data

The motivations are strong and compelling when making the choice to move towards virtualization as the solution for your data center.

Some of the factors include:

• Lower energy costs
• Greatly reduced data center physical footprint.
• More efficient use of hardware resources
• High availability
• Business continuity / easier disaster recovery
• Lower admin to server ratio

Before the migration is to move forward a detailed audit of current equipment, platforms, applications, etc must take place. All computing resources must be properly documented and enumerated. All backups need to be made current. If hardware is going to be re-tasked and used in the new virtualization schema, thorough testing needs to be done to assure full functionality and reliability. Read More »

 

I recently came across a thought-provoking blog post by StorageIO analyst and author Greg Schultz. Ruminating on themes in his new book “The Green and Virtual Data Center,” Schultz laments that the natural link between the concepts of virtualization and data center consolidation has led many to mistakenly conclude that these terms are synonymous. They aren’t. And even though consolidation is one of the leading reasons to virtualize today, it’s not the only good reason to consider the technology.

Furthermore, while the inherent cost and energy savings in consolidation are fueling much of the growth and interest in virtualization today, that won’t always be the case. Does that mean that when the economy rebounds, virtualization will become yesterday’s news? Far from it, argues Schultz. Despite “the perception and industry messaging that incorrectly pigeon holes virtualization to mean consolidation, and consolidation to mean virtualization,” Schultz warns us not to be sucked into the notion that virtualization without consolidation doesn’t have a bright future. “To the contrary, the reality is that there is life beyond consolidation (and) there are even more scenarios and far greater market opportunity for non-consolidation virtualization deployments over time, than what has already been seen for first wave of consolidation-centric virtualization scenarios.” Read More »

In keeping with the purpose of using virtualization technology the data storage solution must also be resilient and dynamic. Options in tasking and deploying storage for a virtual machine must follow suit with the core technology. Your choice for data storage needs to have high availability and fault tolerance for optimal uptime. Access to the data needs to be fast so as not to affect the performance of the virtual machine. Optimally, the data storage should be easily expandable without creating additional volumes.

The storage technology used and its method of access typically determines if all or parts of the objectives are met and if so, to what degree.

The practice of data storage on the same hardware as the virtual machine is strictly taboo as it defeats the purpose of deploying virtualization in the first place. Virtualization data storage is usually accomplished with Network Attached Storage (NAS) or a Storage Area Network (SAN). Both forms of storage have their benefits and drawbacks as will be explained later in this article. Read More »

There are two types of green weighing on the minds of business professionals these days: The green that denotes business practices that tread lightly on the environment, and the green that represents money – or lack thereof for capital improvements. The big question is, can you implement the former type of green without spending too much of the latter?

Apparently, you can. At least, so says a recent report written by Barb Goldworm, a virtualization analyst for Focus Consulting and co-author of the 2007 book, “Blade Servers and Virtualization: Transforming Enterprise Computing While Cutting Costs.” In the white paper titled “How to Green Your Data Center from the Server Out,” Goldworm and her co-authors Armando Acosta of Dell and Ed Kurtzer of Intel set out with the premise that the greening of data centers is not only desirable – it’s inevitable.

“Energy costs are going up dramatically. In fact, energy costs are surpassing hardware costs,” according to the report.  An accompanying chart tells the story in graphic detail, showing clearly how energy remained relatively low throughout the 90s and well into the current decade. However, in 2008, energy prices suddenly shot up, quickly crossing over the stable line representing server costs. For the first time, “We are spending more money on power and cooling for the servers than we are for the servers themselves,” the authors state. Read More »