How to Build the Business Case for Virtualization

PLAYBOOK

Virtualized Datacenter

Real-World IT Optimization

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PREPARED FOR

inside INTRODUCTION

1: GETTING STARTED

2: MAKING THE MOST THROUGH VIRTUALIZATION: WHAT TO EXPECT

3: DATACENTER OPTIMIZATION: THE FAQS

4: THE AGILE BUSINESS

5: BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY

6: VISION FOR THE FUTURE

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www.vmware.com/go/intel

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1: GETTING STARTED






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– Bank Scores with Server Virtualization

– Doing the Math on Virtualization

– Major shift to cloud IT services inevitable

– Pepsi Bottler Swallows Skepticism About Virtualization

– 5 Steps to A Big Picture Approach to Virtualization in 2009

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Optimizing IT infrastructure is always in season. During challenging times, however,

it becomes more than an aspiration: making the

most of your IT assets becomes an imperative for

competitive advantage, and ultimately, survival.

Based on the proven ROI and business success of

virtualization for server consolidation, many orga-

nizations are looking to extend their virtualization

efforts to encompass the entire datacenter, from

the OS to the network to the management of

those critical business information assets.

Inspired by the collaboration between

VMware® and Intel to enable the next phase

of virtualization, this playbook will provide IT

decision-makers with a step-by-step overview of

best practices for datacenter virtualization. It will

describe breakthroughs in management solutions

for virtual datacenters and multi-core chipsets—

including VMware vSphere™ 4, and VMware VMo-

tion™ as well as Xeon processors with

Intel Virtualization Technology and the

new microarchitecture code-named

Nehalem—to case studies and advice

from CIOs and IT decision-makers.

Using a mix of original articles and

syndicated articles culled from the best

of CIO and CSO magazines, IT decision-

makers will be prepared to make

informed decisions on virtualization’s

role in controlling costs, optimizing IT

assets, business agility and disaster

recovery and business continuity.

Virtualized Datacenter = Real-World IT Optimization

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An effective virtualization model re-quires commitment and a well-designed strategy. Organizations that succeed can achieve remarkable gains.Over the last few years, virtualization has evolved from a promising technology to a mainstream tool for maximizing utilization rates and minimizing costs within an IT infrastructure. A 2008 IDG Research Services survey of 100 U.S.-based IT leaders found that 88 percent of organizations currently invest in virtualization initiatives; 63 percent have already achieved success with server virtualization. Now, a growing number of organizations are focusing on total datacenter infrastructure virtualization.

Yet understanding the challenges of operating a datacenter and how virtualization technology can help solve them doesn’t necessarily translate into a viable strategy—particularly for organiza-tions moving toward large-scale deployments. An organization—and its IT department—must develop a sound plan for virtualizing servers, storage and other enterprise resources. Utilization rates, avail-ability, resource optimization and, ultimately, return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO) are integral to success.

It’s no secret that datacenter optimization is a key to building a more agile, adaptable and

impressive results. It can spike utilization rates from the 20 percent range to 80 percent or higher and result in a cost savings exceeding 70 percent. But assembling the right combination of hardware and software is paramount, and seamlessly inte-grating policies and culture is vital. Only then can an enterprise unlock maximum business value and achieve superior results.

Building the Business Case for VirtualizationThe ability to run multiple computing environments, operating systems and applications side by side within the same physical server is appealing. By partitioning a server into several virtual machines, an enterprise can:

Boost utilization rates and thereby reduce

environment also helps boost server perfor-mance and streamline the datacenter.

Reduce datacenter power utilization and space requirements, thereby driving costs down.

Deliver cost-effective virtualization-based high availability solutions for critical applications.

Develop enterprise-class application availability and robust business continuity and disaster re-

Putting Virtualization to Work

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covery on a high performance platform offered by Intel and VMware.

Migrate legacy operating systems and applica-tions to virtualized environments for better reliability and performance—especially with server refreshes and hardware upgrades.The business world is experiencing one of the

fastest data growth periods in history. As com-panies migrate to online transactions, electronic records, and wireless systems, the demand for datacenter space, servers and storage arrays is climbing at a dizzying rate. Moreover, a spate of government regulations, along with enhanced business continuity, disaster recovery and data archiving requirements mean more robust systems are needed.

The corporate mindset is changing as well. A few years ago, the idea of going “green” was relegated to a handful of distinctly environmental

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component of a successful business. Consolidating servers and storage translates into lower cooling bills, reduced electricity consumption, and a smaller footprint. Green is here to stay.

Making the Move to VirtualizationThe starting point for any organization adopting virtualization is to gain the support of top execu-

viability—can transform a virtualization initiative from a promising idea into a winning proposi-tion. Typically, an enterprise can achieve ROI for a virtualization project within three to six months of deployment. Lower TCO, improved resource usage rates and better system availability can result in

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provements. In addition, an organization can realize -

ment and software updates.It’s also vital to crunch numbers internally and

assemble a realistic adoption and deployment mod-el. One useful tool is VMware’s free ROI calculator: www.vmware.com/products/vi/calculator.html. It can transform raw data and vague objectives into a clear-cut strategy. Essentially, the calculator guides an organization through the decision-making pro-cess by identifying the tangible CAPEX and OPEX savings available through: infrastructure optimi-zation; lifecycle management; disaster recovery; application development; release management and desktop virtualization.

virtualized environment that’s plugged into overall business objectives. A virtualized model must work across departments, business units and beyond. It must deal with current IT requirements but offer the automation, scalability, management tools and support for services necessary for the future.

The migration to virtualized systems doesn’t have to prove overwhelming. Refresh cycles can become an opportunity for costs savings rather than cost activities. As older servers and sys-tems are replaced with a higher-performing and more cost-effective architecture, it’s pos-sible to achieve greater virtual machine density, improved application performance, better flex-

ibility and lower power consumption. These incremental benefits add up to big gains.

At the same time, an organization can phase in virtualization software such as VMware, which provides tools for provisioning and managing resources faster and far more effectively. In fact, a VMware stack can create multiple snapshots of a virtualized environment and provide insight into ideal operating conditions for servers—as well as storage systems running on storage area networks, network-attached storage and other components.

possible to identify small and obvious opportunities for virtualization, create proof points and success stories, and then build on the framework by ex-panding the use of the technology to additional departments, divisions or initiatives. This process can occur in a deliberate and well-planned manner, starting with a test development environment that allows IT to tweak and adjust settings to determine the best operating state. The end result is a low-risk, high-reward IT infrastructure that can trans-form an enterprise.

In today’s highly competitive business environ-ment, virtualization is ultimately about dollars and sense. When used effectively, it provides immedi-ate and tangible results but also builds a founda-tion and framework for future gains.

In Chapter 2, we’ll look at how virtualization tech-nology can transform and optimize the datacenter.

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Trusted partners can help organiza-tions get the most from virtualization deployments.Virtualization seems sensible at face value, with

-tion infrastructure based on high-performance servers can result in a 20 to 80 percent increase in hardware utilization—which can translate into hun-dreds of thousands of dollars in savings.

But many IT environments still operate in a “do less with more” fashion. A datacenter might have dozens of servers running a variety of operating systems. Many of these servers house just a single application, resulting in a highly complex, rigid infra-structure that is tough to manage and adapt. It’s a

Organizations that move to a virtualized infra-structure can consolidate multiple operating sys-tems and applications onto a single server, which reduces costs and complexity and frees up physical

protection resides in the virtualization layer, not within individual applications.

And because virtualization dramatically decreases the number of machines, datacenter energy use is reduced, shaving utility bills and

boosting corporate sustainability strategies. Finally,

for infrastructure resource-sharing, with server loads that adapt in real-time to changing business needs, minimizing service delays and disruptions.

In this “optimized” datacenter infrastructure, the IT team can virtualize servers, storage and net-works into one set of computing resources that can be shared and reallocated as needed. Think of it as a virtual datacenter that can expand and contract dynamically. Virtualization solutions also include sophisticated management, monitoring, availability and recovery features that comple-ment existing system manage-ment tools.

Moving to virtualiza-tion requires a shift in mindset from both IT and business

Making the Most through Virtualization

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leaders, and often new skill sets and HR changes within IT. Below, we talk about these changes and how technology partners can ease the transition and improve outcomes.

Culture Change

structure in recent years; the same concept applies to the datacenter. Resources are shared and distrib-uted according to need, not corporate hierarchy —a change that does not come easy.

Business leaders may worry that application performance will suffer in a shared server environ-ment. For executives accustomed to having their own box, control and risk management issues can be top concerns. The CIO’s job is to clearly demon-strate why virtualization is a wise and competitive option, particularly during tight economic times. Nearly half the respondents to a recent AFCOM (an association for datacenter managers) survey say they will have a smaller datacenter budget in 2009; 86 percent report increased use of virtualization technology to reduce the need for new server purchases.

Strive for broad stakeholder participation and test virtual servers to ensure service levels are still acceptable. Management policies that avoid virtual server sprawl by helping IT managers determine which applications should go virtual are part of a sound virtualization strategy. Finally, staff train-

ing on virtualization techniques, securing a virtual environment, and a plan for IT staff reorganization are key components of any comprehensive virtual-ization change management practice.

A Strong Alliance Helps

particularly one that changes how core infrastruc-ture components are acquired and managed, tech-nology partners are critical to success. It’s impor-tant to choose vendors that continually innovate and will be around for a long time to come.

Intel, with decades of experience supplying products to support advanced computing and com-munications systems, and VMware, which delivers virtualization software to millions of end users and all of the Fortune 100, have been working

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enhancements:WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT AND MULTI-CORE

PROCESSING Data volumes and datacenter re-quirements will only expand in the coming years. VMware vSphere 4 software addresses shifting

hardware resource management. It pools and clus-ters aggregate physical resources, presenting them uniformly for dynamic load balancing, high avail-ability and mobility of virtual machines between

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different physical hardware with no disruption. The VMware/Intel collaboration has helped VMware software make better use of Intel hardware capabil-ities—such as the new multi-core processors, which support multiple software tasks simultaneously.

CONSOLIDATION Virtualization and consolida-tion require server platforms that combine perfor-mance, scalability and availability to deliver high service levels for multiple business applications. In-tel architecture is the basis for exactly these kinds of high-performance servers; with VMware technol-ogy, organizations can achieve server consolidation ratios as high as 20:1.

The VMware/Intel partner ecosystem provides access to a rich choice of platforms, operat-ing systems and applications to complement an organization’s virtualization and dynamic data-center strategy. ISVs can gain access to a suite of platforms from various OEMs; pre-production access to Intel Xeon platforms; pre-release access to VMware vSphere 4 and technical support from both companies. More information is available at www.vmware.com/go/intel.

For the past decade, VMware and SAP have enjoyed a close partnership; hundreds of customers use VMware in their SAP environments. VMware is an SAP Global Technology Partner, and SAP sup-ports VMware ESX™ as a platform for SAP applica-

tions on Windows and Linux in test, development and production environments.

The Intel® Enabled Server Acceleration Alliance (Intel® ESAA) delivers reliable, high-quality server solutions. Intel ESAA aligns with leading software providers and includes a validation service within Intel’s Enterprise Platform and Services division. The alliance combines robust Intel-based server platforms and building blocks with software appli-

server solution offerings to resellers. The VMware System Builder Program helps VMware partners become experts in virtualization, offering technical support, exclusive knowledge and other services

In Chapter 3, we’ll discuss three core virtu-alization activities: server consolidation, auto-mated management, and resource allocation and monitoring. Working in tandem, they transform a resource-intensive infrastructure that can’t adapt quickly to business needs to one that is flexible, dynamic and efficient.

that a virtualization infrastructure based

on high-performance servers can result in

a 20 to 80 percent increase in hardware

utilization—which can translate into and

hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings.

With virtualization as the underlying technology, the datacenter can be optimized for best use of resources and cost savings.It used to be that when a business unit needed a new application, IT ordered a new server and placed it in the datacenter. When space ran out, the datacenter was expanded or a new facility was built.

Concerns about rising costs and energy usage have made that strategy untenable. Datacenter optimization is now focused on minimizing costs, maximizing resources and enabling IT-business

alignment. But multifaceted business requirements, growing data volumes and stringent regulations make this a tall order.

First, though, IT must deal with outdated datacenters, which typically house multiple server platforms, with each server running a single ap-plication, at utilization rates as low as 15 percent. These data islands create physical complexity, energy waste and management headaches. A com-bination of best practices, hardware and software focused on consolidating and “greening” the data-

infrastructure. When a business unit needs new functionality, users won’t have to wait for weeks, or suffer from performance drags because the infrastructure can’t handle more workload.

For example, say a VP of sales needs a new CRM solution in place in a week for a major indus-try conference. Through a Web-based interface, she requests the software, enters the number of users and other business requirements, and accesses the application in a matter of days. In this scenario, IT becomes an enabler for business

customer service and lets business units quickly capitalize on changing demands and opportunities, ahead of the competition.

Getting Down to the FAQs3

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3 The Big Virtualization PictureAn optimized datacenter lays a foundation for self-service IT. The streamlined datacenter becomes a pillar on which to build out the entire IT infrastruc-ture, including desktops, servers and networks. An

requests and applications. Consolidation, resource allocation and workload balancing save companies money, ensure high availability for critical systems, and are part of an overall energy management

systems. Below are the core features of an opti-mized virtual infrastructure:

1. Server consolidationConsolidating servers directly improves the bot-tom line. Datacenters account for 1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption at a cost of $4.5 billion—more than all the color televisions in the country, according to research from the EPA and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Through widespread adoption of virtualiza-tion, the EPA estimates annual savings in electric-ity costs in 2011 will be from $1.6 billion to $5.1 billion. With high-performance server and state-of-the-art virtualization software combinations, server consolidation ratios could reach 20:1. Ac-cording to VMware, consolidation can result in up to 80 percent cost savings on energy bills and 50 percent on hardware.

Getting started is quick and inexpensive. VM-ware offers customers two free downloads to get started on virtualization now—no investment required. VMware Server is a free virtualization product for Windows and Linux servers that en-ables companies to partition a physical server into multiple virtual machines and immediately experi-

an OS-independent hypervisor, offering the same functionality and performance as VMware ESX but with a 32 MB disk footprint.

As well, continued advances in server hard-ware, such as the new Intel® Xeon® 5500 series and Intel® Xeon® 7400 series processor families create a performance environment that makes virtualization practical and cost-effective.

2. Automated managementAutomated management is an ongoing trend; sys-

issues or modify settings to improve performance are helping decrease IT managers’ workloads—and in some cases prevent costly problems. New virtu-alization software and advanced server platforms can help in several ways:

CENTRAL MANAGEMENT: Virtualization tech-nology can provide a central management con-sole to keep track of performance, availability

patching and power management. This means

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3 IT managers can view the status of hundreds of servers and thousands of virtual machines. From the console, IT managers can analyze physical servers to identify strong virtualization candidates, and then convert them to virtual machines. Management software within virtual-ization suites can also provide Web access from any networked device, enabling managers to work remotely.

LOAD BALANCING: VMware Distributed Re-source Scheduler (DRS) aggregates CPU and

resource pools that are made intelligently available in real-time to virtual machines based on business priority, to maintain SLAs. Load balancing optimizes heat generation and power distribution across the datacenter; it can also entail live server-to-server migrations, which supports the shared services model of the modern IT environment. The trick is to do this across multiple generations of processors, with-out affecting end-user performance. VMware and Intel technology help enable rapid migra-tion of virtual machines while avoiding these potential problems.

3. Resource allocation and monitoringA virtual datacenter offers the ability to direct, through automated policies or manual intervention,

how IT resources are used according to business needs. During a major product promotion, for in-stance, it might be necessary to direct more server power toward the call center. When the promotion ends, those resources can be reallocated. Managed properly, virtualization can boost both internal and external customer service satisfaction.

Here are a few examples of how IT can use VMware virtualization technology to dynamically manage resources:

ENABLE applications to dynamically acquire more resources to accommodate peak performance

ASSIGN minimum and maximum CPU capacity to virtual machines based on business priority

ENSURE critical virtual machines receive prior-ity access to storage devices and network bandwidth

USE resource pools to provide on-demand access to virtual machines as business needs shift and to ensure application service levels are met

TAKE advantage of advanced server hardware that increases the memory bandwidth and application performance within each virtual machine by more than two times over previous-generation multiprocessor platforms.In Chapter 4, we’ll delve into the concept of

agility and how virtualization supports it, from both IT and business perspectives.

Business agility is a long sought after organizational goal. Virtualization is making it easier to achieve.In a global business environment where plans are constantly morphing, agility is key—and virtual-ization can help. It is bringing companies closer to on-demand computing than ever before. With virtualization, IT departments can operate in a more behind-the-scenes manner, and give busi-ness more control over how and when they use IT services. Organizations can change course quickly, scaling up or down as necessary to meet new customer demands.

The following intersections between virtualiza-tion technology and agility give IT the power to be more responsive to business requirements:

1. Faster provisioningVirtualization software is embedded on some physical servers, allowing IT to deploy a new virtual machine in just a few minutes. (VMware ESXi is an OS-independent VMware hypervisor available for free. It offers the same functionality and per-formance as VMware ESX but with a 32 MB disk footprint). Virtualization management software addresses the dual parts of provisioning, automati-cally detecting the new physical hardware and

quickly migrating virtual machines to it according to SLAs and other policies.

Normally, IT administrators spend hours manu-ally configuring new servers, which can create frustrating and sometimes costly delays. Ad-vanced server technology, coupled with special-ized virtualization features, enables more efficient migrations between physical servers, preventing user downtime.

OUTCOMES: IT can more quickly allocate new computing resources to support the busi-ness, and users do not experience productivity declines from infrastructure changes.

2. Location-independent applications and servicesIT complexity is often related to incompatibility issues between platforms. It is much easier to move virtual machines from machine to machine as needed for availability or backup reasons. Intel® VT FlexMigration with VMware Enhanced VMotion technology enables efficient live migra-tions of virtual machines across all Intel Core microarchitecture-based servers.

Virtual machines are hardware-independent, and can run on any x86 computer; a physical server can even run multiple different virtual operating

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systems. As well, virtualization encapsulates appli-cations, operating systems, and hardware require-ments including CPU, memory, storage and I/O into a highly portable software container.

OUTCOMES: A virtualized infrastructure not only enables consolidation among disparate

IT resources and enhances performance.

3. High availabilityServer failure is a hard reality. It doesn’t have to be a nightmare. One strategy for dealing with it is to have physical servers as backups for key systems, but that gets expensive to maintain. Specialized virtualization software, however, can continuously and seamlessly monitor the environment for server failure, and restart virtual machines immediately—without human intervention. The user, unaware of the situation, continues work as usual.

By the same token, consider the implications for disaster recovery. A system can be protected

with backup or replication software because it

If a server begins to fail, the virtual machine can be recovered to any compatible hardware without

independent. It’s important to note, however, that IT should select suitable hardware platforms for virtualization, to ensure high performance and reli-ability during data and system recovery.

OUTCOMES: IT can achieve high SLA perfor-mance and satisfaction levels with the busi-ness, and avoid costly interruptions.

4. Dynamic, real-time resource management

VMware virtualization software, combined with Intel® Xeon® processor servers, can create a virtual “pool” of processing and storage resources, allow-ing IT managers to allocate and reallocate them as needed to different applications or to provide a data backup resource.

For instance, say an organic produce home delivery company receives a larger-than-expected response to an online promotion. To meet demand

the company can quickly dedicate more server power to its customer-facing applications. As well, IT managers can create policies to prioritize how resources are allocated to virtual machines, keep-

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When infrastructure is simpler,

streamlined, and easier to adapt, it

requires less time to manage. That leads

to the ability to provide higher levels of

services faster.

ing strategic applications and data readily available.OUTCOMES: In the future, virtualization

technology will automatically readjust loads based on changing datacenter conditions or business requirements.

Virtualization technology has become a criti-cal method to reduce infrastructure complexity through faster server deployment; more painless and effective migrations; better achievement of service-level agreements via intelligent resource allocation; and a more foolproof response to avail-ability and disaster recovery needs.

When infrastructure is simpler, streamlined, and easier to adapt, it requires less time to man-age. That leads to not only a lower cost structure for the datacenter, but also the ability to provide higher levels of services faster.

OUTCOMES: Less time troubleshooting means more time to help business leaders achieve their goals.

Virtualization in action

from virtualization: To keep up with the pace of business, Siemens Medical Solutions required an ever-increasing number of servers, which caused physical storage constraints and made hardware main-

tenance more complex for IT administrators. Through virtualization, IT gained time and real-ized a $4 million reduction in operating expens-es, reduced space and cooling requirements through consolidation, and improved availability of applications and data. VMotion from VMware enabled the company to add memory, move memory, or migrate applications across servers without any downtime. The company is now making better use of its hardware resources, as virtualization improved server CPU utilization from 4 percent to 70 percent. The company is now investigating multi-core technologies to place more intensive workloads and more users on virtual machines.

AXA Technology Services (an internal service provider for the AXA Group, a global insurance provider with 52 million clients) was worried virtualization might result in a performance decline for its brokers. After implementing the technology, the company maintained its previ-ous service levels and realized the following

savings; 30 percent improvement in server utili-zation; reduction in time needed to acquire and build a server from days to hours; and a 12:1 server consolidation ratio overall.In Chapter 5, we’ll look at how virtualization

can enable a streamlined and affordable disaster recovery and business continuity practice.

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Virtualization can enable a more robust and reliable disaster recovery and busi-ness continuity model. But it’s vital to develop a focused strategy and put the right technology in place.Business continuity is a critical concern for all orga-nizations. The emergence of vast computer net-works—often intertwined with partners, customers, employees and others—has changed the way com-panies act…and interact. There’s an expectation that

almost instantly. Recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) continue to shrink while the need to support business continuity and disaster recovery (DR) grows.

Corporate executives, IT managers, and small business owners must develop an effective busi-ness continuity and disaster recovery strategy—no simple task. Companies must tap into a variety of solutions and technologies to build a robust and effective infrastructure, including: storage and backup devices; mirroring and clustering technol-ogy; management software; and remote access.

Establishing and managing datacenters—as well as replicating data on physical servers—can prove

incredibly complex and cost prohibitive. Conse-quently, many organizations are turning to a virtu-alized IT environment. It reduces the demand for hardware while alleviating or even eliminating the need to replicate data in the same format in which it was originally stored.

A New Business Continuity Model EmergesDowntime is far more than inconvenient in a digi-tal economy. According to Ontrack Data Recovery Services, large companies can lose upwards of $1 million an hour when systems and data aren’t avail-able. For small companies, the consequences of any

be fatal—customers will take their business else-where. Too many organizations fail to take busi-ness continuity seriously until it’s too late.

Hurricane Katrina caused over $100 billion in damages and made local business operations nearly

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in some cases, virtualization helped them build a

The Role of Virtualization in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

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5 more robust and streamlined architecture.What makes business continuity planning so

challenging is that it’s necessary to design and engineer a solution that can handle dozens, even hundreds, of variables, including RPOs, RTOs and storage tiers. Yet at the same time an organization must plan for a variety of possible disruptions rang-ing from cataclysmic events such as earthquakes to more mundane problems such as power failures.

Virtualization provides a way to lower the cost of business continuity and DR without compromis-ing results. Virtual machines allow IT to manage tape and disk libraries more seamlessly, and quickly

-pecially valuable for businesses that cannot afford to build and maintain remote failover sites with identical physical servers and storage arrays.

Remote datacenters that duplicate all the hardware and software from a primary business site create a tangle of challenges. Beyond the initial cost of building a failover site and ensuring it meets all standards is the nettlesome issue of keeping hardware and software synchronized on

-ware updates can derail systems. And maintaining systems in an identical state can drain IT resources.

Virtualization separates the recovery process from physical servers. Virtual machines contain the OS, applications, data and, in some cases, provision-

ing information. This means an organization can re-store computing functionality to hardware without serious concern for its underlying characteristics. In essence, the virtualized platform creates hard-ware independence through a complete operating environment. Virtualization software from VMware handles the data management and mapping, thus simplifying IT management and improving the over-all ability to run the business.

Greater automation is also part of the picture. If a hardware or application disruption takes place, virtualization software ensures that only a brief restart is required. VMware High Availability (HA) virtualization software offers powerful business continuity and DR features: if a physical server fails, any virtual machine that’s affected automatically restarts on another production server with spare capacity. If a failure takes place within a virtual ma-chine, VMware HA detects the problem and restarts the failed virtual machine on the same server.

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5 Steering Toward Success

disaster recovery strategies in other ways. Orga-nizations can conduct non-disruptive testing and make changes dynamically without taking systems down. They can simplify data recovery by eliminat-ing complex manual steps—all while centralizing recovery plan management. In this new environ-ment of automation and high availability, hardware failure no longer equals business failure. Systems adjust and adapt and it’s business as usual.

It’s a concept that appeals to Health First, a

Space Coast. Using Intel processors and VMware ESX, the organization built a high availability envi-ronment while trimming 55 physical servers and $105,000 in capital costs. Health First also reduced

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ganization with limited resources. Health First pre-viously depended on tape backup, which required days to restore in the event of a server failure. Now, with real-time snapshots of running virtual machines and a storage area network (SAN), the organization is able to recover primary applications “within an hour,” says network engineer Joel Otero.

Another company that used virtualization to boost business continuity is Subaru of Indiana. The 620-acre facility, which manufactures 21,800 vehicles per month, turned to a virtualized IT envi-ronment to boost productivity and reduce system downtime. The joint solution using VMware and In-tel platform pushed annual uptime from 96.64 per-cent to 99.56 percent and created new business continuity options. IT now uses virtual machines as hot backups for physical machines, eliminating the need for new hardware.

In Chapter 6, we’ll examine how organizations can use virtualization to realize even greater per-

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TOOLKITThe Power of Virtualization Technology RISING ENERGY COSTS and limited datacenter space

computing infrastructure. Intel Xeon processors deliver results in three key areas: optimal server performance

reductions and boosted performance; and best-in-class virtualization features. All of this translates into more intelligent performance and greater automation, in-

consolidation ratios; the ability to combine heteroge-neous servers into a single virtualized server pool; and improved virtual machine failover, load balancing, and disaster recovery capabilities.

The right IT infrastructure can help an organization ride the virtualization wave into the future of business and embrace opportunities that can rede-

Virtualization can drive remarkable improvements in utilization and performance, helping organiza-tions squeeze maximum returns from technology investments and fashion a far more agile enter-prise. But in today’s highly competitive and fast-changing global environment, building a solid IT foundation is crucial. The right hardware, software and systems can create new opportunities and a more dynamic approach to business.

Storage, applications and desktops are also becoming virtualized as organizations look for

As cloud computing, Web 2.0, service-oriented architecture (SOA) and many other tools enter the

-tive. And given the current economic climate, orga-nizations must adopt an architecture that supports change at the lowest possible cost.

A Framework for SuccessAlthough the concept of building today for tomor-row sounds simple enough, the path to success can

have more than a few potholes—such as trying to balance expenditures versus ROI. During the recent economic downturn, more than a few organizations made OPEX cuts that reduced server refreshes and other equipment investments. This approach can inhibit opportunities for gains once the economy picks up or as the need for more sophisticated systems accelerates.

Assembling the right combination of hard-ware, software and other components can also be a challenge. Together, Intel and VMware offer a virtualization environment that’s optimized for maximum performance. A 10-year partnership has produced features and performance levels that aren’t available through mixing and matching. An IT department that relies on hardware-assisted virtualization from Intel can achieve infrastructure optimization from the desktop to the server—and across the network.

Intel Xeon processors with Virtualization Technology (VT) provide a unique and powerful platform providing hardware assistance for virtu-alization. Enhancements in the processor, chipset and network interface ensure the VMware virtual-ization software runs at a maximum performance

tasks to hardware for near-native performance

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characteristics. In a business environment that’s increasingly measured in milliseconds, such gains are a clear competitive advantage.

Embracing a Virtual FutureVirtualization will play an important role in comput-ing in the months and years ahead. Already, orga-nizations are stepping beyond server virtualization and reaping additional rewards through virtual-izing storage, networking, and applications. For example, storage virtualization allows an organiza-tion to centralize all available storage and manage one large pool of devices and servers—instead of hundreds of different ones—and carve up that pool into storage portions attached to the servers.

Application virtualization, which isolates an ap-plication from the underlying OS, lets programs run in parallel with other software—making it much easier to move programs and data across devices and operating systems. And it can enable delivery to any device or operating system, creating a level

--

ization technology to client devices.

VMware client virtualization allows organizations to manage desktops as a service and lower admin-istration and management costs—all while increas-

so powerful is that it partitions familiar hardware

into multiple isolated virtual environments called “virtual machines.” Virtualizing client devices allows an organization to use multiple operating systems, isolate applications from one another, and take

The combination of VMware View™3 (Client Virtualization Platform) with Intel® vPro™ is a “best of breed” solution, optimized for enterprise busi-ness client virtualization. It enables network mobil-ity, enterprise-class control, and centralized applica-tion, image and data management while providing

reduces hardware-related operating costs and allows IT shops to manage desktops as a service,

user productivity.Virtualization is creating opportunities for other

IT gains. Within the datacenter, for example, VM-ware enables server consolidation and serves as a

control and choice—particularly as organizations adopt cloud computing solutions. Cloud comput-ing provides an environment where applications and data are highly accessible—and manageable. Using the Internet to connect customers, business partners and employees with the data they desire when and where they need it, an enterprise can

VMware vSphere™ aggregates all datacenter resources into a shared private cloud, creating mas-

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sive economies of scale and leading to enormous capital and operational savings. The solution also decreases capital expense per application and supports the broadest range of operating systems and applications running on x86. This makes it possible to seamlessly federate private and public clouds without requiring application customization.

VMware vSphere is optimized for Intel® VT FlexMigration. This processor technology boosts

and allocating virtualized workloads across new and existing Intel-based platforms. It makes pro-cessor generations transparent and expands the pool of resources in a virtualized environment.

Combining VMware® Enhanced VMotion™ technology with Intel VT FlexMigration allows an enterprise to capture the current live state of a virtual machine and transfer it to a destination system with a different processor generation without any disruptions or downtime.

Cloud computing allows organizations to move beyond the traditional datacenter and into a computing framework that makes geography irrelevant and physical machines less important. Grid computing, Software as a Service, on-demand computing and hosted IT become viable options—transforming computing into a utility and further reducing IT complexity.

Virtualization is at the center of a shifting IT landscape; its successful adoption can lead to remarkable gains. Understanding how to use the technology and unlock its full value can help an enterprise tap its full potential. Of course, no one can predict exactly how the business and IT worlds will change over the next few years. But one thing is certain: the right technology founda-tion can support whichever direction an organiza-tion chooses.

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TOOLKITVMware vSphere THE COST AND COMPLEXITY of traditional cluster-

ing systems can be formidable. VMware vSphere

maximize the availability of applications running on

a virtual machine. It makes operating systems and

pushes business continuity to a new level. VMware

vSphere protects systems within an entire infra-

structure. This includes an ability to monitor virtual

machines to detect hardware and OS failures; restart

virtual machines on physical servers without manual

intervention when a failure occurs; and protect ap-

plications from OS failures by automatically restarting

VMs when an OS failure takes place.

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Bank Scores with Server VirtualizationBY GUNJAN TRIVEDI

Here’s a look at why ICICI Bank’s senior GM and Group CTO, Pravir Vohra, is known as an IT leader who can make a difference.

They say old habits die hard. It’s a adage that’s certainly true for ICICI Bank’s senior GM and the Group CTO, Pravir Vohra. As a man who was part of the team that popularized online banking and helped create a new revenue stream for ICICI Bank, Vohra is already known as an IT leader who can make a difference. He’s also celebrated as a CIO who not only leverages new concepts and technologies to create -mover advantages for his organiza-tion, but also adopts solutions at such an unprecedented rate and scale that it advances his bank beyond the reach of its peers. Even solution and service providers have found it hard to keep up.

About four years ago, for instance, ICICI Bank was one of the

wide data warehousing and b usiness intelligence. And now the

with technology, this time with server virtualization.ICICI Bank’s IT team, led by Vohra, has used virtualization to

arrest an electronic infrastructure spill-over at its datacenters.

little under 650 applications on a virtualized environment. It required them to develop the unparalleled technology ability to run 60 virtual machines on a single server but it saved the bank over a crore annually in power, cooling and space.

The result? While the server count of its closest competitors

with just a fraction of that. That’s incredibly low for a bank of its size with assets amounting to Rs 384,970 crore (US$7899), and with 1,400 branches and 4,530 ATMs across the country.

Big, Real BigThe business problem ICICI Bank forever grapples with lies at the core of its standardized Windows NT architecture. Any ap-plication typically requires a Web tier, an application tier and a database tier— it’s a necessary evil. “Now if somebody asks for a development environment, add three more. Move onto a test-ing environment, add another three servers. So even if you are deploying something as simple as a library management system, you have to take nine servers into account. At ICICI Bank, we run

Running that many application has a domino effect. It de-mands an ongoing investment in servers, power consumption, rack space, switching gear because as all these servers need to be interconnected to storage and networking sub-systems for management, availability and recoverability. “We were actually

he says. “It is a kind of an exponential problem. We were not utilizing our servers properly but had to keep them because some development or some testing could happen. Let’s say that without virtualization, I’ll provide a server to run a library, holiday home and collection applications on the same server. But if you run a user acceptance testing (UAT) environment at the same time, you’ll have problems. The world has found a way of con-

The problem wasn’t new. Though the problem piled up over time, the bank’s IT team had only experimented with different technologies from time to time to seek an effective solution. But a couple of years ago, they started looking at a solution in earnest. “We found an embryo of a solution that we believed could work and improve over time to adequately arrest server, rack and power sprawl. We considered it to be workable enough

Vohra refers to a two-year-ago old initiative that was funda-mentally concentrated on server consolidation. Over the last year, the scope of the project has expanded to include other infra-structure consolidation, and an overall focus to reduce the bank’s

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carbon footprint. But it’s been a journey of discovery, he admits. “We can’t take credit for scripting a story to a design principle. We found a way as we discovered new things and worked with dif-ferent technologies. The idea was to improve our IT management capabilities and to reduce power and cooling consumption. It’s

School of HardknocksVohra formed a core team of 12 who were part of the NT admin team in the shared services vertical that takes care of the bank’s datacenters. The team ran a few proof-of-concepts, and started by virtualizing environments that were lower on the showstopper scale.

Vohra points out that out of the 650 applications, there are about 200 applications, which nobody would even notice if they were shutdown for a day. For example, a one-day outage of ap-plications such as ATM cash analysis or dead-stock inventory MIS generation would not raise any eyebrows.

But as the team started testing in live and more critical envi-ronments, they set high-water marks for the thresholds of run-ning applications in a virtualized ecosystem. About 14 months ago, the team managed to run about 51 virtual machines on

we were running out of: compute resources, I/O bandwidth or memory? We’d take say a server of 4-CPUs with 8-cores, run-ning Windows and run a mixed load of applications on 51 virtual machines. Not only did we break Sun Microsystem’s record of

-ure of 60 virtual machines on a single server. Of course, we later

says Vohra.As the proof-of-concepts succeeded, turnaround times for

-tored closely. “With technology, it is very easy to say that some-thing doesn’t work. It is much harder to make it work. Obviously,

it takes effort to make something hard work. But the problem in such cases, is that you don’t know what you are going to do but you discover what you need to do. You do it and take the next

As the team scrambled forward with its server virtualiza-tion push, it had to pick its way through numerous technical challenges that surfaced. High CPU and memory utilization led to frequent performance degradation, which were in turn compounded by network bottlenecks. This resource issue was addressed by using dynamic memory and CPU allocation to avoid creating performance chokepoints. Patching and upgrading to higher versions were also undertaken to overcome various technical limitations.

“You run into a choke and after some analysis you realize that the internal disks are not good enough or you need a higher I/O

out of memory for no logical reasoning. The physical machines you’re virtualizing, may add up to only 32GB of RAM, while on a target machine you have 64. Since we were pioneers in implementing such a solution at this scale, there were no easy answers available. Not even with our solution providers. We un-derstood the theoretical concepts well, but we became experts

The Smaller They Are, the Rarer They FallToday, ICICI Bank runs about 40 virtual machines on a server, with VMware virtualizing the environments of database server running SQL instances; application servers such as Websphere, Pramati and Oracle; and Web-servers. Vohra explains that as a strategy the current implementation has been executed only on 8-CPU dual core, 64GB RAM servers so that the features of over-commitment of memory and CPU resources are leveraged and VMware is able to scale up instead of scale out, taking full advantage of the Bank’s licenses

To decrease the use of multiple network cards, the servers

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have been moved to the same subnet of the NAS storage. This way, the same network card could be virtualized and deployed. This also ensures that connectivity to the storage through iSCSI is consistent and there are not too many hops.

“You can now over-commit resources. If I really needed 24 cores to do something spread across 30 applications I can now give them two cores each. That is a total is of 60 cores but

the applications peak at the same time. Some of these systems allow to over-commit resources beyond the boundaries of the physical box.

The required disk space on the home server has been provi-sioned on the connected iSCSI and Fiber Channel-based storage to meet the requirements of hosted VMs. I/O bottlenecks had been avoided by segregating storage connectivity on different network interfaces, says Vohra. This requires separate network cards for individual storage connectivity.

The virtualization effort forced various processes to be relooked and improved. It has translated into speedy provision-ing that takes no more than two minutes of. This has directly reduced the average downtime of all the virtualized applications.

-ers as standby for 30 servers it took three hours to bring up those server, in case of a failure. Each server had to be manually

Now, with automatic provisioning and over-commitment in

place, running applications can failover seamlessly and automati-cally. Features such as V-Motion have been employed to transfer

fallback mechanisms have led to zero downtime.Virtual machine slices with requisite operating system con-

-ing feature of such VM slices help in the rapid provisioning of resources when they are required. Downtime has been minimized by provisioning alternate servers with the V-Motion feature for auto failover of the entire system to another base server or for individual virtual machine failover.

Though the business is exposed to all 650 applications, not all the applications have been virtualized, says Vohra. There are a few applications (running on 900 servers) that are too critical and too monolithic to be put on a virtualized environment. Appli-cations such as the core banking system and credit card applica-tions demonstrate no advantage even if they were virtualized as they need power-packed servers to run in any case. “You don’t do it for religion. You do it only if it makes business sense. Anything that doesn’t require super-sized servers has been vir-tualized. All the new applications also are being virtualized. Only about 20-odd applications are running on very old servers. We will either retire them and have them virtualized eventually. They

Such technological advancements have made an impact on the resources and learning skill sets in ICICI Bank’s shared ser-vices team. They need to stay abreast with new technologies. It, however, doesn’t affect the application development team. As long as they see a server name, an IP address, they have local admin rights to the server; they don’t know whether that server translates into a pizza box or waferware, Vohra says.

Vohra maintains that given the amount of money a CIO needs to sink in a project like this, it had better make sense and a CIO better believe in what he or she is doing. At ICICI Bank, once the proof-of-concepts were successfully executed, there was no doubt over what would work and what would not.

But Vohra warns of peripheral things a CIO can never test, un-

The virtualization effort forced

various processes to be relooked and

improved. It has translated into speedy

provisioning that takes no more than

two minutes.

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less they get their feet wet. “We took a considered view. If some of these don’t run, we were comfortable that we had the ability to work with our partners to get upgrades or patches to make them run. When you are a pioneer, you are bound to trip up. But if your relationships are strong, then your partner will also work

quarterly targets of how many net servers were de-inducted. Payback was how many physical servers were sold for scrap or sent for recycling.

“In the end, we saw clear business payback. Business may or may not see it because for them it is just an event. They will see results only when an application goes down. In the life of a business manager, it will happen only three times. If it is 4AM, he is not bothered. But if it is at 10AM, and if it is a trading applica-tion, he would kill you for even 10 minutes of downtime. When an incident happens, a 3-hour or a 30-minute outage hurts busi-ness equally. Applications ran reasonably smoothly earlier but

Pocket PowerAlthough users are not consciously aware that the applica-tions they use everyday have been virtualized but there are still

of Rs 1.15 crore on account of power, cooling and space, says Vohra. The break-even period, considering capex, has been about

5.7 crore. ICICI Bank’s IT team buys servers today based on their power consumption. It is not that one company is worse than another, or that one model is better than another, says Vohra. “You should never generate more heat and consume more power than you can avoid. Would I buy a car, which is cheaper but con-sumes more gas? It is the same thing. At the end, you want to pay a little premium to buy a car that consumes less fuel. There are models of servers that are of similar compute capacity but

Today, Vohra is in a position to point this out because he knows. “The electricity bill at my datacenter alone has come

The procurement and indenting process has witnessed a dra-matic change, too, after the virtualization revolution at the bank. All the business units in the ICICI Group have been instructed to not indent or procure physical servers. The only unit they are allowed to procure their indent is in cores. Instead of asking for physical servers, they are supposed to ask for a certain number of cores because for every application, the unit of measurement is no longer a computer or a CPU but the lowest measurement unit in commercial terms.

“Fundamentally, the DNA of the enterprise has changed. Budgeting is now based on cores. Soon, going forward, we will move over to threads as the unit to indent and budget. The only people allowed to count servers are those from the shared

-fectuated the organization to earn valuable carbon credits. The enterprise intends to encompass various organization-wide green initiatives that go beyond its datacenters to create a meaningful and substantial trust fund of carbon credits that can be leveraged at the right opportunity.

“The logic for pursuing this initiative is that it not only ad-dresses the global phenomenon of environmentally responsible

-

Like they say, good things come in small packages.

Virtualization and the resulting

-

ganization to earn valuable carbon credits.

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Doing the Math on VirtualizationOne IT director breaks down the savings that he reaped from a server revamp and technol-ogy from VMware and Vizioncore.

BY JOANNE CUMMINGS

Money is tight. Performance is declining. Your servers are all nearly three years old and pretty soon, their high-priced main-tenance contract is about to kick in. What do you do?

If you’re like Tim Hays, you take the money you would have spent on maintenance and instead use virtualization to not only

cooling costs 45 percent, and make disaster recovery as easy as pushing a button.

says Hays, director of IT at Lextron, a wholesale distributor of ani-mal health pharmaceuticals with 600 employees in 44 locations across 19 states. “I look at IT as a business enabler. Virtualization wasn’t something that we did just because it was the next cool

Start smallHays, who told his story at the recent Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Denver, didn’t jump into virtualization all at once

in 2005, when he was faced with paying $300,000 over three years to maintain the three Unix servers and direct-attached storage units supporting his ERP, inventory management and sales management functions. All told, the three servers were responsible for handling $1.75 million in sales transactions daily.

At the time, virtualization a la VMware was not well-known.

Instead, he used the $300,000 to replace the Unix servers with one PA-RISC-based HP-UX server running HP’s Virtual Partition (vPAR) software, which enabled the one server to host three virtually partitioned servers. He also put the server on a Fibre Channel-based HP EVA 5000 storage-area network. (Compare storage virtualization products.)

for the new equipment was $100,000 per year, the same as he would have been paying for maintenance per year on the old gear.

But reports now ran 30 percent to 40 percent faster, and user complaints declined.

“People were waiting less time to get information, and they didn’t have that problem where they were outworking the ability

At the same time, the company also needed to upgrade its ERP databases from Informix 7 to 9.4. “We had 1,500 programs that we needed to regression test against new hardware, a new

Hays says. Buying new equipment enabled Hays to install all the new software and thoroughly test everything before cutting

simply switched users from the old equipment to the new. The whole process, which could have taken six months in the past, took just 45 days.

Success breeds successFaced with a similar situation on the Wintel side of the house in August 2006, Lextron once again calculated its options. The company had been using 40 physical servers to support its Micro-soft Windows environment, including Exchange, SharePoint, CRM

“We had servers that needed to be replaced and we had a track record of taking multiple physical servers and combining

The company decided to virtualize its 40 servers and run

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them all on a cluster of two HP x64 DL-360 servers, each with 20GB of memory and running VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 (VI3) software. Hays says the decision to use just two physi-cal servers hinged on VMware’s licensing costs. “It’s just a math

them over cheaper servers, or I can buy more expensive, robust servers and fewer VMware licenses. I just projected the total cost of ownership for a 36-month period, and using these four boxes

Plus, the move enabled Lextron to eliminate three racks of equipment, along with 45 percent of its power and cooling costs. And it increased productivity overall, especially in IT. “If someone

-cal box, and make sure it had the right physical features -- CPU,

we had to purchase a new server just to test a particular applica-tion. That’s all eliminated with virtual machines. They’re very easy

Plus, with virtualization and fewer physical servers, Lextron was able to go to the next big step, implementing what Hays

“Because of virtualization, we were able to rent a much small-er facility for a disaster-recovery center -- if you looked at it, you

recovery] site has just two server racks, an inline cooling unit, and UPS and battery backup. Plus, Hays uses Vizioncore’s vReplicator software to replicate virtual machines from the primary site to the backup site.

“I have virtual Exchange Server ‘A’ sitting in my production data center, and multiple times a day, Vizioncore takes a snapshot of everything that’s unique about it — the server, the database — and it passes that data over to virtual Exchange Server ‘B’ at

recovery site is located 3 miles away and is linked to the produc-tion site via a 180Mbps connection. “From a command console, I can tell it to automatically switch over to Exchange Server B and run all my users, and my users wouldn’t know the difference. It’s

Vizioncore cost $600 per server license, and Lextron uses it for 26 critical servers. “Twenty-six times $600 is less than

In the end, virtualization was just a no-brainer for Lextron. “I got more productivity from my staff, I got better utilization of the equipment that I had, I got a better return on the invested capital

Joanne Cummings is a freelance writer in North Andover, Mass. She can be reached at [email protected].

Major shift to cloud IT services inevitable, IDC saysBY JON BRODKIN

IT infrastructure and services delivered over the cloud will

from on-premises software to Internet-delivered technology will be left in the dust, IDC analyst Frank Gens predicted at the IDC Directions conference in Boston Tuesday.

“If you are not thinking about and acting on delivering your

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products, services and solutions delivered and consumed in real

made up of shared services under virtualized management that are accessible to people and other services over the Internet in a pay-per-use and self-service model.

An important distinguishing feature under the IDC cloud -

vices to one another and to the systems within enterprise data centers, he said.

Cloud services break down into six main categories, according to Gens— applications, collaboration tools, storage, servers and processing, IT management, and platforms.

IDC surveys show 26% of businesses using the cloud for IT management, 15% to bolster server and storage capacity, a quarter for collaboration and business applications, and 17% for application development and deployment.

A common perception is that most customers embrace cloud services because of the cost. While that is certainly true, Gens said IDC surveys show the No. 1 attribute driving people toward cloud services is the ease and speed of deployment.

Users are telling CIOs they want faster delivery of services, and the cloud helps achieve that goal.

“That alone guarantees that over the next several years the

lessening the need for in-house IT staff, paying only for what you use and when you use it, the standardization of IT systems, and access to the latest functionality.

performance, availability and barriers to integrating cloud services with in-house IT systems. “We’re going to have to do a lot of work around service-level assurance to move this market into the

-formation and Communications Technology]: New risks, rules and

Matter? is scheduled to speak at the end of the conference.

Recession will be a change agent in the technology world, forcing customers and vendors to adapt to new realities, IDC

-ing nearly 6% growth in worldwide IT spending back in August,

of one percent this year. Spending should rebound with 4.4% growth in 2010, IDC forecasts.

of the worst economic downturn since before the computer was

But the move toward cloud computing — or utility computing as it is also called — shows that the IT industry is still stable and has room for growth, speakers said. If IT is truly a utility, like water or electricity, it’s probably a good business to be in, Gantz said.

Gens, who has traveled throughout the world the past six weeks and spoken with hundreds of CIOs, said “one thing I have learned during this trip is that this whole topic about cloud, Inter-net delivery of IT offerings, is really capturing the imagination of

Pepsi Bottler Swallows Skepticism About VirtualizationOne IT leader’s cautious move into virtual serv-ers and storage virtualization tastes sweet so far. Here’s a look at the strategy and savings.

BY JON BRODKIN

Christian Messer was a virtualization skeptic not long ago. Now he swears by virtual servers.

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“I was very skeptical. I think it’s more mentality than anything -

ization project at G&J Pepsi Cola Bottling Company in Cincinnati. “It was more of a lack of understanding on my part. As I got it

Messer, manager of information systems at G&J, explains that he had suffered numerous system crashes with Microsoft Ex-change on physical servers and wasn’t sure how it would perform

virtualization has allowed Messer to drastically reduce disaster recovery times.

“I did a test employment with Exchange 2007 in a virtual

performance was outstanding. I’ve got a much higher comfort level now with virtual machines than with physical servers. I’m able to leverage a lot more of my technology and get some ROI,

G&J is an independent bottler with more than 1,000 employees.

Before deploying virtualization last November, Messer had 78 servers, mostly from Dell and HP, and is in the process of con-solidating them into just 16 Dell blade servers by the end of this year. (Compare blade server products.)

With VMware’s hypervisor on quad-core servers, he’s running two virtual machines on each core for a total of eight per physi-cal server.

servers are all running on virtual machines. Before virtualization Messer was using less than 10% of his server resources, and he still has room for improvement. He says he hasn’t found an ap-plication that he wouldn’t trust on a virtual machine.

probably double everything I’ve got on the ESX servers and still

Messer is moving his storage from tape to a Dell EqualLogic iSCSI storage-area network and virtualizing both servers and storage. Having storage and server virtualization work together is key, Messer says, describing the ability to abstract logical storage from physical storage and easily reallocate storage units to virtual machines.

“In my opinion, it’s necessary to have both if you want to

time quicker. The ability to grab snapshots of virtual machines, data volumes, replicate those and replicate changes. . . . Hav-ing multiple layers of redundancy scattered across your WAN, for me that’s extremely valuable. I put more value on that than

It took about a half-hour to get back up and running after a SQL virtual server crashed recently. That’s a huge improvement over the days when G&J had everything on tape.

rebuilding and reloading an operating system and grabbing all

Messer estimates he’s saving between $11,000 and $13,000 per year because of storage and server virtualization.

That’s not to say life with virtualization is perfect. USB storage devices aren’t compatible with G&J’s virtual machines, Messer says. He’s working with VMware to solve the problem but hasn’t

“You can make the USB device visible to your ESX Server,

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5 Steps to A Big Picture Approach to Virtualization in 2009Think far beyond your servers from the start if you want to reap virtualization’s wider poten-tial in the data center, says Dave Robbins, CTO, Information Technology for NetApp. Here’s his starting checklist for IT pros who want to take a holistic view of virtualization in the enterprise.

BY DAVE ROBBINS

In the current economic climate, organizations are cutting IT projects that are unable to show a strong return on investment within twelve months. But buoyed by the prospect of increased

-

one of the IT projects getting almost universal buy-in from CIOs.

-

want to ensure that they are taking a holistic view of virtualization.

1. Assess your virtual environment readinessYou can’t optimize what can’t measure. Detailed assessment is

-

provide a baseline measurement that can be tracked and reviewed.

A well-architected shared storage environment can help IT groups enable the advanced features of virtualized server environments without adding the overhead of additional management.

3. Revisit data backup and recovery plansVirtualization means relying on fewer physical systems to process more tasks. Consolidating on fewer machines without redesigning

and limit overall project success. CIOs should carefully consider

site failure and ensure information is properly protected.

4. Consider thin provisioningServer virtualization enables the rapid provisioning of applications and administrators should consider thin provisioning for their en-

and enable faster time to market.

5. Dig into data deduplication to

data such as the same operating system and application software. Deduplication technologies allow an organization to use and man-



Documents

How to Build the Business Case for Virtualization