the new client as the vSphere Client, as it
better describes the product, and isn’t a ten syllable mouthful (vSphere
HTML5 Web Client).
Looking to the Future
VMware has been working towards the transition to HTML5 with the
Platform Services Controller UI, vCenter Server Appliance Management UI,
and the Host Client. All three of these were very well received and
have become the official interfaces for their respective components.
The last (and biggest) one to tackle was the management interface for
vCenter Server.
vSphere Web Client has always been intended to be the replacement for
the Desktop client, and many of our users have tried to embrace this
during the vSphere 5.5 and vSphere 6.0 periods, spending their time
working within the Web Client even with the Desktop client available.
While there were certainly issues with the 5.5 and 6.0 Web Client,
many users that committed to the experience came to enjoy many of the
new features and usability improvements. We also continued to listen to
our customers, making further efforts to improve the Web Client
experience have been made across 5.5U3, 6.0U1 and 6.0U2, including VUM
(vSphere Update Manager) in 6.0U1 Web Client. We have made the Desktop
client available during this period, which was much longer than
originally planned. But now that time is ending.
Additionally, due to the shift in backend services going from vSphere
6.0 to the next version, updating the Desktop client would have
required a huge investment. This may have been okay in a vacuum, but
the required resources would have severely impacted the progress of the
new vSphere Client, only to end up with four clients for users to
juggle. We decided to focus on bringing the new vSphere Client (HTML5
based) up to speed as fast as possible, simultaneously offering a great
user experience and getting off of Flash.
The new vSphere Client (HTML5)
This decision is about VMware trying to provide the best user
experience: a fast, reliable, scalable modern interface that allows you
to get your work done is our primary goal. The new vSphere Client is
the best way to achieve that goal. Many have already tried out the
Fling (https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vsphere-html5-web-client),
with approximately 40% of survey respondents deploying it into
Production and using it daily to manage their critical environments.
With this Fling, we’ll keep the user experience mostly the same as the
Web Client, which we’ve improved, based on your feedback. We also plan
on making additional improvements to make it easier for C# users to
transition.
One benefit of the Fling delivery model is very fast turnaround.
We’ve been able to release a new version of the Fling every week, with
new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements. More
importantly, we’ve been able to quickly incorporate user feedback into
the product. Sometimes this means simple bug fixes, sometimes this
means changing our priorities to better address user needs. While this
pace and model of delivery may not be used for the fully supported
releases, due to testing time required, we likely will continue to use
the Fling releases to stay on track with users. A fundamental part of
this high touch engagement model is users staying as up-to-date as
possible, and most of our Fling users are doing just that, so thank you!
Plugins
We also recognize how important plugins are, and the transition from
Web Client to vSphere Client will take second and third-party plugins
into account. We’ve already started engaging with plugin developers of
all sorts to get them moving to the HTML bridge, which will allow the
creation of a single plugin that is forward and backward compatible with
both the vSphere Client and the Web Client, creating a smooth
transition path. If you require more information on plugin migration,
please contact us. One great source of information is this site which
contains a lot of future looking information about vCenter. This site
will be updated as more information becomes available, so keep an eye on
it: http://www.vmware.com/products/vcenter-server/future-overview/overview.html
We do expect the plugin transition to take some time, and this means
that we expect to ship the Flex based Web Client and the HTML5 based
vSphere Client side by side for some uncertain period. Everyone is very
eager to have the new vSphere Client as the only client, but we want to respect the porting development time our partners require.
As
usual, the latest member of the RHEL 6.x family includes numerous small
improvements. The RHEL 6.8 base image has been changed to make it
easier for sysadmins to migrate their traditional workloads into
container-based applications.
To enhance virtual private networks (VPNs) security, RHEL 6.8 has switched to libreswan. This is an implementation of one of the widely supported IPSec VPN protocols. Libreswan replaces openswan as the RHEL 6 IPSEc VPN endpoint solution.
RHEL
6.8 users will also see increased client-side performance and simpler
management through the addition of new capabilities to the Identity
Management System Security Services Daemon (SSSD).
In addition, identity logins are sped up by using client cached
authentication look-up to reduce the unnecessary exchange of user
credentials with Active Directory (AD) servers. Support for adcli, an AD tool, willsimplify AD domain RHEL 6.x management. Finally, SSSD, which handles identity and authentication remote resources, now supports smart card user authentication.
Do you want local back-ups? Then you'll like that RHEL now includes Relax-and-Recover.
This is a really easy to use bare-metal system archiving tool. It
enables systems administrators to create local backups in an ISO format
that can be centrally archived and replicated remotely for simplified
disaster recovery operations. It's that rarest of things: A true set up
and forget it back-up system. I've used it myself and it works.
The
new RHEL also includes an enhanced yum package management tool. This
simplifies installing packages while adding intelligence to the process
of locating required packages to add or enable new platform features.
While it's not an Ubuntu Snap style packing system its functionality is a step in that direction.
Finally when it comes to storage, RHEL 6.8 now uses dmstats
to provide increased storage usage and performance visibility. In
addition, RHEL's Scalable File System Add-on 8 now supports xfs
file-system sizes up to 300TB.
Jim Totton, Red Hat's VP and
general manager of the Platforms Business Unit, said in a statement,
"RHEL 6.8 continues to demonstrate Red Hat's commitment to our
customers' many mission-critical deployments by delivering a proven
foundation for the applications and systems that power the modern
enterprise. With enhancements to security features and management, RHEL
6.8 remains a solid, proven base for modern enterprise IT operations."
Today's release also marks the transition of RHEL 6 into Production Phase 2.
In this part of RHEL 6's life-cycle Red Hat is prioritizing security
features for critical platform deployments over inovatation. If you want
the newest production ready Linux features, you'll want RHEL 7.2.
In
order to help these organizations take advantage of the benefits that
AWS has to offer while building on their existing investment in
virtualization, we are working with our friends at VMware to build and deliver VMware Cloud on AWS.