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How do you decommission a virtual server?

There will already be typical steps in the large banks to decommission a physical server, a proliant, alpha kind of server, this kind of process will revolve around the change process and a service request. A change request is raised stating the server is to be removed, and then a related service request is raised which has all the tasks necessary to make it happen.

The process of removing a box isn’t difficult, but for cross charging and datacenter space allocations, it’s important that it is done methodically. It typically involves:

Stop services
Log software and applications installed
Stop any middleware (control-m/mq series)
Backup any databases
Backup server to tape
Reclaim san storage
Shut server down
Delete from DNS and disable network ports
Reclaim patch cables and network ports
Remove server from the datacenter
Reclaim/reallocate space
Update asset registry and datacenter databases

That’s fine everything is in place, we know how to do this, but typically it can take weeks for the process to complete, it’s not seen as a priority (it’s a service request not an incident), how do you adapt this for a virtual infrastructure?  Do datacenter planning want to know about a virtual machine’s existence? Or is it just asset/finance that want to know?

Say I want to switch a virtual machine off on ESX host 19, and build a new session on ESX18, who has to be told?  Do I raise a change?  Most importantly, how do we handle a virtual machine decommission?  Is it just a matter of delete and move on? It’s virtual, supposed to be on demand, I’m not logging a call and waiting a week..

Do we need another process?

Stop services
Log software and applications installed
Backup databases
Backup to tape
Shutdown server
Erase server configuration files
Erase server disk files
Update server registry – who else do I tell?  Finance/Datacenter planning?

When implementing the technology, think about how you’re going to manage it on a daily basis, yes you don’t want to create process upon process, but a way of managing the server estate whether it’s physical or virtual still needs to be in place.

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