By Robyn Weisman

Published by Processor Editorial Article / November 7, 2008 . Vol.30 Issue 45

Virtualization's impact on IT infrastructure is transforming the way IT works. No longer tethered to "dedicated" hardware, networks, or storage, IT organizations are beginning to function more dynamically as equipment becomes shared, says Ken Oestreich, director of product management and marketing at power management software provider Cassatt (www.cassatt.com).

Moreover, virtualization has moved quickly from being an emerging technology to a mainstream data center solution because of its obvious efficiency and cost benefits, says Margaret Lewis, director of commercial solutions and software at AMD (www.amd.com). "However, it is important to keep in mind that virtualization is complex and involves a number of different players," Lewis advises.

How do you make effective use of virtualization without becoming overwhelmed by the complexities it can add to your data center? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Set Clear Objectives

Because virtualization is a portable technology, it lets you move your IT workload across any of your servers, says Don Norbeck, director of product development at Sungard (www.sungard.com). To take advantage of virtualization's strengths, you need to figure out what your objectives are, Norbeck says.

"Is it about cost savings? Cost avoidance? Meeting an immediate problem within the data center? Or is it something around availability or flexibility within the IT resources that you have?" Norbeck asks. "All three of them are going to be very intensified over the next year with a lot of organizations struggling with flat or maybe even significantly decreasing IT budgets," he says.

AMD's Lewis urges SMEs to keep on top of virtualization trends to aid in the process of crafting your objectives. "Keeping a close eye on where the industry is heading and who is bringing these formerly niche solutions to the mainstream can save immense time that would have been spent on the learning curve," she says.

Understand Your Workloads

Norbeck recommends surveying your current data center setup and understanding the characteristics of your workloads. This includes charting which applications are running on which servers, knowing how often these applications run, and knowing when these applications peak.

"Is there a typical growth path you see that every three months, you have to add another server; every six months, another SAN; every couple of weeks, another megabit of Internet access?" asks Norbeck. "Understanding that is going to be critical to determining which is the best way to proceed with virtualization."

You should also focus your attention both on the workload you plan to consolidate and virtualize and on the target servers on which the consolidation will occur. "Many companies have only considered what is often termed 'like-for-like' consolidation because it typically does not involve any migration and reduces the need for new capacity planning to be done on the resulting topology," says Andy Wachs, segment manager of virtualization and consolidation at IBM (www.sungard.com).

Although this type of consolidation is beneficial, Wachs suggests that you consider what he calls "cross-pollination" as part of your virtualization plan. In other words, identify ideal target servers that not only provide the more obvious benefits of minimizing energy and physical floor-space usage but that also offer enhanced qualities of service for the workload through improved bandwidth and higher availability, among other things.

To achieve this advanced value from virtualization, Wachs recommends virtualizing your applications so that the application image is uncoupled from the physical hardware that it was originally built to run on and becomes a virtual appliance even if it is initially run on the originating server. In addition, consider establishing shared storage architectures-using SANs, for example-to virtualize storage. "Storage virtualization can be very beneficial in that it can help to isolate changes in storage from the applications, thereby increasing application availability and uptime," Wachs says.

TOP TIPS

Keep in mind that no two environments are the same and design your virtualization plan accordingly. "The main concern for most managers is compatibility and reliability. Even though virtualization technologies have matured, no two environments are the same," says Lior Blik, president and CEO of network infrastructure technologies solutions provider NIT Connect (www.nitconnect.net).

Blik says a well-considered virtualization project plan ought to be your top priority and recommends that you do the following:

• Create an ROI analysis template and methodology
• Verify application compatibility with virtualized environments
• Provide a detailed inventory of applications and minimum hardware specifications before designing your plan for virtualization
• Take into account your power and cooling requirements when creating your virtualization plan
• Determine the way in which you plan to deploy and administer your virtualization migration plan
• Include a backup and disaster recovery plan as part of your virtualization plan

Understand which components in your configuration take precedence. "Within every data center, there are tiers of applications that are much more important than other applications," says Don Norbeck, director of product development at Sungard (www.sungard.com). "If you try to treat all of them the same, then you can run into some issues within your virtualization project where the less critical applications take over resources from the more critical applications."

Take baby steps when migrating to virtualized environments. While virtualization's advantages may have you chomping at the bit to roll it out across your organization as quickly as possible, take baby steps to ensure as little disruption to your network as possible, says Margaret Lewis, director of commercial solutions and software at AMD (www.amd.com).

Consider, for example, virtualizing fewer mission-critical applications, such as file and print servers, and see how these tasks work out before moving on to more complex processes. Then continue your migration at a pace convenient to your organization, rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach that too often characterizes software transitions, says Lewis.

Key Points

• Determine what parts of your network are prime candidates for virtualization.
• Choose the right virtualization tools, basing your choices on current and anticipated needs.
• Collaborate with your team and others in your organization to get the support you need.
• Monitor, measure, and document your processes.

What You'll Need

Don Norbeck, director of product development at Sungard (www.sungard.com), suggests that you test your physical equipment before jumping headlong into virtualization. Norbeck recommends VMmark, VMware's free benchmarking tool (www.vmware.com/products/vmmark), which allows you to test your physical servers and get a rating for them. According to Norbeck, VMmark provides load simulation capabilities along with plenty of documentation. "Many server providers, [such as] HP, IBM, and Dell, have run their servers through VMmark and published their scores," Norbeck says.

Norbeck also suggests checking out one or more of the two dozen or so performance- monitoring tools available in order to get a reading of key performance indicators, such as the amount of CPU a server is using, the amount of RAM a given workload is using, and the amount of I/O needed between servers and networking and storage devices. Some of the better tools can show you how a server will perform within a virtual environment as well as a traditional physical one.