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General Information
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January 29, 2010
• Vol.32 Issue 3
Page(s) 27 in print issue
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Virtualization Lessons
Avoid Common Mistakes To Get The Full Benefit Of A Virtualized Infrastructure
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| Key Points
• Consolidating physical machines into virtualized servers and apps requires greater management oversight that can quickly overwhelm traditional manual processes, so consider automation to let IT cover all the bases.
• Piecing security together after the fact can leave gaps, and traditional security offerings may not function well—or at all—in a virtualized environment. Ask virtualization vendors to package security into their baseline offerings.
• Use virtualization as an opportunity to reassess the application inventory and align resources more closely to defined business needs. | | Once the decision to move to a more virtualized data center environment is made, the real work begins. The process is significantly more involved than simply consolidating some servers and integrating network management under a consistent monitoring and reporting system. Plan carefully to avoid mistakes that can bust the budget, put the business at unnecessary risk, or both.
Virtualization’s promises are almost too tempting to ignore. Combining multiple environments, applications, and processes on fewer machines can reduce hardware costs, streamline IT maintenance procedures, and drive agility in deploying new applications while minimizing interruption and risk to the business. However, although shifting to virtualized infrastructure can free up scarce data center resources and allow IT to focus on more value-added contributions to the organization, it doesn’t come without costs and risks of its own.
“Virtualization can offer benefits and solutions not previously available to physical systems, but these new benefits come at a cost,” says Alan Murphy, technical marketing manager of management and virtualization solutions at F5 Networks (www.f5.com). “What does it take to manage, control, and secure these new systems, and how will the entire infrastructure benefit from virtualization?”
 Collapse At Your Own Risk
As tempting as it may seem to migrate as many virtual environments, applications, and processes as possible to a limited number of virtualized devices, Agatha Poon, senior analyst for enterprise research at Yankee Group, says there’s a limit.
 Poon explains that as the number of virtual machines per physical server grows, the complexity of managing server provisioning grows, as well. This includes such functions as installing and configuring the OS, patching, and upgrading—all activities that Poon says do not always scale optimally. She says automation is a key technology that can “orchestrate the interplay between physical and virtual components and allow enterprise IT to automate scalability of compute resources and applications.”
Network capacity is another Achilles’ heel often ignored in the rush to virtualize the data center. Mistaken assumptions that network capacity will somehow be freed by the reduction in physical machines often mislead IT decision makers into not properly assessing network needs after virtualization is underway.
“As companies become more dependent on their IT infrastructures to deliver resources from a pool of consolidated computing power and storage, they must ensure the infrastructure will adapt to the changing requirements as requested,” says Poon. “The reliability and security of the network will become more critical than ever.”
This adaptation will demand a high level of integration. Murphy says the need for strong connections between virtualized solutions and existing application and networking infrastructure is critical. To accomplish this, he says companies will have to “create more fluid connections between the physical and virtual networks; plug automated virtual platform tools into configuration and release management systems for provisioning new virtual images; and focus on better integration between virtualized applications, storage, and the network.”
Will Older Apps Work?
Application architecture will need its own due diligence process. In some cases, legacy applications may not tolerate virtualization particularly well, if at all. Test extensively in a lab-type environment to identify which applications will and will not make the transition and then work closely with the business to prioritize migration and ensure that the target application inventory continues to meet business needs. Use the prioritized list to determine which apps need to be retired, rewritten, or replaced.
Shops using Active Directory will also need to ensure that apps that rely on AD will continue to function post-virtualization. George Slade, president of KOIOS Online Systems (www.koios.com), says many legacy networks were not designed with these concepts in mind. “As such, it is more difficult for them to convert,” he says. “The larger the network, the larger the challenge.”
Don’t Ignore Security
Security is another area often overlooked in the transition to virtualized infrastructure. Although security vendors are rapidly updating their products and services to be more virtualization-friendly, the onus remains on IT to keep everything properly protected and monitored during and following the transition to virtualized infrastructure.
Amir Ben-Efraim, CEO and co-founder of Altor Networks (www.altornetworks.com), says SMEs should know what their options are as well as their associated risks. He warns that firewalls and physical networking equipment already in place will only go so far if you need granular control for compliance and scale.
Ben-Efraim recommends directly asking virtualization vendors what their environment-specific offerings are. “To maximize security, performance, and scale, most security experts favor security solutions purpose built specifically for virtual,” he says.
As organizations dig deeper into virtualization, they may be challenged by the relative immaturity of the market. Despite the hype, industry-wide virtualization standards remain works in progress. Trusted relationships with vendors and resellers will be key to virtualizing in the near-term.
Better standards will help organizations manage their newly virtualized environments more effectively and better control the hybrid physical and virtual technologies on which they’re built. Amrit Williams, CTO at BigFix (www.bigfix.com), warns against underestimating the management challenge.
“Without unified management platforms, many organizations will struggle to achieve and maintain the cost-reduction and efficiency gains they believe they will experience from virtualization,” says Williams. 
by Carmi Levy
Best Lesson Learned: Remember The Human Impact
Virtualization doesn’t only impact the tools within the data center. It touches every corner of the organization, as well.
“When people say that virtualization changes everything, it really does change everything, including a lot of things and processes far beyond the data center,” says Amrit Williams, CTO at BigFix (www.bigfix.com). “Collapsing multiple, disparate functions, such as networking, application, system, database, and server management, into a single piece of hardware will force IT to radically change how they implement people, process, and technologies both within the IT department and how end users go about their business.” |
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