One of the pillars of the Virtual Data Center is virtual platform infrastructure, or the virtual machine; however virtual platforms are dependent on many other, oft forgotten components of both the physical and virtual data center.
White Paper
Keeping Your Head Above
the Cloud: Seven Data Center
Challenges to Consider Before
Going Virtual
One of the pillars of the Virtual Data Center is virtual platform infrastructure, or the virtual machine; however virtual platforms are dependent on many other, oft forgotten components of both the physical and virtual data center.
by Alan MurphyTechnical Marketing Manager, VirtualizationWhite Paper Keeping Your Head Above the Cloud: Seven Data Center Challenges to Consider Before Going Virtual
Contents
Virtualization Changes Everything 3
Virtual Machine Deployment Challenges 4In Case of Emergency, Break Glass 4
Catching the Falling Sky 9
2White Paper Keeping Your Head Above the Cloud: Seven Data Center Challenges to Consider Before Going Virtual
Virtualization Changes Everything
Referred to by many names-OS virtualization, server virtualization, kernel "Virtualization is a proven virtualiation, hypervisors-virtual machine platforms, such as VMware ESX and software technology that Microsoft Hyper-V, are typically the first form of virtualization introduced to the is rapidly transforming data center. These technologies are becoming more inexpensive and less complex every day, making them attractive technologies to be the first virtual "guinea the IT landscape pigs" in the data center. Factors such as consolidation, cost savings, dynamic and fundamentally provisioning, and fluid migration are driving most IT shops to experiment with changing the way that some form of virtual machine product today, and the advent of large-scale 1people compute."infrastructure systems has moved these back-room experiments and development environments into full, public-facing application infrastructure systems.
Throughout the past two years we've seen these products deliver complete micro-data center solutions, almost a "data center in a data center" model (think Russian nesting dolls), beginning the prophetic movement towards changing the way applications compute in the data center. These new infrastructure platforms provide virtual machine (VM) management (OS virtualization), virtual switching and routing (network virtualization), virtual storage in the form of flat-file VM disk images (storage virtualization), and system management with tools like Virtual Center (management virtualization) all in one conveniently packaged product.
Although products like VMware's ESX and Virtual Center provide multiple tools to start building out the virtual data center (VDC), successfully implementing these technologies typically requires a re-architecture of the existing data center. Virtual machine platforms are possibly the most disruptive data center technology of the past 20 years (since the migration and standardization to Ethernet and IPv4). Adding a virtual machine platform is almost like adding a new floor in the middle of a completed skyscraper, without moving or demolishing any part of the existing structure.
In spite of all of the tremendous benefits they bring to the data center, virtual machines also add complexity, scale, and management challenges. Most of the time, these challenges appear in other parts of the data center, such as on the application delivery and storage networks. OS virtualization can be a powerful tool to improve efficiency, cut costs, and increase agility; however implementing virtualization without considering its impact on surrounding IT resources can lead to catastrophic failures, much like trying to shim in the new skyscraper floor without reinforcing the floors above. While the virtualization of physical machines (often referred to as P2V, physical to virtual) can put a tremendous strain on
33White Paper Keeping Your Head Above the Cloud: Seven Data Center Challenges to Consider Before Going Virtual
application and storage networks, it doesn't have to cause disruptions within your critical infrastructure. By planning for the migration to virtual machine platforms and recognizing the challenges that are inherently part of the virtualization process, you can achieve a seamless virtual migration, managed as part of the process rather than a a clean-up effort after the skyscraper has collapsed and crumbled to the ground.
Virtual Machine Deployment
Challenges
In Case of Emergency, Break Glass
There are typically seven areas of concern... [download for more]
