Server Virtualization: Getting Started
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Five tips to help you decide whether server virtualization is right for your company and get you started on the road.
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I can imagine the mass deployment of virtualized storage controllers. The heyday of RAID controllers is coming to an end. It has me thinking about the mass consumption of virtualization, which leads me to another thought: the mass deployment of embedded virtualized processes.
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Microsoft is inching closer toward the release of Virtual Server 2005. Virtual Server leverages the Windows 2003 Server system as a platform for running multiple instances of alternative operating systems on a single system. The final version of the Server will be made available on September 13th in two varieties: Standard and Enterprise. More information on Virtual Server is available in the BetaNews archives.
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A Linux developer has come up with a virtualized I/O system that allows competing virtualization software to use one mechanism for handling storage and other virtual devices.
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An investor's guide to service-oriented architecture
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(InfoWorld) - Like other adopters of server virtualization, Purdue University was concerned that its datacenter would hit the wall, exceeding physical space, power, and cooling limits. The use of EMC VMware let it combine 140 physical servers into three Hewlett-Packard DL-585 servers, a 40:1 compression ratio, says Mike Rubesch, director of IT infrastructure systems. "It helps postpone the inevitable," he adds. But the first servers chosen had very low utilization -- around 5 percent -- so the 40:1 rate is not sustainable. Over time, Rubesch expects the ratio to be 6:1, taking into account such servers as e-mail, database, and telephony that cannot be virtualized. That utilization rate will still reduce overall power usage to 16 percent of what it had been and physical space needs to a tenth, as the use of blade servers plus virtualization greatly reduces the physical footprint. Facilities costs should fall by $75,000 per year and hardware costs by $250,000 per year, he says. But organizations considering the use of virtualization need to be careful calculating costs, Rubesch cautions. If you have fewer than 10 virtual server instances running on a physical VMware server, virtualization becomes "extraordinarily expensive," he says. IT managers must also be careful not to factor in too much savings for the operating systems and applications running in virtual machines, Rubesch says. Many IT managers count on being able to run multiple instances of an OS or an app on one CPU, paying for just one license, because most enterprise apps are licensed on a per-CPU basis. But vendors are starting to charge per instance, not per CPU. For example, BEA now charges per instance rather than per CPU for its WebLogic server, and Microsoft Windows Server Enterprise Edition's license allows use on one physical server and as many as four VMs on that server. As virtualization grows more popular, you can expect the licensing savings to evaporate, so the investment should be based on savings elsewhere, such as in hardware and facilities efficiencies, Rubesch says. The use of VMs also increases your risk, because "you can put a lot of eggs in one basket," Rubesch says. But because you've reduced the number of points of failure, IT staff has more capability to focus on those critical areas, he notes. Rubesch is building sufficient capacity so that no single server is fully utilized, providing space for EMC's VMotion software to move VMs if a physical server fails. He's also keeping a spare physical server ready to go if needed. Using virtualization also incurs a high up-front cost. "The benefits aren't immediate," Rubesch says. A big reason is that to use the EMC VMotion utility to move server instances to other physical servers for better load-balancing or failover requires that all the hardware use the same CPU family, requiring a big hardware cost at each refresh cycle. "You need to sell that concept a little bit," he says dryly. Beyond the hardware costs, the use of virtualization makes the server environment more complicated, as "servers" can reside anywhere and change where they reside over time. As a result, "you need more skills," Rubesch says. For example, although a good Windows administrator will easily adapt to running virtualized Windows servers, you still need a dedicated person to handle such items as dynamic allocation and failover, he says. Of course, you can also use virtualization to simplify your environment, Rubesch notes, such as having standard server images that ensure consistency -- ending the nightmare of navigating the peculiarities specific to each hand-deployed physical server. "It's a lot simpler with VMs to have them nearly identical." Despite the caveats on understanding actual savings and the increased up-front costs, Rubesch is a big fan of server virtualization: "You get real benefit from it -- as long as you plan ahead." Virtualization special report Case study: Credit Suisse Case study: Nationwide Insurance Case study: Stonebridge Bank Case study: Transplace
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InfoWorld - I've been on a bit of a green kick around here for the past few months. A computer lab is notoriously power hungry, with servers running at 100 percent utilization for days on end, generating traffic or running test harnesses. There are certain areas where I can make some reductions, however, such as collapsing a half-dozen less-utilized boxes onto a single VMware ESX server. There are some other ways, too.
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InfoWorld - While many IT shops see virtualization as a question of adopting EMC&#39;s VMware on servers running Windows or Linux, Nationwide Insurance has adopted the technology for both x86-based and mainframe-hosted servers. After all, notes Buzz Woeckener, the company&#39;s zLinux/Unix server manager, virtualization was invented for mainframes.
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Microsoft Corp. next month will release Virtual Server 2005, its first foray into server virtualization and a key element of the broad management platform the company is creating for Windows.
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After two years of fits and starts, Microsoft will finally deliver its Virtual Server 2005 product, which company officials contend will be an important contributor to its Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), the company&#39;s plan for managing distributed
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Consolidate like the big boys Well entrenched in the data centers of the Fortune 100, VMware has decided to go after the little guy. The software maker this week plans to roll out a new server virtualization management bundle aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).â¦
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SAP has decided to support virtual server installations.
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This paper introduces some techniques for making backups without needing to stop the business applications. It also describes ways to simplify and reduce the cost of system operations.
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(Source: Network Appliance)  This technical report discusses the virtual storage solutions that reduce cost, increase storage utilization, increase fault tolerance, and address the challenges of backing up and restoring VMware ESX Server environments by using NetApp technologies.
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(InfoWorld) - In 2006, many enterprise IT groups saw the potential in virtualization, rushed to consolidate servers and subsequently propelledÂ VMwareÂ software to a market-leading spot. As 2007 begins, VMware's prices are under attack, just as more CIOs look to virtualization to control server and storage sprawl and tame data center power costs. For starters, VMware rivals XenSource and Virtual Iron Software have launched new open-source alternatives, undercutting VMware on price. Also, new processors, such as IBM's Power 5 and upcoming Power 6 chips, and new operating systems have virtualization capabilities built in, negating the need for some additional software, says Clay Ryder, president of The Sageza Group. Sun Microsystems' Solaris 10 OS includes a virtualization feature it calls Containers. MicrosoftÂ is expected to release a beta version of Windows Virtual Server in the first quarter of 2007 and ship it a year later. That's good news: As virtualization features become part of the hardware or the OS, software providers will have to offer useful extra features, Ryder says, such as automated new software testing or security patch management. Virtual Iron introduced Version 3.1Â of its virtualization platform in December for a license price of $499 per socket--compared to $2,875 per socket for a comparable VMware license. XenSource also introduced new virtualization products at sub-$1,000 prices. Both XenSource and Virtual Iron build their proprietary products on top of the open-source Xen platform for virtualization hypervisors. (A hypervisor lets a computer run multiple operating systems at once.) VMware's products are not based on open source. Meanwhile, middleware vendor BEA Systems is making its own cost-cutting move. In the first half of 2007,Â BEA plans to releaseÂ WebLogic Server Virtual Edition (WLS-VE), a version of its Java application server that includes Liquid VM--a BEA-specific Java Virtual Machine that lets Java applications run directly on a hypervisor without requiring an operating system to be present. This will let users substantially reduce the amount of computer power, lowering the hardware costs per application, says Guy Churchward, vice president and general manager of the Java Runtime Products Group at BEA Systems. Initially, Liquid VM will work only with VMware's ESX Server hypervisor. Analysts advise CIOs planning for virtualization in 2007 to think strategically, not just tactically. "To really make virtualization work you want to do it so end users access capability, not just specific machines," Ryder says. "That's only going to be possible if you take a strategic approach," he says, noting that virtualization needs to be applied to storage, networking and the introduction of new software, not just servers. Mike Williams, CIO for the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), learned a lesson about thinking strategically when he did a virtualization project in 2006. (The DCMA, a federal Department of Defense agency, places contract managers inside companies fulfilling defense contracts for weapons systems, jets, military equipment and parts.) Williams deployed VMware, reducing the agency's number of servers to 160 from 560 and the number of data centers to three from 17. But that move taxed the WAN when all the network traffic converged on the three data centers. His advice: Optimize the WAN first. Still, Williams likes the results. Before virtualization, DCMA replaced about one-third of its 560 servers annually at a cost of about $2 million, Williams says; virtualization cut that expense to $560,000.
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Host based virtualization gives users the most flexibility; virtualization on the storage array is trickier; and network-based virtualization, while offering the most benefits, is difficult to implement and the stickiest once installed.
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TechWeb - Look for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 applications to run as a virtualized guest on Longhorn, for starters.