The second part of my in-depth look at the role of application virtualization techniques that can be used to develop, or adapt existing, applications for use within a grid environment. Part 2 looks at the second level of the virtualization process - building an environment in which our virtualized application can execute.

In Part 1, we examine how virtualization within an application structure can be used to turn an application from a stand-alone solution into one that can be adapted for use within a grid.
This tutorial covers the creation and components of the new grid environment required for your new virtualized application to operate within a grid. Whether you have virtualized your entire application, or virtualized individual components of the application, they both need the same range of additional components — grid manager, security and other elements — to operate. With these requirements in mind, you need to examine how information and work might be distributed throughout the grid. There are a number of potential models that can be used, and we’ll look at each of these solutions and how they work with our virtualized application.
In this tutorial, we’re going to consider all these points and build a number of theoretical models that can be used with a virtualized application.

Read Application virtualization, Part 2: Level 2 — Understanding your virtualized environment

The latest article in my Systems Administration Toolkit series is available, this time looking at the zsh shell environment. Like the piece on bash which is also now available, I look at some of the history of zsh, the main features, and what makes it a useful alternative to one of the more traditional shell solutions.

The intro material from the article itself:

Examine key parts of the Z shell (zsh) and how to use it’s features to ease your UNIX system administration tasks. zsh is a popular alternative to the original Bourne and Korn shells. It provides an impressive range of additional functionality, including improvements for completing different commands, files, and paths automatically, and for binding keys to functions and operations.

Read Systems Administration Toolkit: Get the most out of zsh.

Get the most out of bash is the article in the Systems Administration Toolkit series and it examines the features and utility of the bash shell.

Ease your system administration tasks by taking advantage of key parts of the Bourne-again shell (bash) and its features. Bash is a popular alternative to the original Bourne and Korn shells. It provides an impressive range of additional functionality that includes improvements to the scripting environment, extensive aliasing techniques, and improved methods for automatically completing different commands, files, and paths.

Read: System Administration Toolkit: Get the most out of bash

In a new article in my System Administration Toolkit series I examine the role of swap space in your Unix /Linux system and how to configure and optimize your swap space usage. I also demonstrate a few tricks for helping you out when you run our of swap space unexpectedly.

Configure your swap space (including adding space in an emergency) to get the most out of your system. In this article, you’ll learn how to monitor your system to determine an effective swap space figure as well as examine methods for using swap space for more than just secondary random access memory (RAM).

Read System Administration Toolkit: Swap space management and tricks.

Whether you are an established grid manager, just in the process of developing and designing your grid, or expecting to take over a grid environment soon, there are many different aspects you need to consider.

In Part 2 of my new series, written by Arun Chhatpar, we look at the security requirements and considerations in your grid.

Managing a grid involves many elements, from the network and hardware you use to deploy your grid to the security, job management, and job metrics and statistics generated during the execution of your grid, which enable you to more effectively manage the work. In this four-part “Managing a grid” series, we look at key elements of the grid management process, such as identifying hardware and network fundamentals and how that affects your grid process, and how to use metrics information as a scheduling, prediction, and expansion tool. Here in Part 2, we cover grid security and its importance in grid management.

You can read Part 1: Managing a grid, Part 1: Network and Infrastructure.

You can read the full tutorial: Managing a grid, Part 2: Security considerations.

Whether you are an established grid manager, just in the process of developing and designing your grid, or expecting to take over a grid environment soon, there are many different aspects you need to consider.

In a new four-part series I look at the different roles and requirements, and both technological and managerial considerations that you will need to consider.

For the first part in the series:

Managing a grid involves many elements, from the network and hardware you use to deploy your grid to the security, job management, and job metrics and statistics generated during the execution of your grid, which enable you to more effectively manage the work. In this four-part “Managing a grid” series of articles, we’ll look at some key elements of the grid management process, such as identifying hardware and network fundamentals and how that affects your grid process, and how to use metrics information as a scheduling, prediction, and expansion tool. Here, we cover the core elements of grid networking, along with the hardware infrastructure of your grid and how it affects other areas of grid management.

You can read the full tutorial: Managing a grid, Part 1: Network and Infrastructure.

If you have an existing application, or you are developing a new one, what’s the quickest way to make that application work within a grid?

Well one solution is to use virtualization techniques - build a virtual layer around your application so that the deployment and distribution of the application, and how you use the different components is exposed through a standardized layer.

Meanwhile, within your potential grid, look at how you can create a virtualized environment. Create the same virtual interfaces to core elements such as security, resources, and then build a system that enables you to deploy your application within this virtualized environment.

Finally, you should be able to build an interface to your grid that works through a virtual layer. The virtual interface to your grid should look the same as the virtual interface used with a single instance of your application, but hidden behind the functionality of the grid.

In this new series of tutorial at IBM, I look at each of these different levels and the theory and practical considerations behind them. The first tutorial in the series I cover the fundamental issues behind converting your application for a virtualized environment:

This “Application virtualization” series is for developers who wish to convert a single stand-alone application into a grid-enabled application through virtualization. By using virtualization, you can remove the proprietary elements and interfaces to your application, and the environment in which it runs in a way that the interfaces and methods for using the application are no longer the limiting factor.
The first step to providing a consistent, virtualized environment for a grid is to create a virtualized interface to the core components of the system and your application. We’ll examine the main components in the hardware that makes up your grid and examine how standard components like an SOA focus can help make your physical systems available as an abstracted virtual layer that can be exploited by standardized applications.
Main topics:

• Creating a grid black box
• Abstracting CPU resources
• Abstracting storage resources
• Abstraction techniques

You can read the full tutorial: Application virtualization, Part 1: Level 1 — Abstracting your grid infrastructure.

I have for a long time been using a number of non-typical solutions for the management of my internal servers and, up until recently, those of my clients. I mentioned this in one of my first posts at Computerworld (RSS as and administration tool), so it was only a matter of time before I shared the techniques with others.

You can now read my new tutorial are developerWorks on using alternative methods to manage and monitor your Unix servers. There are a number of key elements here:

• Using a blog to record changes and important events
• Using a Wiki to record configuration and setup information
• Using Subversion to record configuration history
• Some other, related, points such as security, onsite/offsite considerations and how to combine services to simplify the process even further.

Go and read the full article for more information: Use alternative methods to manage and monitor your UNIX servers.

Computerworld’s podcast this week features a short interview with me on my aventures with the T1000.

The podcast Computerworld Input Output: The NYPD’s expanded data warehouse; testing out Sun’s T1000.

For the in-depth review of the T1000: T1000 in more detail