posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:22 PM
Server virtualization is booming. Enterprise organizations and mom-n-pop operations alike are experiencing a whole new level of flexibility within their IT operations. Server virtualization not only provides cost savings through consolidation, but also 
provides reduced deployment times and greater control over the use of finite resources. The sophisticated tools provided by today’s leading hypervisor vendors create the ability to dynamically balance the resource needs of applications across the available resources. Instead of having to invest in resources to meet the needs of every application’s peak requirements, they can dynamically move unused resource to augment applications experiencing peak traffic. For instance, accounting systems often need significantly more processing resources at the end of the month, quarter or year than they do to handle day-to-day operations. Instead of having to deploy static resources to meet the needs of this peak usage, as traditionally done, server virtualization allows you to move workloads around to meet this need.
Increased demands of mobile users and talk of cloud computing architectures, however, are driving organizations to push these capabilities even further. Enterprise’s want the ability to move applications closer to the users, move processing to dormant resources in international datacenters during off-peak hours and are increasingly interested in dynamically provisioning resources in third-party locations such as cloud providers and managed hosting providers. This requires the ability to move massive virtual image files between distant locations in near real-time and the capability of dynamically rerouting application requests from one location to another—all with no impact to the users of those applications. These demands go way beyond the scope of server virtualization tools.
In January of 2009, F5 released BIG-IP v10.0. With it came a new functionality called iSessions. iSessions, included as part of the TMOS platform, provided the ability to create dynamic, optimized and secure tunnels between BIG-IP devices even ones in geographically disparate locations. In August of that year, F5 announced and demoed the ability to use this functionality in conjunction with VMWare to provide uninterrupted access to applications as they were moved ‘live’ from one datacenter to another. With the release of BIG-IP v10.1 and the WAN Optimization Module, F5 continues to extend the capabilities and integration with VMWare to enable organizations to rapidly respond to changing application and business requirements by seamlessly migrating live applications across geographically dispersed data centers.
Now, F5 continues to lead the industry by publishing deployment guidance and test results that illustrate and validate the value of deploying F5® and VMware solutions in concert to extend live migration capabilities across long distances for VMware vSphere™ 4 environments in a secure, accelerated manner.
“VMware VMotion™ and Storage VMotion capabilities are significant differentiators for VMwar
e vSphere™. F5’s technology complements VMware solutions, making it possible to execute live workload migrations over greater distances. Combining VMware vSphere with BIG-IP® solutions expands the many use cases possible, and adds to the value we’re able to offer customers.”- Parag Patel, Vice President, Alliances at VMware.
By integrating elements of F5’s application delivery solutions, Local Traffic Manager (LTM), Global Traffic Manager (GTM) and the new WAN Optimization Module (WOM), the F5 solution provides several benefits to the overall solution. WOM provides the secure and optimized datacenter-to-datacenter connection that enables the workload to be migrated in a fraction of the time. Once the workload has been transferred, GTM directs new user requests to the new location of the application. LTM, again utilizing the WOM services, enables existing user sessions to continue with minimal impact even though the application is now actually served from the other datacenter by routing user’s requests until they terminate.
According to recent ESG research, increasing server virtualization usage is the top overall IT priority facing organizations over the next 12 to 18 months. The mobility of virtual machines now provided by F5 and VMware will help companies distribute workloads across data centers, relocate applications closer to the end-user, and perform live data center migrations.” - Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group.
This solution enables customers of both F5 and VMware to see the benefits and possibilities of taking an integrated and holistic approach to their virtualization efforts and receive the full value of their investment.
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