Virtual Environments for Software Development

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Virtual Environments for Software Development

• Architecture, Application and Hardware
  Considerations

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Virtual 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/

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Abstract

• 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.

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Check 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

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How 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

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Agenda

• Application development cycle
• Application lifecycle management
• Continuous integration
• Secure networking
• Test lab
• Vendor selection suggestions

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Application Development Cycle

• The application development cycle (ADC) process
  handles
• Turning ideas into code
• Testing code
• Putting code into production
• Processing bug reports

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Application Development Cycle (Continued)

• An iterative ADC gaining popularity is the Scrum
  methodology

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Application 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

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Application 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

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Application Lifecycle Management

• Application lifecycle management (ALM) is perhaps
  the most important component of software
  development and a service oriented architecture
  (SOA)

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Application 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

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Application 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.

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Continuous 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.

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Continuous 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)

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Continuous 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.

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Secure 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.

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Secure 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.

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Test 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

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The Requirements

• Based on software development practices, a
  virtualization platform must support
• A VM templating solution
• NAT, DHCP and routing
• VM snapshots

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Virtualization 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

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Virtualization 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
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Virtualization 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
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Hardware 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

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Hardware 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

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Hardware 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

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Hardware 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

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Recommendations

• 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

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Questions?

• sakutz_at_gmail.com