Cisco Network Infrastructure Vulnerability

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Article | July 13, 2023

With the regular increase of data in both cloud and organizations, a way to tackle these data and extract valuable insights is highly in demand. Although there are multiple tools available in the market not all of them can provide a complete resolution. Developed in 2003, Slunk has become the ideal tool for numerous businesses across the globe. It is a software platform that is popular for searching, monitoring, analyzing, and visualizing data in real-time. Slunk performs operations such as gathering, interpreting, and coordinating data to create alerts, dashboards, and graphs instantaneously. Why Splunk? 1. Business Flexibility It improves the way people around organizations identify, predict, and solve problems simultaneously. It helps in answering questions for every part of the business, be it DevOps, IT, or Business Development. It offers capabilities to detect, visualize and collaborate anytime. 2. Enhance Digitization Splunk assists businesses in ensuring the success of their digitization with its artificial intelligence and machine learning-based solutions. 3. New Opportunities No matter how much data you have gathered, Splunk will help in scaling according to the data volume. It does that with the ecosystem provided by its partners and services. 4. Data-To-Everything It is a platform that enables businesses to detect, monitor, analyze, and work with both structured and unstructured data regardless of their source and timescale. It allows users to ask any question related to insights and take actions accordingly. 5. Fast & Flexible The time to value can be sped up to two days. Companies can deploy in increasing capacity within two days and retrieve their data as long as 90 days. Moreover, the upgrades and updates are handled by the team for them. 6. Maximize Value The subscribers of Splunk do not have to manage infrastructure and they do not even need one. As a service, it offers scarce and valuable resources as required for better performance. 7. Robust Security Splunk is certified and authorized by ISO 27001 and FedRAMP. They proffer dedicated cloud environments with encryption to the customer for robust security as well. Apart from these major advantages, Splunk also grants incredible GUI, reduces troubleshooting time, real-time dashboard visibility, incorporates AI in data strategy, monitors business metrics, powerful visualization, and search. Some of the crucial features of Splunk include development & testing, faster ROI generation, developing real-time data applications, and real-time architecture stats & reports. Be Ready for Splunk-Based Cloud Infra Maintenance At its core, Splunk is an efficient tool for data aggregation that comes with versatile search functionality. Any business can get started with Splunk depending on certain needs they have for data-set monitoring and management. It allows users to take a highly effective data wealth that is pulled from different sources like websites, apps, or IoT. All that is needed to do is getting started with Splunk-based applications for which you can hire developers with relevant knowledge and experience.

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Article | October 3, 2023

Adopting DevOps and CD in IaaS environments is a strategic imperative for organizations seeking to achieve agility, competitiveness, and customer satisfaction in their software delivery processes. Contents 1. Introduction 2. What is IaaS Virtualization? 3. Virtualization Techniques for DevOps and Continuous Delivery 4. Integration of IaaS with CI/CD Pipelines 5. Considerations in IaaS Virtualized Environments 5.1. CPU Swap Wait 5.2. CPU System/Wait Time for VKernel: 5.3. Memory Balloon 5.4.Memory Swap Rate: 5.5. Memory Usage: 5.6. Disk/Network Latency: 6. Industry tips for IaaS Virtualization Implementation 6.1. Infrastructure Testing 6.2. ApplicationTesting 6.3. Security Monitoring 6.4. Performance Monitoring 6.5. Cost Optimization 7. Conclusion 1. Introduction Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) virtualization presents significant advantages for organizations seeking to enhance their agility, flexibility, and speed to market within the DevOps and continuous delivery frameworks. Addressing the associated risks and challenges is crucial and can be achieved by employing the appropriate monitoring and testing techniques, enlisted further, in this blog. IaaS virtualization allows organizations to provision and de-provision resources as needed, eliminating the need for long-term investments in hardware and data centers. Furthermore, IaaS virtualization offers the ability to operate with multiple operating systems, databases, and programming languages, empowering teams to select the tools and technologies that best suit their requirements. However, organizations must implement comprehensive testing and monitoring strategies, ensure proper security and compliance controls, and adopt the best resource optimization and management practices to leverage the full potential of virtualized IaaS. To achieve high availability and fault tolerance along with advanced networking, enabling complex application architectures in IaaS virtualization, the blog mentions five industry tips. 2. What is IaaS Virtualization? IaaS virtualization involves simultaneously running multiple operating systems with different configurations. To run virtual machines on a system, a software layer known as the virtual machine monitor (VMM) or hypervisor is required. Virtualization in IaaS handles website hosting, application development and testing, disaster recovery, and data storage and backup. Startups and small businesses with limited IT resources and budgets can benefit greatly from virtualized IaaS, enabling them to provide the necessary infrastructure resources quickly and without significant capital expenditures. Virtualized IaaS is a potent tool for businesses and organizations of all sizes, enabling greater infrastructure resource flexibility, scalability, and efficiency. 3. Virtualization Techniques for DevOps and Continuous Delivery Virtualization is a vital part of the DevOps software stack. Virtualization in DevOps process allows teams to create, test, and implement code in simulated environments without wasting valuable computing resources. DevOps teams can use the virtual services for thorough testing, preventing bottlenecks that could slow down release time. It heavily relies on virtualization for building intricate cloud, API, and SOA systems. In addition, virtual machines benefit test-driven development (TDD) teams that prefer to begin their troubleshooting at the API level. 4. Integration of IaaS with CI/CD Pipelines Continuous integration is a coding practice that frequently implements small code changes and checks them into a version control repository. This process not only packages software and database components but also automatically executes unit tests and other tests to provide developers with vital feedback on any potential breakages caused by code changes. Continuous testing integrates automated tests into the CI/CD pipeline. For example, unit and functionality tests identify issues during continuous integration, while performance and security tests are executed after a build is delivered in continuous delivery. Continuous delivery is the process of automating the deployment of applications to one or more delivery environments. IaaS provides access to computing resources through a virtual server instance, which replicates the capabilities of an on-premise data center. It also offers various services, including server space, security, load balancing, and additional bandwidth. In modern software development and deployment, it's common to integrate IaaS with CI/CD pipelines. This helps automate the creation and management of infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code (IAC) tools. Templates can be created to provision resources on the IaaS platform, ensuring consistency and meeting software requirements. Additionally, containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes can deploy applications on IaaS platforms. 5. Considerations in IaaS Virtualized Environments 5.1. CPU Swap Wait The CPU swap wait is when the virtual system waits while the hypervisor swaps parts of the VM memory back in from the disk. This happens when the hypervisor needs to swap, which can be due to a lack of balloon drivers or a memory shortage. This can affect the application's response time. One can install the balloon driver and/or reduce the number of VMs on the physical machine to resolve this issue. 5.2. CPU System/Wait Time for VKernel Virtualization systems often report CPU or wait time for the virtualization kernel used by each virtual machine to measure CPU resource overhead. While this metric can't be directly linked to response time, it can impact both ready and swap times if it increases significantly. If this occurs, it could indicate that the system is either misconfigured or overloaded, and reducing the number of VMs on the machine may be necessary. 5.3. Memory Balloon Memory ballooning is a memory management technique used in virtualized IaaS environments. It works by injecting a software balloon into the VM's memory space. The balloon is designed to consume memory within the VM, causing it to request more memory from the hypervisor. As a result, if the host system is experiencing low memory, it will take memory from its virtual infrastructures, thus negatively affecting the guest's performance, causing swapping, reduced file-system buffers, and smaller system caches. 5.4. Memory Swap Rate Memory swap rate is a performance metric used in virtualized IaaS environments to measure the amount of memory being swapped to disk. When the swap rate is high, it leads to longer CPU swap times and negatively affects application performance. In addition, when a VM is running, it may require more memory than is physically available on the server. In such cases, the hypervisor may use disk space as a temporary storage area for excess memory. Therefore, to optimize, it is important to ensure that VMs have sufficient memory resources allocated. 5.5. Memory Usage Memory usage refers to the amount of memory being used by a VM at any given time. Memory usage is assessed by analyzing the host level, VM level, and granted memory. When memory usage exceeds the available physical memory on the server, the hypervisor may use disk space as a temporary storage area for excess memory, leading to performance issues. The disparity between used and granted memory indicates the overcommitment rate, which can be adjusted through ballooning. 5.6. Disk/Network Latency Some virtualization providers provide integrated utilities for assessing the latency of disks and network interfaces utilized by a virtual machine. Since latency directly affects response time, increased latency at the hypervisor level will also impact the application. An excessive amount of latency indicates the system is overloaded and requires reconfiguration. These metrics enable us to monitor and detect any negative impact a virtualized system might have on our application. 6. Industry tips for IaaS Virtualization Implementation Testing, compliance management and security arecritical aspects of managing virtualized IaaS environments . By implementing a comprehensive strategy, organizations ensure their infrastructure and applications' reliability, security, and performance. 6.1. Infrastructure Testing This involves testing the infrastructure components of the IaaS environment, such as the virtual machines, networks, and storage, aiming to ensure the infrastructure is functioning correctly and that there are no performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, or configuration issues. Testing the virtualized environment, storage testing (testing data replication and backup and recovery processes), and network testing are some of the techniques to be performed. 6.2. Application Testing Applications running on the IaaS virtual environment should be thoroughly tested to ensure they perform as expected. This includes functional testing to ensure that the application meets its requirements and performance testing to ensure that the application can handle anticipated user loads. 6.3. Security Monitoring Security monitoring is critical in IaaS environments, owing to the increased risks and threats. This involves monitoring the infrastructure and applications for potential security threats, vulnerabilities, or breaches. In addition, regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing help identify and address potential security issues before they become significant problems. 6.4. Performance Monitoring Performance monitoring is essential to ensuring that the underlying infrastructure meets performance expectations and has no performance bottlenecks. This comprises monitoring metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, network traffic, and disk utilization. This information is used to identify performance issues and optimize resource usage. 6.5. Cost Optimization Cost optimization is a critical aspect of a virtualized IaaS environment with optimized efficiency and resource allocation. Organizations reduce costs and optimize resource usage by identifying and monitoring usage patterns and optimizing elastic and scalable resources. It involves right-sizing resources, utilizing infrastructure automation, reserved instances, spot instances (unused compute capacity purchased at a discount), and optimizing storage usage. 7. Conclusion IaaS virtualization has become a critical component of DevOps and continuous delivery practices. To rapidly develop, test, and deploy applications with greater agility and efficiency by providing on-demand access to scalable infrastructure resources to Devops teams, IaaS virtualization comes into picture. As DevOps teams continue to seek ways to streamline processes and improve efficiency, automation will play an increasingly important role. Automated deployment, testing, and monitoring processes will help reduce manual intervention and increase the speed and accuracy of development cycles. In addition, containers will offer a lightweight and flexible alternative to traditional virtualization, allowing DevOps teams to package applications and their dependencies into portable, self-contained units that can be easily moved between different environments. This can reduce the complexity of managing virtualized infrastructure environments and enable greater flexibility and scalability. By embracing these technologies and integrating them into their workflows, DevOps teams can achieve greater efficiency and accelerate their delivery of high-quality software products.

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, Windows Systems and Network

Article | July 11, 2023

Discover the list of best hyperconverged infrastructure books and gain knowledge on the latest advancements in HCI and process design & explore areas for HCI improvements in the infrastructure domain. This comprehensive guide presents a curated selection of top books to consider for adopting Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) in IT infrastructure. Organizations increasingly recognize HCI as a transformative solution that streamlines data center management, enhances scalability, and optimizes resource utilization. To navigate this technology effectively, businesses must equip themselves with the proper knowledge and insights from authoritative sources. The carefully compiled list of books featured here offers valuable information, providing IT professionals and decision-makers with a solid foundation to make informed choices and successfully implement HCI within their IT infrastructure. 1. Hyperconverged Infrastructure Data Centers: Demystifying HCI Author: Sam Halabi Hyperconverged Infrastructure Data Centers: Demystifying HCI is a highly informative and authoritative guide that provides a clear understanding of Hyperconverged Infrastructure technology. Written for technical professionals and IT managers, the book offers a vendor-neutral perspective on HCI, covering its use cases and comparing leading hyperconvergence solutions in the market. Halabi effectively explains HCI's benefits, combining storage, computing, and networking into a single system, offering simplicity, scalability, and flexibility without sacrificing control. The book explores computing, virtualization, and software-defined storage advancements, highlighting the improvements they bring to data center designs. The author guides readers through the HCI lifecycle, including evaluation, planning, implementation, and management. The book also delves into HCI applications such as DevOps, virtual desktops, and disaster recovery, presenting a new application deployment and management model. 2. Hyperconverged Infrastructure: A Complete Guide Author: The Art of Service - Hyperconverged Infrastructure Publishing This book is a valuable resource for individuals and organizations seeking to understand and leverage the potential of hyperconverged infrastructure. This guide takes a question-based approach, empowering readers to uncover challenges and develop effective solutions. The guide provides a comprehensive self-assessment tool covering seven core HCI maturity levels. With updated case-based questions, readers can diagnose their HCI projects, initiatives, organizations, and processes based on accepted diagnostic standards and practices. It helps readers identify areas where HCI improvements can be made and provides a clear picture of the attention those areas require, enabling them to lead their organizations effectively and address what truly matters. It empowers readers to make their HCI investments work better by guiding them through asking the right questions and seeking innovative perspectives. 3. Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Practical Tools for Self-Assessment Author: Gerardus Blokdyk The book is a valuable resource for individuals in diverse business roles seeking to optimize their Hyperconverged infrastructure investments. This comprehensive guide emphasizes the integration of HCI with other business initiatives and the monitoring of HCI activities' effectiveness. The guide emphasizes the use of HCI data and information to support organizational decision-making and foster innovation. One of the strengths of this guide lies in its focus on leveraging HCI data and information for organizational decision-making and innovation. The self-assessment tool helps identify areas for improvement, with case-based questions organized into seven core areas of process design. Nevertheless, this guide equips readers with the necessary tools and insights to maximize the value of HCI investments, align with business objectives, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. 4. Hyper-converged Infrastructure Standard Requirements Author: Gerardus Blokdyk This book offers individuals various business roles considering or exploring hyper-converged infrastructure implementation. This comprehensive guide emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions and understanding the challenges and hyperconvergence solutions related to HCI. It provides a set of organized case-based questions, enabling readers to diagnose their HCI projects and identify areas for improvement. The self-assessment tool helps organizations implement evidence-based best practices and integrate the latest advancements in HCI and process design. With the Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Scorecard, readers can gain a clear understanding of the areas that require attention and prioritize their efforts accordingly. The digital components accompanying the book provide additional resources to support organizations in their HCI journey. 5. The Gorilla Guide to Hyperconverged Infrastructure Implementation Strategies Author: Scott D. Lowe The Gorilla Guide to Hyperconverged Infrastructure Implementation Strategies is a book designed for strategic planners seeking innovative segmentation methods. This book offers individuals various business roles exploring HCI implementation. It starts with the architecture of hyper-converged architecture, followed by Exploring the Intersection of Software-Defined Networking and HCI. It delved into addressing the pain points and storage performance in HCI, with relevant use cases for practical examples. It covers data-center consolidation, test and development environments, and HCI economics, for its impact on the IT budget. It helps organizations implement evidence-based best practices and integrate the latest advancements in HCI and process design. 6. The 2022 Report on Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: World Market Segmentation by City Author: Prof Philip M. Parker The '2022 Report on Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: World Market Segmentation by City' is a book designed for global strategic planners seeking innovative segmentation methods. This report covers over 2,000 cities across 200 countries, providing insights into the estimated market size (latent demand) of hyper-converged infrastructure in each significant city worldwide. The report ranks these cities based on their market size relative to their respective countries, geographic regions, and global market. The sales of hyper-converged infrastructure encompass a wide range of products, including hypervisors such as VMware, KVM, and Hyper-V, used for various purposes like virtual desktop infrastructure, server virtualization, data protection, and cloud solutions. Prominent companies in the industry, including VMware, Nutanix, Maxta, and others are covered in the report. The information presented is gathered from public sources, including news, press releases, and industry players, and is reported in U.S. dollars without adjusting for inflation. 7. The 2020-2025 World Outlook for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Author: Prof Philip M. Parker The World Outlook for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure study comprehensively analyzes the global market across more than 190 countries. It offers estimates of the latent demand, or potential industry earnings (P.I.E.), for each country, expressed in millions of U.S. dollars. The report also presents the country's share as a percentage of the region and the global market, enabling readers to assess its relative position. The study generates latent demand estimates using econometric models that project economic dynamics within and between countries. While it does not delve into specific market players or product details, it takes a strategic, long-term perspective, disregarding short-term cyclical fluctuations and focusing on aggregated trends. A multi-stage methodology, often taught in graduate business courses on international strategic planning, was employed to formulate these estimates. Wrap-up The adoption of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure represents a significant opportunity for businesses to revolutionize their IT infrastructure, improve operational efficiency, and unlock new levels of agility and scalability. The books recommended in this listicle serve as indispensable resources for IT professionals and decision-makers seeking to embark on an HCI journey. By investing in the knowledge imparted by these authoritative texts, you empower yourself and your organization to leverage the full potential of HCI and stay at the forefront of technological advancements. Remember, success in adopting HCI lies not only in the technology itself but also in the understanding and expertise gained through continuous learning and exploration.

Article | May 4, 2020

Enterprises running hypervisors on hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) systems typically have backup options available to them that are not available to those running on generic hardware. Such customers may also have additional backup challenges depending on the HCI vendor and hypervisor they have chosen. Let’s take a look.