Lambton

College
School of Computer
Studies

Introduction to Cloud Computing

[Cloud Com·put·ing]

the practice of using a network of

remote servers hosted on the Internet
to store, manage, and process data,
rather than a local server or a personal
computer.

Prepared by: William Pourmajidi

Lecture: 7
Course Learning outcome
3. Evaluate cloud installation, configuration and
management methods and the hardware associated
with these functions.

Course Learning objective

3.1 Cloud installation, configuration and management

3.2 Cloud migration

Reference: Textbook #1 , Ch7

 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

Cloud installation, configuration and management

For service providers

• Complex
• Costly
• Requires teams of experts

For end-users

• Easy
• Pay-as-you-grow
• No major expertise is required
• User interface (GUI)
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Creating, Importing, and Exporting Templates

Configuration management

• A major contributor to the success of a major IT implementation

• Cloud is no exception and requires excessive use of Configuration
management
• Key reason that even VMs have configuration template

VM configuration template is a library resource that consists of

• Guest operating system profile

• A hardware profile
• One or more virtual storage devices
• Metadata about the VM
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Creating Virtual Machine Templates

Configuration management

• Can be created from an existing virtual machine

• Can be created from an existing physical PC (need to be converted to Virtual
using converter tools)
• Can be created from an existing virtual disk
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

Importing and exporting service templates

Configuration files are mainly XML format or Key-Value pairs

Example
.encoding = "windows-1252"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "12"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"
sata0.present = "TRUE"
memsize = "1200"
mem.hotadd = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.fileName = "Windows 10-000002.vmdk"
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

Guest Tools

Configuration management

• Relatively new kind of software that emerged in the wake of virtualization

and cloud computing
• Designed to be installed inside virtual machine

Expand the capabilities of Guest OS such as

• Being able to share input devices with the host

• Being able to share folders and files with the host
• Provide better automation for actions such as shut-down/restart
• Provide better performance (memory ballooning)
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Snapshot and cloning

Snapshot : a dated record of a state of a group of configurations

• Fast way to revert back a recent change

• Known as “Checkpoint” in Microsoft Hyper-v
• Fast way to provide a configuration management: Throughout the entire life
cycle of a VM (Configuration ID as snapshot name, along with its description)
• Managed and maintained by Hypervisor
• Managed by Snapshot manager
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Cloning

Cloning : Full copy of a VM

• Every aspect (hardware, software , configuration) will be duplicated

• Benefit: Fully independent of the original VM after cloning is done
• Drawback: It requires as much disk space as the original VM
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Cloning

Linked Clone
• Only stores modifications
• It's linked to the main VM and excessively use it
• If something goes wrong with the main virtual machine, a linked clone would
also suffer
• Benefit: The linked clone requires very minimal disk space and the process of
creating clone is much faster

Full clone
• Full copy of a VM
• Every aspect (hardware, software , configuration will be duplicated)
• Benefit: Fully independent of the original VM after cloning is done
• Drawback: It requires as much disk space as the original VM
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Linked Close VS Full-Clone
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

Image Backups vs. File Backups

Backup Management : The practice of managing a suitable backup system for

any IS or cloud infrastructure

Backup and Data

• Data loss is the highest possible damage to an information system

• Having no backup is extremely expensive (the cost of loosing data)
• Having too many backups is also expensive Only stores modifications

Backup Management

• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The maximum acceptable amount of

data loss allowed measured in time
• Recovery Time Objective(RTO): The amount of time allowed for the
system to be down or the time before the system can fully function again.
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

RTO And RPO

 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

Image Backups vs. File Backups

File Backup

• Traditional method of keeping a copy of your important files

• Selective
• Manual or automatic (e.g., Windows Backup)
• Incremental or Differential
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Image Backups vs. File Backups

Image Backup

• Actual bit-to-bit copy of the entire hard disk

• Without regard for files and folders
• Drawback: Size. It requires equal size of used space on your hard disk
• Drawback: It requires a huge amount of time
• Drawback: It images viruses, malware , wrong configuration too
• Benefit: It contains EVERYTHING (OS, Setting, State, Applications, Files)
• In industry it's also called "Bare-metal Backup"
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Virtual Network Interface Card

An abstract construct that is created to emulate the functions of a physical NIC

• It looks and feels 100% real to the guest OS

• It has a GUID MAC address
• It can re-use existing connection to the host
• It can use a new virtual network environment

Virtual Network

At conceptual level, a virtual network and a real physical network are not that
different

• VMs and their virtual NICs

• Virtual Switches
• Virtual Routers
•
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management

Default gateway

• Connects the current network to the outside network(s)

• In physical network environment: it's usually the IP address of the main
router that connects to the WAN or Internet
• In virtual network environment: it's usually the IP address of the host NIC
• NAT or Bridge Mode and their differences
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Virtual Disks

A software implementation of a portion of a real harddisk

• It looks and feels 100% real to the guest OS

• It has a file system
• It reuses the real disk space on a real driver
• It can use a new virtual network environment
• One major problem: On FAT32 , files can not be larger than 4 GB so you will
need to create several files representing the same virtual disk

Virtual Switches

• Forwards frames to one or many ports for transmission

• Checks each frame’s MAC destination upon arrival
• Avoids unnecessary forwarding, unlike hubs, which just forward everything
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Virtual Local Area Network
 Cloud installation, configuration and
management
Virtual Storage Area Network

• Based on the same concept as the VLAN

• To consolidate all storage devices into a network
• Unite all available storage under one address
• Video : http://bcove.me/0a30hjbg
 Cloud Migration

Cloud Migration

When planning to move to cloud, here are the key questions: To consolidate all
storage devices into a network

• Why are we moving to cloud

• What services will be migrated? (Authentication, Accounting, Billing, HR,
Development)
• What components will be migrated ?(Routers, Switches, Firewalls)
• What portion of data will be migrated and how and where ?
• What to do with existing infrastructure ?
 Cloud Migration
Storage Migration

There are different ways to migrate data

• Online vs. Offline Migrations

• Online relies on Internet connection speed
• Offline requires all data to be stored and shipped to cloud provider
• Some cloud providers do not accept it

Machine Migration
• Physical to virtual (P2V) migration is the process of decoupling a physical
machine’s soft
ware component, which includes the operating system, data, and applications,
and then putting all of that into a virtual machine
• Virtual to Virtual: simply be cloning and not actual migration. In any case,
this type of
migration would simply involve cloning a virtual
 Cloud Migration
Physical to virtual

Manual
1. Someone must install all the required applications into the virtual machine.
2. Configure the applications exactly like the original.
3. Copy all the files from the physical machine to the virtual machine.

Semi-automated Tools
A semi-automated tool would require some human intervention
• VMware vCenter Converter
• Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Fully automated Tools

• Starwind
• VEEAM
 Cloud Migration
Scheduling Maintenance

Maintenance is one of the best ways of preventing future problems; that is why
it is better
known as preventive maintenance.

Reasons for Maintenance

• Performance Issues
• Testing
• Upgrading
• Utilization
 Cloud Migration

Virtual Components of the Cloud

• VNIC
• Vstorage
• VCPU
• Vmemory
• VLAN
• VSAN
• Virtual Router
• Virtual Switch
Nested Virtualization(Extra - Not in Exam)

Enable Nested
Set-VMProcessor -VMName Windows2016-R2-1 -
ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

Disable Nested
Set-VMProcessor -VMName Windows2016-R2-1 -
ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $false
 Etcetera : Interesting Practice

A secondary hard drive is used as

1) Recovery drive
2) Image backup
3) Manual backup