Templates for More Efficient Virtualization Management

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More Efficient Virtualization Management:
Templates
Learn more at www.swsoft.com/virtuozzo
Published: November 2006Revised: November 2006Table of Contents
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ 2OS, Middleware or VM Sprawl 3 ......................................................................................................... 3 -Why do IT departments need server virtualization technology? .............................................................................. 3 -Why doesn't hardware virtualization solve the issues associated with server sprawl? .............................................. 3Virtuozzo Templates ............................................................................................................................ 4 -How do other virtualization technologies treat Operating Systems and applications? .............................................. 4Virtuozzo Template Advantages .......................................................................................................... 5 -Efficiency: Density .......................................................................................................................................................5 -Manageability .............................................................................................................................................................. 5Template Management ....................................................................................................................... 6 -Creating a Template 6 ................................................................................................................................................ 6 -EZ Templates ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 -Provisioning an Application Using a Template ........................................................................................................ 6 -Updating a Template ................................................................................................................................................... 6Summary ............................................................................................................................................. 7Appendix 1 - Template Architecture Terminology ................................................................................ 8Appendix 2 - Management Console Screenshots ............................................................................. 9
© SWsoft More Efficient Virtualization Management: Templates 2OS, Middleware or VM SprawlWhy do IT departments need server virtualization technology?
Historically, IT administrators provisioned a new server with every new application resulting in a large number of servers with utilization rates of 10-15% or less, commonly known as server sprawl. Server sprawl is responsible for a range of costs including:
. Infrastructure Costs - Servers consume real estate space in the data center and electricityrequired to power the servers and cool the data center. Power costs are increasingly becoming a major factor in modern data centers.. Hardware Costs - The server hardware and maintenance costs are the most obvious hardwarecost component. Add the network equipment costs such as routers or SAN switches that are required to connect the servers to the rest of the infrastructure, and hardware costs become substantial. . Software Costs - Each server requires an OS and application licenses.. Management Costs - The biggest cost of server sprawl is the administration and management costs. Each server must be provisioned, configured, updated and monitored.
Why doesn't hardware virtualization solve the issues associated with server sprawl?
Many IT departments have looked to hardware virtualization solutions such as VMware and Xen to solve server sprawl. Hardware virtualization consolidates servers and helps to solve the hardware and infrastructure costs, but it can create a new problem "OS or VM sprawl". Any hardware virtualization server contains an OS in each virtual machine as well as the host OS (even a 'hypervisor" is a Linux-based OS). Also, virtualization makes provisioning a new OS i... [download for more]