VMUG, Phoenix Jim SinghMay 14, 2009 Director of Technology, VMLogix

Use Cases and Applicability of Virtual Lab Automation Across the Enterprise

Question/Answer and Follow Up

Register on vmlogix.com for whitepapers, product walkthroughs and evaluation copies

Website: http://www.vmlogix.com Blog: http://blog.vmlogix.com

Jim Singh

Director of Technology

228 Hamilton Avenue ∙ 3rd Floor ∙ Palo Alto, CA 94301

m: +1 (512) 917-5467jim.singh@vmlogix.com

Agenda

1. Virtual Lab Automation (VLA)2. Value Derived from VLA3. Use Cases – Dev/Test, Training, Support, Demo4. Q&A

VIRTUAL LAB AUTOMATION

Software Trends Driving Need for Virtual Labs

Increasing software complexity• Complex multi-machine build and test

configurations• Difficult and time-consuming to set up and

tear downMonolithic Client-server 3-tier, n-tier SOA

OSes Databases Browsers Hardware Languages

European Software Team

Indian Outsourcing PartnerUS Headquarters

Outsourcing / Distributed Teams• Replicated development, test and support

labs cost-prohibitive• Seamless process compliance, knowledge-

sharing and collaboration

Exploding interoperability matrix• More build and test configurations• Difficult to isolate and reproduce defects• Physical and virtual machine sprawl

What is Virtual Lab Automation (VLA)?

1. Centralized & Shared Lab Infrastructure

2. Policy Driven Self Service 3. Automation4. Storage Optimizations5. Multi-Machine

Configurations 6. Network Zoning7. Reproduce Prod.

Environments8. Lab Resources

Management

1. Centralized & Shared Lab Infrastructure

2. Policy Driven Self Service 3. Automation4. Storage Optimizations5. Multi-Machine

Configurations 6. Network Zoning7. Reproduce Prod.

Environments8. Lab Resources

Management

All this management capabilities in a hypervisor

agnostic manner!

All this management capabilities in a hypervisor

agnostic manner!

Beyond Provisioning and Enabling Faster Collaboration

Lab Production Summary of Differences

Complexity of VMs Multi-Machine Single Machine Production tools manage single VMs. In the lab, multi-machine configurations are managed as one unit.

Users with access Many Few Production dictates that only IT has access. In the Lab, different groups need varying levels of access.

Rate of Change High Low Production cycles are measured in months, QA measures in days.

Collaboration High None Production state is protected. Lab state is shared freely among users.

Ease of Use High Low Production tools designed for IT administrator. Lab system is web-based, WYSIWYG application

Contrasting Lab and Production Management Apps

Different usage goals necessitate different management tools.

IT Ops

Change ControlLab Automation

•Dev•QA/Test•Support•Demo•Training

Virtual Lab Automation: Myriad of Use Cases

Application Development• Original and still dominant use case• Immediate provisioning/deployment of

multi-machine dev and test environments

Patch Testing• Manage library of various system

configurations, with varying patch/version levels

Support• Replicate customer environments in

image library• Instant access to software versions and

host environments

Training • Eliminate manual set-up/tear-down for

instructors of lab equipment• Provide students self-serve lab for

hands-on exercises

Software Demonstrations• Provide sales, sales engineers and

product managers instant access to “clean” demo environments

Hosting Providers• Services delivered on standard system

configurations, which can be easily stored and provisioned in the image library

Virtual Labs can be put to work in a number of situations – but Dev/Test remains dominant

RETURN ON INVESTMENT OFVIRTUAL LAB AUTOMATION

Value of Virtual Lab Automation

Lower IT Costs• Reduce virtual and physical machine

sprawl in the lab• Eliminate manual set-up and tear-down

of multi-machine configurations

Improve Software Quality• Reduce risk by increasing your test matrix

coverage• Enable developers to rapidly locate and

reproduce defects

Accelerate Time to Market• Minimize delays and hand-offs between

Development, Test and Support• Provide users with self-service, on-

demand access to lab infrastructure

80-90% Reduction in physical server requirements 50-80% Reduction in storage requirements 80% Reduction in provisioning time for QA 95% Reduction in time to share defect reproduction

280 hours spent managing testing environments annually

Case Study Lab Environment

25 individuals split between development and QA50 physical servers to support engineering team4 release per year, each with 3 release candidates10% of defects require environment reproduction

1800 hours spent managing testing environments annually

$400K in Hard ROI for 25 employees over 3 Years

Testing case study

The Problem and The Customer Challenges

• The Scenario and ProblemISV with 3000+ customersThe ISV product deploys on multiple OSes, supports many languages, browsers and databases; typically installed in a two tier environmentEvery bug found in the field costs the engineering and ISV dearly

• Customer ChallengesTest Environment Creation - Takes 2+ hours to re-create a test environment; for every release the customer was dedicating 300 hours to provisioning alone!No central library of test environments No central library of CD/DVD ISOsOperational challenges in deploying test environments (e.g., IP conflicts in virtual machines)Resource hog - Test engineers did not free up resources promptly (i.e., un-deploy virtual machines once test runs were complete)No easy way to share test environment runs with other members (like sharing bug states with development staff)

The VMLogix Solution and Benefits

• VMLogix Solution5 (at HQ) quad core servers running VMware ESX each with 128 GB of RAM connected to 4 TB of storageVMLogix LabManager 3.6.1Use of Windows and Linux based guest VM images in multi-machine configurations

• Solution BenefitsSave time on test environment creation - few minutes vs. 2 hoursSave on storage – “Linked clones” reduce the VM storage 60-90%Operational benefits – IP zoning ensured no conflicts, central library of CD/DVD ISOs availableControl VM deployment sprawl – Deployment leases and quotas to prevent resource hog situationsUser/team collaboration – Share/collaborate with lab users/teamsAutomated test environment – Second order automation within guest VMs – helps reduce VM deployment time

Freed 7.5 man weeks of test engineer time in a year

Freed 7.5 man weeks of test engineer time in a year

Testing Use Case: Before/After

Training case study

The Problem and The Customer Challenges

• The Scenario and ProblemF-500 multi-national software vendorMultiple weekly training classes (on premise and remote) throughout the year, a single training lab requires dozens of machines with full software stack50 staff engineers deliver training on their product to internal and external users

• Customer ChallengesClass Planning and System Preparation –

800 hours/week spent just preparing systems for the classes! Time increased further when customer data needed to be added in training labs No access controls to prevent accidental wipeout by others once systems were prepared

Lab Operations and Delivering Training Sessions – Huge challenge bringing up the lab virtual machines (IP address conflicts etc.)Trainees often logged in to the wrong set of machines, instructors were unable to monitor each individual trainee

The VMLogix Solution and Benefits

• VMLogix Solution8 VMware ESX servers each running on a quad core processor with 128 GB of RAM and connected to 4 TB of shared storageVMLogix LabManager 3.6.1SSL VPN Gateway, LDAP for authenticationUse of Windows and Linux based images in multi-machine configurations

• Solution BenefitsIncreased instructor availability – freed time from lab setupRe-purposed staff who previously conducted lab setup Accelerated setup time (guest automation) and concurrent provisioning for multiple labs offered in the weekEnforced server integrity – through user access policies in the labIncreased flexibility – e.g., easily add new students to the classCentralized training lab operationsInstant access to demos – easily roll out new software to training labs

Saved $1.5M on otherwise wasted resources & productivity

Saved $1.5M on otherwise wasted resources & productivity

Training Use Case: Before/After

Support case study

The Problem and The Customer Challenges

• The Scenario and ProblemF-500 multi-national software vendorLevel 1 support offered via phone, level 2-3 are complex support issues; 60,000 customer scenario provisions done in a year120 support engineers deliver support from multiple geographies

• Customer ChallengesTime for provisioning – 30-45 minutes for single environment creation (using a home grown application)Myriad of configurations – 200 different OS and product combinations possible! Storage overutilization – Full VM copies led to tremendous storage wastageConflicts during environment deployment – E.g., IP address conflictsServer sprawl – Support engineers did not free up resources promptly and the deployed configurations were nailed up for daysSecurity and Reporting – The lab did not have the required access control and permissions

The VMLogix Solution and Benefits

• VMLogix Solution8 (at HQ) + 3 (at remote locations) quad core ESX servers each with 128 GB of RAM connected to 4 TB of storageVMLogix LabManager 3.6.1Active Directory (AD) for authenticationUse of Windows and Linux based images in multi-machine configurations

• Solution BenefitsPeople/Effort savings – Minimal administration of lab environment, phase out in-house developed custom applications Time savings – a fully operational configuration could be deployed in less than 5 minutes (vs. 45 minutes previously)Central library - 200+ configurations modeled easily and available to all users in a central libraryStorage savings – store only differentials for VM copy/snapshotsOperational benefits – Leverage IP zones, deployment leases and sharing/collaboration between users and teams

Saved $1.3M on otherwise wasted resources

Saved $1.3M on otherwise wasted resources

Support Use Case: Before/After

Demo case study

The Problem and The Customer Challenges

• The Scenario and ProblemF-500 multi-national software vendor50 products in the catalog, each with multiple packaged offerings. Every sale required at least 2-3 demos; took about 2 hours for a demo to be setup800 sales reps based across NA that deliver on-site as well as remote product demos

• Customer ChallengesAd-hoc demo solution environment – the existing solution was a distributed and ad-hoc nature of VM sharing and hosting on serversDemo readiness

No single sales engineer was familiar with demo environment creation for all productsIt took many hours to create the environment with up to 12 simultaneous running machines required for some demosSince it took long to setup, unscheduled demos were impossible to deliver

Accessing consistent demo environments – the demo environments across sales engineers differed wildly and there was no consistent demo across sales engineersAdopting new releases – It was very difficult to push new products to the field (of 800)Building reliable demos – Sales engineers were never sure if the demo is going to ‘work’ since the demo environment setup was complex

The VMLogix Solution and Benefits

• VMLogix Solution25 VMware ESX 3.5 Servers; each with Dual-Core processor and 64GB RAM12TB of Fiber Channel disk storageVMLogix LabManager 3.6.1SSL VPN Device to provide secure remote access, even from customer sites

• Solution BenefitsAbility to service more customers – Sales engineers saved 4-8+ hours/week since they were freed up from demo setup and maintenanceRapid access to demo environments – near instant access to a complex demo setup from a library of ready to deploy demo configurationsSelf serve environment – Every sales engineer self serviced their IT requirements without waiting for IT administratorsCentralized management and operations – central lab helped control sprawl and plan lab capacity betterOperational benefits – Sales engineers had reliable metrics on demos (e.g., frequently used demos etc.); instant access and rollout to field for new demos and products

Saved $2M on otherwise wasted resources & productivity

Saved $2M on otherwise wasted resources & productivity

Demo Use Case: Before/After

About VMLogix Inc.

• Funded by Bain Capital Ventures & Trilogy in Q3 ‘06• First hyper-agnostic product brought to market 18 months ago• Rapid customer adoptions, thousands of users, global distribution• Award winning, industry recognized Virtual Lab Automation product

Enterprise Partnerships

Question/Answer and Follow Up

Register on vmlogix.com for whitepapers, product walkthroughs and evaluation copies

Website: http://www.vmlogix.com Blog: http://blog.vmlogix.com

Jim Singh

Director of Technology

228 Hamilton Avenue ∙ 3rd Floor ∙ Palo Alto, CA 94301

m: +1 (512) 917-5467jim.singh@vmlogix.com

Virtualization Overview

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197004875

Virtualization is being rapidly adopted and

is playing an increasingly important role in the way software is built, tested and delivered

Virtualization Transforms Development and Testing

• Virtual lab automation is listed as one of the top timer saver technologies of 2008

Source: eWeek, Jan 2008

• Test/Development is the second highest use of virtual machines Source: SearchDataCenter Purchasing Intentions Survey 2007

• 73% of companies using virtualization to its fullest potential have a formal process for moving virtualized applications from testing and development to production

Source: Aberdeen May 2008

Managing the Lab: Demands Placed on IT Ops

Dev/QA

Support

Demo &Training

IT Operations Tasks

• Handling provisioning requests

• Controlling machine sprawl

• Ensuring environment consistency

• Licensing compliance• Being able to reset environments to a known good state• Updating environments to include new product revisions• Accessing environments remotely

Time spent on provisioning, is time taken away from higher ROI initiatives.

• Provisioning faster to spend more time on development and testing• Covering all parts of testing matrix• Sharing defect with developers for issue reproduction

• Provisioning systems to match customer environments• Having easy access to a wide variety of 3rd party products• Sharing defects with dev / QA

Functional Demands