Title: Virtual Environments for Software Development
1Virtual Environments for Software Development
- Architecture, Application and Hardware
Considerations
2Virtual Environments For Software
DevelopmentArchitecture, Application and
Hardware Considerations
- Presented by Schley Andrew Kutz
- Lead Application Architect
- The McCombs School of Business at the University
of Texas at Austin - sakutz_at_gmail.com
- http//akutz.wordpress.com/
3Abstract
- This session provides practical advice
on development issues that are relevant to any IT
professional in charge of or involved
with application deployment and management in
virtualized environments and handling topics such
as hardware and vendor selection and the rapid
deployment of build agents.
4Check And Mate
- Software development is a lot like a chess match
- The environment is constrained the number of
possible situations, seemingly endless - All possible situations must be accounted for
ahead of time - Unexpected scenarios must be handled gracefully
5How Virtualization Can Help
- Virtualization may ease the software development
process by assisting with - Application development cycle
- Application lifecycle management
- Continuous integration (hub/spoke model)
- Secure networking
- Test lab
6Agenda
- Application development cycle
- Application lifecycle management
- Continuous integration
- Secure networking
- Test lab
- Vendor selection suggestions
7Application Development Cycle
- The application development cycle (ADC) process
handles - Turning ideas into code
- Testing code
- Putting code into production
- Processing bug reports
8Application Development Cycle (Continued)
- An iterative ADC gaining popularity is the Scrum
methodology
9Application Development Cycle (Continued)
- In Scrum, the Sprint is where the development
team implements new ideas or bug fixes - The sprint typically lasts only a couple of weeks
- Entire development environments must be created
and torn down to cope with the requirements for
each sprint
10Application Development Cycle (Continued)
- The need to quickly provision development
environments (DevEnvs) can be satisfied by
virtual machine (VM) templates - In addition, DevEnvs can be taken offline when
not needed, freeing up resources and decreasing
any security risk they might pose
11Application Lifecycle Management
- Application lifecycle management (ALM) is perhaps
the most important component of software
development and a service oriented architecture
(SOA)
12Application Lifecycle Management (Continued)
- ALM in the context of software development and a
SOA encompasses the ADC as well as facilitating
multi-tier synchronization. - Development (Dev) -- Active development
- Qualification (Qual) -- Quality control
- Production (Prod) -- Production environment
- These tiers are an integral part of ALM
-
13Application Lifecycle Management (Continued)
- Each ALM tier should be built identically, and
this can require several servers to accomplish. - Two servers, for the application and data tiers,
for each development environment equals at least
six servers. - Virtualization provides a cost-effective platform
on which to host these servers.
14Continuous Integration
- Continuous integration (CI) is the process by
which code is built, tested, and any number of
other automated tasks (example Document
generation). - Popular CI platforms, such as Microsoft Team
Foundation Server 2008 and JetBrains TeamCity 4.0
operate in a hub/spoke model.
15Continuous Integration (Continued)
- The hub is the controller -- it schedules builds
and provides a user interface - The spokes are build agents -- servers configured
specifically for languages, project requirements
or other reasons (examples Security concerns,
departmental ownership)
16Continuous Integration (Continued)
- Server virtualization platforms such as ESX and
Hyper-V can host as many build agents as
necessary. - The ability to easily host build agents
facilitates a cleaner CI architecture by enabling
silos the separation of build agents for any
number of reasons.
17Secure Networking
- One aspect of software development not discussed
with enough frequency is secure networks. - Active development environments should not be
trusted. Even the qualification environment
should be considered to be a medium-risk target.
18Secure Networking (Continued)
- Server virtualization platforms can facilitate
the painless creation of segregated development
networks. - To enable secured networking, a virtualization
platform should have built-in network address
translation (NAT, dynamic host control protocol
(DHCP) and routing capabilities.
19Test Lab
- Software developers often like to test out new
technologies technologies which may have not yet
endured rigorous security tests - A physical, dedicated, network secure, test lab
is an expensive proposition - A virtual, network secure, test lab, however, is
extremely achievable
20The Requirements
- Based on software development practices, a
virtualization platform must support - A VM templating solution
- NAT, DHCP and routing
- VM snapshots
21Virtualization Software
- There are several virtualization software
packages that may satisfy the aforementioned
requirements - VMware Server 2
- VMware VI (Free to Premium)
- Citrix XenServer (Free to Premium)
- Microsoft Hyper-V
22Virtualization Software (Continued)
Software Family Software Package VM Snapshots VM Templates NAT, Routing
VMware Server 2 Yes/No Yes/No Yes
VMware VI
Free Yes Yes No
Foundation Yes Yes No
Standard Yes Yes No
Enterprise Yes Yes No
23Virtualization Software (Continued)
Software Family Software Package VM Snapshots VM Templates NAT, Routing
Citrix XenServer
Express Yes Yes No
Standard Yes Yes No
Enterprise Yes Yes No
Platinum Yes Yes No
Microsoft Hyper-V Yes Yes No
24Hardware Selection
- Virtual developments do not have the same uptime
or load requirements as production environments - Take advantage of more cost-effective hardware
solutions - iSCSI or NAS
- Lower-cost servers
25Hardware Selection (Continued)
- Servers
- A server for a virtual development environment
will range from 5,000-10,000 - Dell
- PowerEdge R805 -- AMD Quad-Core
- PowerEdge 2950III -- Intel Xeon Quad-Core
- Dell and VMware -- http//tinyurl.com/52wx9l
- Dell and Citrix -- http//tinyurl.com/4hvyzu
- Dell and Hyper-V -- http//tinyurl.com/4rt9wx
26Hardware Selection (Continued)
- HP
- ProLiant DL Series
- HP and VMware -- http//tinyurl.com/36mtg6
- HP and Citrix -- http//tinyurl.com/4n76p4
- HP and Hyper-V -- http//tinyurl.com/55xhnz
- IBM
- System X Series
- IBM and VMware -- http//tinyurl.com/3gn2z7
27Hardware Selection (Continued)
- Storage
- Sun StorageTek NAS Appliances --http//tinyurl.com
/3ejtfl - EMC CLARiiON AX4 -- http//tinyurl.com/3fe85o
- NetApp S-Family -- http//tinyurl.com/4ur28u
- Dell EqualLogic iSCSI Arrays -- PS5000E Series
http//tinyurl.com/4tz44a
28Recommendations
- If you are comfortable with manual templating,
VMware Server 2 may be the best virtualization
solution for development shops - Server hardware vendor selection is becoming
agnostic, however VMware is aligning itself with
Intel (VMworld 2008) - Take advantage of iSCSI
29Questions?