Virtuozzo – Our first look at Hybrid Infrastructure

Introduction

Here at Boston Limited, we have the fantastic opportunity to test top of the line solutions and partner with other brilliant vendors to give you unrivalled solutions. In this article we will be going over the offering of the Hybrid Infrastructure from Virtuozzo.

What is Virtuozzo?

Originally founded as SWsoft in 1997 (now Parallels as of 2008), Virtuozzo was created in 2001 and was one of the first companies to create commercially viable container technology, giving way to how VMs and containers work today. Eventually spun out to be independent in 2015, the full range of capabilities includes but is not limited to the creation and management of both containers and virtual machines, operational efficiency, greatly optimising both resource allocation and utilisation, easy scalability (including storage), with access to backups, disaster recovery and high availability. With the capacity for various workloads, they have both the options for hosting in the cloud and to have on-site support, making it ideally suited for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and enterprise-based companies to implement sturdy cloud infrastructures.

Hybrid Infrastructure

Hosted on customer hardware, the Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure an easy-to-use interface based on OpenStack, allowing for fast deployments across all nodes in the environment. By having complete control over the hypervisor itself, enterprise IT teams can create the exact environment they require with unparallelled precision.

The GUI is broken into smaller categories to avoid user overload. They include:

Monitoring

o?? Overview of system resources

o?? System alerts and logs

o?? Access to a built-in Grafana dashboard

Compute

o?? Overview of system resources

o?? Current nodes attached to the environment

o?? Created virtual machines

o?? Images and Flavors

o?? Networks with access to routers, floating IPs and other functions

o?? Storage which shows all VM drives and other allocations

o?? Backups that can be configured to allow for data redundancy and Kubernetes support for container creation

Storage Devices

o?? Backup Storage including Block, S3 and NFS storage configurations

Infrastructure

o?? Overview of nodes and networks

Settings

o?? Allows the use of add-on services

o?? License tab

o?? Overview of Projects and Users within the environment

o?? Generic system settings and updates

Monitoring

Dashboard

The dashboard shows the storage metrics that can be changed from 1 hour up to 7 days. The information displayed shows the reads and writes of storage in use within the environment as well as the chunks usage. It also shows the physical space available in addition to the logical space, giving a breakdown of where the storage is being used. Finally, the Services tab shows all the Chunk Services (CS) and Meta Data Storage (MDS) that is active and/or failed.

There is also a built-in Grafana tab. This has a multitude of graphs and options for a much more in-depth overview of the entire environment giving a much broader option to find what is required.

Alerts

The Alerts tab shows any possible issues with the cluster, be it from warnings from possible incorrect settings to outright critical failures. This will always flag on the side panel as these detections can cause system instability, operational issues or worst-case cease functionality of the environment.

Audit Log

The Audit Log is a complete overview of activities within the environment. Any changes will be stored here, from a user logging in, a change in an IP address to a deletion of a VM, it can all be viewed from here.

Compute

Overview

Under the Compute tab there is the Overview, which gives information regarding what VMs and resources are being used or are free. It covers any reserved vCPU resources, RAM and provisioned storage. It also has the status of any VMs that are in the cluster, a list of the most resource intensive VMs and any alerts regarding any issues they may have.

Nodes

The Nodes panel shows what current systems have been configured to be used as part of the Compute cluster within the environment. These will house any containers or virtual machines users will create and use. Redundancy is selected during cluster creation and depending on how many nodes will be in the cluster will result in the type of redundancy offered.

Virtual Machines

This area of the GUI has several tabs worth of note. Firstly, the Virtual Machines tab, here is where users create their VMs and shows what is currently in use, what resources have been assigned and which node in the cluster they are being stored on.

The next tab is for Images. Images are ISOs that are stored in the environment for use with Virtual Machines which usually contain operating systems (OS). Further ISOs can be uploaded by the “Add image” button.

The Flavors tab are what resources VMs are configured to use on creation. There are several presets that can be applied to quicky get VMs up and running as well as an option to create new presets with the “Create flavor” button for any required resource workload.

Finally, the SSH Keys tab allows you to upload unique keys to allow Secure Shell (SSH) connections to VMs. Once attached to a VM, direct connections without the need of the Virtuozzo GUI or other VDIs can be achieved.

Network Tab

This part of the interface has the majority of the essential network settings. By default, there are only “public” and “private” networks, but more can be created for full customisation with the “Create network” button. This will give users the option to have multiple networks for how they want their infrastructure to be built.

The Security Groups tab shows what groups have been assigned to which projects within the infrastructure. VMs can then be assigned to said Security Groups, allowing for reliant and containerised utilisation of networking, ensuring security within the environment.

Floating IPs are a set of static IP addresses that have been assigned to the infrastructure. These can be used for VMs or for load balancers to help with incoming traffic and/or distribution of network flow to help prevent any bottlenecks.

The Routers tab shows any virtual routers created within Virtuozzo. These can connect to either other virtual networks or any physical ones that are connected to the environment. This gives plenty of options for admins to help layer and segment network traffic instead of having everything live on a single line, enforcing security.

The VPN tab shows any (VPNs) that have been created by self-service users in Virtuozzo. These can be managed by admins as required. In a new environment, this will be empty.

Storage Tab

Under Storage, there are the Volumes and Storage Policies tabs.

Volumes holds the created virtual storage within the infrastructure. These can be (but are not limited to) virtual drives in VMs, additional storage areas that have been created for other purposes or ISOs.

The Storage Policies tab shows how many policies there are within Virtuozzo, the type, redundancy as well as an option to create more. These are useful to have if the environment requires different tiers or redundancy for different sections.

Storage Devices

The next part of GUI houses Storage Services which holds the Backup, Block, S3 and NFS storage types.

Backup Storage

Backup storage is exactly what it says on the tin; it creates this by either accessing a node of the admin’s choice, an accessible ZFS share or by access the public cloud. Each different option has slightly varying setup steps but all use either Acronis Cyber Protect or Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud depending on if it will be cloud or locally based.

Block Storage, S3 & NFS

Under Block storage, this shows us that nodes can be selected for this type of backup. These are configured as iSCSI targets in the Virtuozzo environment.

The next tab over allows the creation of Target Groups for Block Storage. Again, these use nodes within the Virtuozzo environment for this task. All nodes need to have a port for networking configured to be a valid target.

Volumes allows the creation of isolated storage blocks. These can be used for general use or attached to VMs for increase the amount of storage they have access to.

Finally in this section we have the CHAP users tab. CHAP stands for Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol which is an authentication protocol used to validate users by Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). These users can be added to Target Groups and other areas within the Virtuozzo environment to then allow authentication, denying any user who does not have the credentials to access.

The next area shows how S3 storage can be connected. An SSL certificate is required for completion as this will enable access to the selected domain.

On the NFS tab, this allows users to create a Network File System (NFS) storage. This is achieved using nodes within the environment.

On the next tab, it allows users to create Shares within the NFS. These need a keytab file to be able to be created to ensure secure access otherwise creation will fail.

Finally, the settings tab gives you the option of using Kerberos to auto-authenticate uses for specific NFS shares instead of doing it manually. This will need to be linked to the environment for it to take effect. It also has to Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for directory accounts if Kerberos is enabled and shares created.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure part of the GUI holds both the Nodes and Networks tabs. These is the overview of both the physical and virtual environment within the Virtuozzo instance.

Nodes

The Nodes tab shows what systems are connected within Virtuozzo. These are hardware platforms that have been installed and connected to the infrastructure. It has filters to have an overview of all the nodes down to which ones are healthy, unassigned etc as well as an option to connect other nodes. It also contains a Cluster section that can be modified to show where physically the hardware in the infrastructure is.

Networks

The Networks tab shows all the created and active networks. It allows admins to create, modify and delete different networks within Virtuozzo. These can be attached with different traffic types to allow isolation for security and attached to virtual and physical interfaces. The main difference between Exclusive and Regular traffic types (as shown in the screenshot below) is that Exclusive can only be attached to one network at any one time, whereas Regular can be assigned to multiple at any one time.

Settings

The Settings tab holds most configurations that can be used in the environment. These include Add-on services, Licensing, Projects and users, general System settings and updates.

Add-on Services

Add-on services for Virtuozzo include a Kubernetes option, allowing for pre-configured containers to automatically be added and operational with additional setup. This easy-to-install feature is essential for any party that uses this technology.

The Load balancer add-on helps to improve workload scaling as well as application availability and security. This is automatically configured once the Kubernetes add-on is installed.

The Billing metering service collect data on end users within their projects. This then shows what resources have been used over the period which, in turn, gives costing measurements. This can be viewed via the Gnocchi API.

License

The License tab shows what current licenses are active, their use, any expired licenses and gives the option to add new ones by the “Register key” option.

Projects and Users

The Projects and users tab show an overview of what activities and users are working within the Virtuozzo environment. New domains can be created and deleted as needed with each containing users specific for that area. This allows isolation within the infrastructure for security purposes so users do not access areas of projects or data that they should not have access to, again another example of not needing separate instances of Virtuozzo as everything can be managed in one interface.

System Settings & Updates

In System settings, this gives a large number of options for the operating environment ranging from the internal DNS, High Availability management, email notification and others to just name a few. This tab will be essential for some of the key functions for any admin to use.

Finally, we have the Updates tab. This continuously searches for updates for each node within the environment. If there is a general update, it can be applied to each node when convenient and will not cause any downtime for that hardware segment. Major updates will require the nodes to enter maintenance mode for the duration but will automatically re-enter service once completed successfully.

How it differs from competitors

One of the key differences Virtuozzo has over competitors is its flexibility on its licencing. With its operating costs set to either be per use over a costing period or to set aside a limit on what you use, this gives plenty of options to costing requirements rather than locking into a license or contract where you need to pay a premium and have bundled features you will never use. As for features, they allow you to customise what you use, again being much more flexible than other providers.

Another benefit that Virtuozzo provides is the easy to use and intuitive GUI layout (as seen in previous screenshots). It gives new and inexperienced users easier access to functions they will need to access or for users to easily navigate to where they need to go. This cannot be said for other competitors where a knowhow of the environment is mandatory for navigation and for use, discouraging non-confident users or those who need to find something quicky and do not know where to look or how to do so.

Conclusion

Virtuozzo has played a significant role in transforming the virtualization landscape, providing businesses with powerful tools to enhance their IT infrastructure. With its innovative technologies, commitment to performance, easy to use and intuitive GUI with a customer-centric approach, Virtuozzo continues to be a key player in the future of cloud and virtualization solutions. As organizations increasingly adopt cloud strategies, Virtuozzo’s impact on the industry is likely to grow, paving the way for a more efficient and agile digital world.

In partnership with Supermicro, Boston builds customised solutions and tailor to any of your needs. Already a partner with Virtuozzo, we are excited to bring a fully validated range of hardware and configurations fully tested by our engineers to ensure the very best performance for your tasks.

Test drives of Virtuozzo are already available via Boston Labs, our onsite R&D and test facility. The team are ready to enable customers to test-drive the latest technology on-premises or remotely via our fast internet connectivity.

If you are ready to start your Virtuozzo journey, then please get in touch either by email or by calling us on 01727 876100 and one of our experienced sales team will happily guide you to your perfect tailored solution and invite you to trial a demo.

Author

Peter Wilsher

Field Application Engineer

Boston Limited

Form