Why Virtualize?
"When you virtualize server hardware, you can have multiple systems running on a single host or server and increase utilization to 30 or 40 or 50 percent. That also reduces the hardware footprint, which cuts capital costs, cooling and power costs, and eventually running costs."
---John Humphreys, IDC
Virtualization is not the panacea that many companies make it out to be, but with proper planning and management, organizations that virtualize their environment typically experience increased server utilization, lowered costs, and greener data centers.
The Challenges of Virtualization
However, most organizations aren’t prepared for the challenges that a virtualized data center present and are ill-prepared to manage the new environment. A virtualized data center is more complex and offers unique challenges not faced in the physical environment.
"The movement to adopt server virtualization technology has its downsides, which often stem from the increased complexity associated with activities such as planning and problem determination. VM Sprawl may result in exactly the opposite of what was originally intended… too many relatively lightly used VMs causing the unnecessary consumption of server resources."
--- Cameron Haight, Gartner
Issues commonly faced by organizations who have recently completed a virtualization initiative include:
- VM sprawl
- Poor capacity management
- Performance bottlenecks
- Difficulty pinpointing and resolving performance bottlenecks
The PERFMAN Solution
PERFMAN has developed a virtualization lifecycle management solution that eliminates these issues and ensures that both the physical and virtual infrastructure are performing at their optimal levels at all times.
Based on years of experience managing thousands of heterogeneous platforms for hundreds of clients around the world, PERFMAN has developed a six-phase approach to virtualization that starts before the first application is ever virtualized and continues through the entire life cycle of systems management.
- Discovery: A disciplined approach begins with full understanding of the performance characteristics of physical and virtual environments.
- Analysis: The keystone of proper identification of server virtualization is based on performance characteristics of supported applications.
- Planning: A structured methodology for what-if modeling of planned virtualized environments eliminates risks and guess work.
- Implementation: With confidence, driven by a well informed and thought out plan.
- Monitoring: Once servers are virtualized, the real capacity planning must take place. A complete view of all available information is vital.
- Management: Virtual environments require a disciplined approach to tracking historical growth trends, planned changes, failover, etc.