Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Video
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Video
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Networking
    • Storage
    • Virtualization

    Cisco, VMware Look to Move VMs Between Data Centers

    Written by

    Jeff Burt
    Published July 2, 2009
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

      Cisco Systems and VMware are developing ways that enterprises can use VMware’s VMotion technology to move live virtual machines from one data center to another.

      The two companies showed off a proof-of-concept at the Cisco Live 2009 show in San Francisco, and demonstrated the capabilities during Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior’s keynote address July 2.

      The project is still in the proof-of-concept stage, but VMware official Guy Brunsdon said in a recent blog post that moving live virtual servers to other locations over a WAN holds promise for businesses in a number of areas.

      In particular, the capability would help enterprises in load balancing compute resources over multiple sites, Brunsdon said in his blog posted June 29. Businesses also could save power and cooling costs by being able to dynamically consolidate VMs to fewer data centers, he said.

      In addition, businesses could avoid downtime during maintenance procedures in data centers by migrating applications offsite, and they also could more easily avoid natural disasters by proactively migrating important application running on VMs to another facility.

      VMotion has worked well in migrating live VMs from one host to another. In addition, VMware offers disaster recovery capabilities with its vCenter Site Recovery Manager, which enables businesses to improve their disaster recovery capabilities through automating recovery steps, testing recovery plans without interrupting the VMs, and providing steps for building and managing disaster recover plans.

      However, there are particular challenges to the idea of moving live virtual servers from one site to another, Brunsdon said.

      “This, of course, is a non-trivial thing to do,” he wrote. “There is the challenge of moving a VM over distance (which involves some degree of additional latency) without dropping sessions. To maintain sessions with existing technologies means stretching the L2 domain between the sites-not pretty from a network architecture standpoint. And then there is the storage piece. If you move the VM, it has to remotely access its disk in the other site until a Storage VMotion occurs.”

      For example, both the data center maintenance and disaster avoidance scenarios would require a Storage VMotion to move the disk image to the other data center.

      Cisco and VMware engineers last year began working on the idea of moving VMs over long distances between multiple data centers, Brunsdon said. The joint Cisco-VMware lab in San Jose, Calif., has run several tests of disparate distances, he said. The demonstration at Cisco Live covered a distance of about 50 miles, he said.

      According to a diagram of the San Jose-to-San Francisco test, the San Jose site includes VMware ESX servers and Catalyst 6500 switches from Cisco. At the San Francisco site were ESX servers and Cisco’s Nexus 5000 and 7000 switches.

      Linking the two sites was an 80-kilometer single-mode optical fiber.

      Gordon Haff, an analyst with Illuminata, said disaster recovery is a benefit that VMware has been touting with virtualization for several years.

      A key benefit is the ability to create a disaster recovery plan that doesn’t entail spending the money to buy compute resources and having them sit idle in case of an emergency, Haff said. Virtualization enables businesses to work with the systems they have and use VMs for disaster recovery needs.

      “You can use most resources normally most of the time,” he said. “But in the case of a problem, you can shift resources, but you don’t have a lot of idle resources.”

      Jeff Burt
      Jeff Burt
      Jeffrey Burt has been with eWEEK since 2000, covering an array of areas that includes servers, networking, PCs, processors, converged infrastructure, unified communications and the Internet of things.

      Get the Free Newsletter!

      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

      Get the Free Newsletter!

      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Artificial Intelligence

      9 Best AI 3D Generators You Need...

      Sam Rinko - June 25, 2024 0
      AI 3D Generators are powerful tools for many different industries. Discover the best AI 3D Generators, and learn which is best for your specific use case.
      Read more
      Cloud

      RingCentral Expands Its Collaboration Platform

      Zeus Kerravala - November 22, 2023 0
      RingCentral adds AI-enabled contact center and hybrid event products to its suite of collaboration services.
      Read more
      Artificial Intelligence

      8 Best AI Data Analytics Software &...

      Aminu Abdullahi - January 18, 2024 0
      Learn the top AI data analytics software to use. Compare AI data analytics solutions & features to make the best choice for your business.
      Read more
      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Video

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2024 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×