Virtualization adds additional layers of overhead and complexity, so cost savings on hardware are often offset by the increase in time and staff that are required to manage these environments. Learn more in this descriptive white paper.
"Virtualization in and of itself is interesting, and it gives you server efficiency, but without some of the automated tools, it may actually increase your management burden." John Enck, Gartner
TURN VIRTUAL MANAGEMENT INTO AUTOMATED BEST PRACTICES
"For virtualization to The Management Burden in Virtual Environments
truly work in real-world Virtual machines are becoming mainstream technology for consolidating and adding applications, users servers to the IT infrastructure. Virtualization technology allows companies to maximize resources and save on hardware expenditure. Many companies believe that it will also must also focus reduce staffing levels and lower support costs, but this is not always the strongly on case. Virtualization adds additional layers of overhead and complexity, so cost savings automation, the policy- in hardware are often offset by the increase in time and staff that are required to manage these environments. based administrative tools used to deploy IT support staff spend most of their time performing activities like change requests, virtualized instances problem analysis and resolution. In a virtual environment the burden of administrating and manage them."* and maintaining machines increases. Manually coordinating systems for maintenance procedures, change management and problem management on multiple machines John Enck, Gartner quickly becomes a strategy that doesn't scale. To make these systems truly cost effective IT departments need to automate run book procedures so IT staff spend less time on routine, repetitive tasks. "Strong automated tools are of critical importance for data centers seeking to optimize virtualization without creating additional headaches, and according to Enck [Gartner Analyst], you can't have one without the other."* Luke Meredith, CIO News Automate Virtual Management Tasks Into Best Practices Opalis Software is the expert provider of Run Book Automation software that enables organizations to integrate, orchestrate and automate IT processes. With Opalis companies report improved service delivery, service levels, and a reduction in operational costs. This is achieved by automating manual tasks and operational processes into standardized, documented, and reliable best practices. Opalis helps customers implement best practice frameworks, such as ITIL, by bridging the gap between department, application and data silos and integrating the people, processes and technology involved in operational tasks. The flexible workflow architecture provides an easy way to remove repetitive, time-consuming, manual tasks from overburdened IT staff so they can be reallocated to strategic projects. Opalis ships with out-of-the-box integration to leading data center management tools, making the automation of processes Simple, Fast, and Effective. Opalis automates run book procedures without custom programming, professional services, or rip and replace methods, which means IT shops can quickly realize the benefits of automating best practices. *GARTNER: VIRTUALIZATION A MEGATREND, By Luke Meredith, CIO News
Turn Virtual Management Into Automated Best Practices Page 2 of 10
"The advantage of the Maintenance Procedures
Opalis approach is that Good maintenance procedures are a key component in service availability. However, customers can quickly most IT departments perform duties manually which limits the frequency and number of tasks that can be completed within the maintenance window. This introduces the risk implement the system of error, inconsistency, and can impact service availability. In most cases schedules and to integrate and knowledge of system dependencies live inside the minds of a few IT staff, with little to automate a few no reporting. Even companies with well documented policies are faced with time constraints which result in corporate policies being bypassed. processes at a time, building more Opalis provides a script-free workflow environment to orchestrate, integrate and elaborate automation automate even the most complex backup procedures. environments - Automate image archiving, snapshot, backup process gradually." - Test restoration processes - Pause moni... [download for more]
