Archive for virtualization
May 13, 2008 at 11:08 pm · Filed under virtualization
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com
/news/article/0,289142,sid94_gci1310403,00.html
Many companies deploy server virtualization with the expectation that reducing the number of physical servers in a data center will reduce power bills as well as payroll expenses. And virtualization companies often tout their technologies as a means to reduce staffing needs as well.
But in reality as several companies confront the various new challenges created by virtualization, data center staffing has involved more of a reshuffling of IT responsibilities rather than a staff reduction per se.
Do check out this interesting article talking about how virtualization might not be the cost saver that people are expecting. I like to think of virtualization as a vehicle for change, a way of changing your infrastructure to have it work around your business, to be dynamic, to avoid those, “the lead time is three weeks for your server”, conversations. We need to abstract headcount from the virtual infrastructure conversation - just because your servers are virtual doesn’t mean you don’t need the Windows/Linux and middleware guys. To reduce your staff, you need to identify the workload, those causal factors, attack the problem at source then move down the support chain to identify failures in service delivery, whether it’s monitoring, pro-active engineering (patching/clearing down log files etc).
May 13, 2008 at 5:59 pm · Filed under virtualization
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/
archives/2008/05/virtualization_7.html
It should be clear to most of us by now that server virtualization changes the disaster recovery game dramatically. Rather than having to maintain a server at your DR site for each server in your production environment, you can replicate physical, and/or virtual, servers from your production site to virtual servers at your DR site, reducing the cost of protecting production systems or increasing the number of servers you can protect.
The fly in the ointment has been that the virtual server environment at your DR site would have to handle your production loads in the event of a disaster, so you couldn’t stack too many virtual servers on a single host. SunGard’s new business continuity services for VMware addresses this problem by using different virtual server hosts during normal operations and during a disaster.
Check out this article talking about virtualization in terms of disaster recovery, an issue that I know a lot of people are talking about. Which route to take, whether to use the functionality within the hypervisor or use another layered product, what you use will depend on your business requirements.
May 13, 2008 at 5:12 pm · Filed under virtualization, vmware
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2216411/vmware-bundles-datacentre
VMware has announced two bundles of management and automation tools for datacentres operating numerous virtual machines. The bundles make it easier for customers to acquire key tools that are likely to be used together anyway, and offer a significant saving over purchasing them separately, according to the firm.
The two packages consist of the VMware IT Service Delivery Bundle and VMware Management and Automation Bundle. Both will be available from 19 May, but the latter will only be available until the end of the year.
The bundles combine new tools that VMware announced at its VMworld conference in Cannes in February. The IT Service Delivery Bundle consist of Lifecycle Manager and either Lab Manager or Stage Manager, for example, and is aimed at automating the entire lifecycle of IT services, the company said.
“With this suite, through Lifecycle Manager, customers can standardise on catalogues of virtual machines,” said Douglas Phillips, VMware senior marketing manager for EMEA.
Very cool, anything that we can do to aid in the lifecycle management of the virtual machine has to be an important thing. Being able to manage and report on your virtual infrastructure, is just as important as being able to handle the provisioning and decommissioning, not only in terms of the technology, but the process, the sign-off etc. I’ll need to take a look at Lifecycle Manager.
May 13, 2008 at 4:21 am · Filed under rackmounts, virtualization
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=E6F9ACEC-FC30-402B-8564-E5A8BE6FBA83
The company said two new PowerEdge servers include increased memory to support virtual environments. The PowerEdge R805 is a two-socket server, and the R905 is a four-socket server. Both support AMD’s dual- or quad-core Opteron processors.
Dell has partnered with VMware to embed its ESX 3i hypervisor in the servers. Dell said the R805 and R905 offer 23% higher virtualization performance than HP ProLiant DL580 G5, 8% higher than IBM System x3850, and 16% higher than Sun Fire X4450.
It also said it has signed an OEM agreement with Citrix Systems to embed its XenServer products in its systems. Citrix also recently announced OEM agreements with HP, Lenovo, and NEC, and XenServer is now embedded in more than 50% of all 64-bit x86 servers sold worldwide.
Very cool, the announcement of embedded XenServer brings more choice in the virtualization space which has to be a good thing, and the new servers sound very cool, I’m off to read up about them.
May 12, 2008 at 6:23 pm · Filed under virtualization
http://www.govtech.com/gt/298303?topic=117699
Virtualization will be the most-important trend for servers through 2012, but there are six basic best practices enterprises should consider before they virtualize their servers, according to Gartner.
While the return on investment (ROI) is compelling, virtualization can be implemented badly in costs, management strategy, approach, architecture and software. Many of these problems can be avoided if enterprises make the proper assessments before they virtualize their machines.
“In the next five years, the immature server virtualization market will mature, as competition evolves and forces changes in pricing,” said John Enck, vice president and research director at Gartner. “Most enterprises can’t afford to wait for the market to mature — server sprawl, data center space and power problems are here now. Organizations deploying at least 50 virtual machines per year will be able to build a business case with rapid ROI now.”
Very cool, do check out this article talking about things to think about in the virtualization space, an interesting read.
May 11, 2008 at 7:49 pm · Filed under blades, rackmounts, virtualization, vmware
http://communities.vmware.com/message/940884?tstart=0#940884
Check out this great post on the VMWare community talking about blades or rackmounts for virtualization. I’ve got mixed opinions on this. Rack servers can be a great vehicle for virtualization and I have used them in the past. This question is going to be dependent on your exposure and ‘comfort’ with blades as a platform and also volume. I see blades as more suited to virtualization projects when we’re using the volume farm type scenario. Putting in a blade solution with the integrated switches, with the right processor and memory configuration could be a powerful solution, it’s going to be dependent on the range of networks involved. You will find that blades require economies of scale, by that I mean (with no negativity) a blade solution is going to be cheaper the more blades you fit in the enclosure, because of the cost of the enclosure.
The conversation amongst the vendors and the end users are set to continue, I see blades more a volume virtualization tool. The example I like to use is one of the enterprises organizations that I spoke to last year, they were taking 800 rack servers ranging from Compaq 2500s to current day HP Proliants and virtualizing them on to blade technologies for the following reasons:
Blades allowed them to have one hardware platform - let’s say they decided on 400 IBM blades, they changed their hardware support contract and reduced it substantially, instead of 16 derivatives of servers to support there were two, the IBM blade and the enclosure.
The blades were configured for SAN boot, so a blade could be re-provisioned or the storage re-mapped in the event of a hardware failure.
The debate is set to continue, the key is to focus on what your goals are, where your strengths are and go in that direction. I’m all for blade technology as a platform in grid, hpc or as an alternative to a rack server, but they need to be used (as with anything) to the benefit of the customer first, IT second.
April 21, 2008 at 10:20 pm · Filed under Other things, virtualization, vmware
http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2008/04/18/the-lies-of-it.aspx
Now to the 10 most frequent lies told by IT consultants. When you hear these lines spoken you have two alternatives: 1) fire the consultant on the spot, and; 2) bring your smartest and most crotchety nerds into the room and make the consultant explain his or her statement to their satisfaction then back it up with some performance guarantee and penalty clause.
A great read, it’s a topic that is regularly discussed whether you’re dealing with big or small customers. It’s a mixed thing, Consultants need to keep the customer needs and issues in mind, at the same time customers need to ask the right questions and do the research on the technology or solution that they want deployed. Related to this when speaking with a vendor or consultant:
- Establish the in-scope - what’s included in the price and what’s extra
- What are the responsibilites
One small business had called me up saying that they’d got half way through a virtualization project and been told “we’ve virtualized your infrastructure” by the consultant but when they asked where the data was, were told - “that’s extra”. It’s a dual relationship, the customer should have stipulated that the data would be migrated, but then the vendor should understand that there are some things you expect as part of a solution - the data when you virtualize the server is one of these things.
April 21, 2008 at 8:50 pm · Filed under virtualization
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/04/14/230272/leeds-nhs-virtualises-to-streamline-it-processes.htm
Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust is using virtualisation technology to cut the amount of hardware it uses.
The trust has made 23 of 32 physical servers redundant, which has reduced operational costs, improved flexibility and make it easier to manage the IT infrastructure.
Three of the servers that are no longer needed at the main datacentre have been moved to the trust’s disaster recovery site. A Wan link to the site enables data replication on to the disaster recovery servers - which have also been virtualised - if the need arises.
Very cool, an article showing how this hospital has benefited from virtualization through reducing the number of physical servers, no doubt saving money on the power/cooling as well as the hardware support cost. Do check it out.
April 17, 2008 at 9:14 pm · Filed under virtualization
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9075419
April 7, 2008 (CIO) Noah Broadwater, vice president of information services at Sesame Street Workshop, likes using open-source virtualization tools for several good reasons — starting with green ones that have nothing to do with Oscar the Grouch.
Broadwater recently faced a budget crunch at the same time he needed new Web servers and was physically running out of room in his data center. His solution: new HP blade servers based on Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise server software, which builds in Xen’s virtualization software. (Xen is the leading open-source alternative to VMware Inc.’s offering.)
Check out this interesting article talking about how the Sesame Street Workshop adopted virtualization technologies - it’s always great to read how people saw the technology, what they saw as the perceived and real benefits to doing so. An interesting read.
April 15, 2008 at 4:54 pm · Filed under datacenter, environment, virtualization
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article.php/3740516
MENLO PARK, CALIF. – It’s time to raise the raised floors and get serious about energy savings in the datacenter. That was one of the messages Subodh Bapat, a distinguished engineer and vice president of eco-responsibility at Sun, gave here Thursday during an open house for its Sun Labs group.
With growing energy costs, space constraints and growing computer processing and storage needs, large companies are under more pressure than ever to save money and keep IT operations efficient. Bapat noted, for example, that the social network Facebook’s datacenter is growing at a rate of about three percent per week.
While most companies may not have the happy problem of Facebook’s runaway growth, they still have to deal with energy constraints and costs. Bapat detailed a number of suggestions Sun has itself implemented as well as its customers and partners.
Check out this article, it raises some relevant comments about energy efficiency in the data center. It’s not just about the green message, of being energy efficient, it’s about protecting your business interests, avoiding the watt in/watt out scenario. It need not be disruptive to your business, analyzing what you can do within your business/operational or data center constraints, contacting the stakeholders - your customer, ‘the business’ and saying, “this is where we are”, this is what we could achieve with little investment, for example by deploying 8 midrange servers we can virtualize and replace 64 1u rack servers, saving so much in power/cooling etc. Pre-emptively managing demand/supply, and keeping everyone on the same track. We can’t do it overnight, but with simple inventory reports, analysis the small steps, you’d be surprised how much you can achieve - do all the development servers really need their second power supply connected and powered?
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