People who read this blog must sometimes think I come up with all these ideas all by my lonesome self.
I do my fair share, but I'm also heavily influenced from others here at EMC.
Today, I'm going to channel another VMware uber-geek at EMC, Chad Sakac, and explore the simple but powerful concept of barcodes as today's virtualized environments evolve into tomorrow's private clouds.
It's just a well-understood concept from one domain being applied to another.
Before We Get Started
If you weren't able to go to VMworld in Cannes last week, you've got to check out Chad's massive post from the show. There's a ton of commentary, videos, etc. -- gave me a great sense of everything that was going on there.
Which brings me back to something I hear him saying quite frequently these days ...
Consider The Humble Barcode
They're on just about every container these days.
The barcode can tell you what's inside the box, where it's going and when it needs to be there, any special handling that's required, maybe how this box is part of a larger shipment that needs to be kept together -- and more.
Actually, the barcode itself doesn't have all of that information -- it's just a pointer to a database that tells you what you need to know about this particular container.
If you handle lots of containers and packages, it's hard to remember how life used to be before barcodes. They're simply an indispensible part of how we move and store things today.
IT Needs Barcodes Badly
But if you'd like to get a sense of just how difficult life might be without barcodes, consider the average IT environment.
Depending on the environment, there can be thousands to millions of discrete entities: applications, middleware, servers, networks, storage, etc. etc. They all have a specific role to play in the infrastructure. They all have special handling requirements, and relate to other entities in important ways.
Now, imagine if everything in IT had a barcode. The barcode could be read when needed, and tell you everything you needed to know about what's in the container -- automatically, if desired.
Great idea -- but we need containers to put the barcodes on, don't we?
Enter VMware
One way of describing virtualization -- and what VMware does -- is that it puts IT stuff into containers that can pretty much run anywhere at anytime. Server application stacks as well as desktop application stacks.
And, if you've been playing with VSAs (virtual storage appliances) lately, you're probably aware that all manner of IT infrastructure (backup, management, security, file systems, etc.) is becoming able to run in virtual machines.
And every container has the potential to support a barcode, doesn't it?
This application container here has a barcode that says it's supposed to run at very high performance, always in an HA mode, and required continuous data protection. This desktop container here has a barcode that says this is a very secure environment -- it should always be encrypted, and never outside the firewall.
This application container over here is actually part of a more complex business process, so we should think of all the individual pieces as a single "shipment" in terms of performance, availability, etc.
For example, a file system running as a VSA has a label on it that says it's supporting all these other barcodes -- similar to the label on the side of the truck carrying a bunch of other barcoded containers.
All the barcode does is point at a database entry that tells you what you need to know when you scan the barcode. Change the database, change how things are handled.
Use your imagination a bit.
Barcodes And The Private Cloud
In the physical world, barcodes allow multiple parties to be involved in the production and distribution of goods. Layers upon layers of infrastructure providers create an end-to-end service that makes and moves stuff.
The same general thinking will likely emerge in the IT world. As application and information containers are used internally, barcodes help the IT infrastructure ensure performance, availability, security and cost-optimization. And do so in a much more automated fashion than we see today.
As internal resources begin to be federated with compatible external resources (a key concept of private clouds), these barcodes help ensure that IT's expectations are met around the same parameters -- much like it works in the logistics business today.
Beyond CMDBs
As I look at what's being talked about today with CMDBs (configuration management databases), the basic concepts are going to have to evolve substantially to embrace this far richer and far more dynamic view of IT orchestration.
Because, the magic here isn't the barcode per se -- it's what you can do with it.
Cmon. UIDs. Namespaces. Extensible namespaces not numbers. Think about IPv4, IPv6. WWN's.
IT is change management. There are a few massively important things in IT infrastructure.
DATA plane
CONTROL plane
MGT_CTRL planes: that's 3.
Then there's time(e.g. NTP), routing(IGP/EGP-> OSPF/FSPF/BGP, name-services(e.g. DNS), logging/event and mgt protos such as SNMP etc: that's another 5.
What addressing schema/syntax/namespace addresses mobility and extensibility in all these cases? Keys and values are cool. Just how to address keyspace, collisions and the future?
If you want to look at something that addresses energy, extensibility and interoperability look at something like internet0. http://cba.mit.edu/projects/I0/I0.ppt , but still needs a namespace...
Posted by: irldexter | March 12, 2009 at 10:43 PM
Oh yeah and RFID is more appropriate for many reasons least of which obscured barcode/reader ability... line of sight etc..
Just F.Y.I. don't take this negatively... think about prevalence of 802.11b/g/n for example etc.. and space for new namespaces like the TXT records in DNS.
Posted by: irldexter | March 12, 2009 at 10:56 PM