Positioning Yourself for the Future

This presentation is an update to a presentation from October 2012 titled "Three Technologies Worth Watching or Learning," and was presented in February 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

Transcript

1. Positioning Yourself for the Future Some technologies and trends that I recommend watching or learning Scott Lowe, VCDX 39 vExpert, Author, Blogger, Geek http://blog.scottlowe.org / Twitter: @scott_lowe
2. Your name is familiar...
3. Before going any further • Get involved! Audience participation is encouraged and requested. • If you use Twitter, feel free to tweet about this session (use @VMUGSydney, @MyVMUG or hashtag #VMUGSydney) • I encourage you to take photos or videos of today’s session and share them online • This presentation will be made available online after the event
4. • In Oct 2012, I gave a presentation titled “Three Technologies Worth Watching or Learning” • Presentation is available online at <https://speakerdeck.com/ slowe/three-technologies-worth-watching-or-learning> • This presentation is an update to that one • Attempts to answer the question, “How can I best position myself for future trends?” Some history
5. • Linux • Network virtualization • OS and application containers • RESTful APIs Some new technologies to watch/learn (2014 edition)
6. Linux
7. • Popping up more and more throughout the data center • Serves as the basis for many products • Inexpensive solution for a variety of issues • Key things: • Pick a distribution (Ubuntu & Red Hat/CentOS seem to be most prominent) • Figure out how to do common tasks (DHCP, DNS, firewall, web server, proxy, etc.) Why Linux?
8. Network virtualization
9. • A key part of a cloud/SDDC strategy • I’m doing an NSX deep dive today at 3pm • Key things: • Some networking basics (learn the language) • SDN (original definition) and OpenFlow • Open vSwitch (OVS) • Network encapsulation protocols (STT, GRE/NVGRE, VXLAN) Why network virtualization?
10. OS and application containers
11. • Lightweight way of providing isolation • Two examples are Linux containers (LXC) and Docker • LXC primarily targeted at OS containers • Docker primarily targeted at application containers • Can provide greater scale for the right use cases • Complementary to full machine virtualization (like VMware) Why OS and application containers?
12. Dockerfile example FROM ubuntu MAINTAINER Scott Lowe <address@domain.com> # Make sure package repositories are correct RUN echo “deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main universe" > /etc/apt/sources.list # Update packages and install OpenSSH RUN apt-get update RUN apt-get install -y openssh-server # Expose port and run SSH daemon EXPOSE 22 CMD [“/usr/sbin/sshd -D”]
13. RESTful APIs
14. • The data center is increasingly API-driven • Public cloud services against which IT is being compared are API-driven (AWS, for example) • Understanding APIs helps understand how to integrate solutions • Key items: • JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) • Using cURL to interrogate an API Why RESTful APIs?
15. JSON example { "result_count": 3, "results": [ { "_href": "/ws.v1/lswitch/3ca2d5ef-6a0f-4392-9ec1-a6645234bc55", "_schema": "/ws.v1/schema/LogicalSwitchConfig", "type": "LogicalSwitchConfig" }, { "_href": "/ws.v1/lswitch/81f51868-2142-48a8-93ff-ef612249e025", "_schema": "/ws.v1/schema/LogicalSwitchConfig", "type": "LogicalSwitchConfig" }, { "_href": "/ws.v1/lswitch/9fed3467-dd74-421b-ab30-7bc9bfae6248", "_schema": "/ws.v1/schema/LogicalSwitchConfig", "type": "LogicalSwitchConfig" } ] }
16. • OpenStack • Configuration management (CFEngine, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Salt) • Object storage (Swift, S3) Honourable mentions
17. Questions & answers
18. Thank you! Don’t forget to rate this session and provide feedback (via mobile app, inside the program guide, or via link sent to your e-mail)