Preparing the Data Center for a Move to Virtualization

8/6/2019 Preparing the Data Center for a Move to Virtualization

1/18

1Focus Research 2010

Focus BrieF

Preparing the Data Center for a Move to Virtualization

Paul Korzeniowski | April 14, 2010

Introduction

Virtualization has become all the rage recently. This computing technique has the potential to help companies reduce

the number o servers in their data centers, decrease energy consumption, and lower operating costs. However like

everything else in lie, virtualization comes with new challenges, ones that companies need to be aware o in order to

maximize their use o the technology.

Analysis

Moving to a virtualized computing environment makes overseeing physical hardware easier because there are ewer

devices, but the tradeo is that it also makes running other components, such as sotware and storage, more complex.

Operating systems and systems management tools were designed largely or monolithic servers, so their capabilities donot translate well to virtual environments. Vendors, such as VMware and Microsot, have been trying to address these

issues, but there are instances where virtual system eatures are not as robust as those ound with traditional servers.

One challenge is fguring out how well each virtual server is unctioning. Perormance monitoring is difcult because a

variety o applications run in dierent areas o a server but share elements, such as the devices internal and external

storage. With so many moving elements, companies want to see which application(s) may be getting bogged down and

where the bottlenecks are arising. Virtual system vendors do oer perormance tools with their products, but in general,

they provide users with limited inormation. In some cases, they may not work with real time data, and in other instances,

they deliver broad rather than granular metrics.

Consequently, third-party suppliers, such as Uptime Sotware, Veam, and Vizioncore, have tried to fll the void. Sincebuying these tools adds to the overall cost o moving to a virtualized environment, companies should determine i their

organization will need such products during the evaluation process rather than ater a move to virtualization has been

given the Thumbs Up by management.

Backup is another area where added complexity is evident. Consolidating 10, 15, maybe even 20 servers onto one

platorm appeals to companies who eel that their data center is now being overrun with hardware. While vendors

have made progress with technologies, such as data deduplication, backup has remained a troublesome virtualized

application. Running a backup application can take several hours on traditional servers. I a company tries to consolidate

such applications onto a single device, there simply may not be enough time or them to get the job done. Companies

need to determine their backup needs in their initial evaluations, so it does not become a gottcha as they begin their

deployments.

In addition to technical issues, virtualization creates management challenges. This computing option blurs responsibilities

among ormerly distinct IT groups, such as server administrators, storage proessionals, network engineers, and security

teams. With all o these elements running on one system, there are no longer clear boundaries among these dierent

groups. Server administrators need to understand how virtual LANs operate, and the network has been extended inside

the host systems.


2/18

Preparing the Data Center for a Move to Virtualization 2Focus Research 2010

In order to deploy and manage their systems, companies will need to cross pollinate their stas skill sets. So moving

to virtualization requires investments (sometimes signifcant) in training. As server virtualization invades the data center,

teams within the IT organization have to be prepared to work more closely together than they may have in the past. As

a result, companies may also have to overcome the tur issues and infghting, as dierent managers and groups vie or

control.

Conclusion

In sum, when a company adds virtualization eatures to its data center, some things become easier to deal with and others

become more complex.

Recommended Reading

Virtual Conerence Speakers Focus on Cloud, Value to Enterprises, How to Get Started

How to Ensure the Success o IT Projects

IT In Crisis Three Priorities or IT in 2010. Part 1
http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/virtual-conference-speakers-focus-cloud-value-enterprises/http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/how-ensure-success-it-projects/http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/it-crisis-three-priorities-it-2010-part-1/http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/it-crisis-three-priorities-it-2010-part-1/http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/it-crisis-three-priorities-it-2010-part-1/http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/how-ensure-success-it-projects/http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/virtual-conference-speakers-focus-cloud-value-enterprises/


3/18

Focus Research 2009 All Rights Reserved

Focus Research

Inormation Technology Group

July 2009

Virtualization Market Guide


4/18

Virtualization Market Primer 2Focus Research 2009

Introduction

Table o Contents

1 Virtualization Basics Market denition and key things to know p 3

2 Going Deeper into the Virtualization Market p 53 Tools Glossary, checklists and vendor list p 10

I youre searching or a clear and thorough explanation o virtualization, youre in the right place Our Virtualization Market

Primer is designed to provide business decision makers and other potential buyers with basic knowledge about this

exploding market

The Market Primer begins with the most important acts about the virtualization industry:


5/18


6/18


Virtualization is helped by hardware:5. Virtualization services can be applied to almost any combination o server

hardware and OS However, modern server and storage hardware releases increasingly add eatures designed to enable

and support higher levels o virtualization than possible with sotware alone Builders o chips based on the so-called x86

architecture that supports most commercial servers have delivered multiple versions o such hardware-assisted virtualization

Virtualization complicates application licensing:6. Not all application vendors agree on how to l icense their

sotware running in a virtual environment Some license their products by the deployment image, while others charge on

a per-processor, per-sever basis Beore you commit to running hundreds o instances o any application, make sure the

providers licensing scheme aligns with your needs and budget

Virtualization costs vary:7. Some vendors price their virtualization packages based on the number o sockets

or the number o processors per server Others roll the technology into a ull OS release For example, Virtual Iron

Extended Enterprise Edition on costs $799 per socket, regardless o the number o cores in the servers processor

VMware charges $1,540 or its Inrastructure Foundation sotware or a server with two processors A stand-alone

hypervisor can be downloaded ree rom Microsot and VMware There are also open-source virtualization solutions

emerging, as well as virtualization-enabled hosted services with even more widely varying base and optional costs

Virtualization needs and can help to improve management:8. Virtualization changes the management

equation Premise-based server virtualization introduces a new sotware layer between the OS and the hardware, and it

creates new objects that must be managed VMs, which are easily provisioned but oten just as easily orgotten, must also

be managed to avoid the risk o virtual server sprawl However, when managed well, virtualization can ease, speed and

lower the costs and complexities related to management o the overall IT inrastructure

Virtualization has many sources:9. Pure-play virtualization vendors, sotware and OS providers, hardware

manuacturers and hosted service providers all oer virtualization sotware Many virtualization technologies also originate

rom open-source projects

Virtualization is not a panacea:10. Some applications, such as Web-server apps, are a natural t Others, such

as print and le servers, wont make as much sense Similarly, not all users will benet rom a virtualized desktop

Top 10 Virtualization FactsIt improves hardware utilization.1.Its a major part o green computing.2.It can signicantly reduce operating costs.3.It can make your organization more agile.4.It can be helped by modern hardware.5.It can complicate application-licensing costs.6.Its initial cost varies widely.7.It increases management requirements.8.Its oered by multiple types o vendors.9.Its not suitable or all applications or users.10.


7/18


Market Evolution: How Virtualization EvolvedThe present virtualization market takes a mainrame computing concept and applies it to the relatively small and medium-

scale x86 servers that are standard in todays datacenters Virtualization sprung to lie in IBMs labs in the 1960s

mainrame computing environment It was then abandoned in the 1980s during the rise o distributing computing and has

only recently reemerged to tame the costs and complexities associated with server prolieration in the modern datacenter

Today, virtualization technologies are taking aim at server sprawl, islands o data and gross underutilization o systems

Virtualization is also enabling and improving eorts at disaster recovery; business continuity; and server and datacenter

server consolidation, migration and modernization eorts

More than 30 years ago, IBM began delving into virtualization techniques as a way to partition mainrame computers

into separate VMs that could run various applications and processes simultaneously But the technology ell to thewayside along with mainrames as datacenters turned to x86 servers to run their client-server applications The

popularity o Microsot Windows and the Linux server OS plus low-cost servers quickly made the x86 platorm an

industry standard In 1998, the technology returned to market prominence when virtualization virtuoso VMware

applied it to x86-based systems

In the early 2000s, organizations began physically consolidating servers to take advantage o newer, better hardware

At the same time, VMwares oering became mature enough to deliver scale and perormance More organizations then

turned to virtualization or their sotware development and testing environments A ew years later, companies began

eeling comortable enough with the technology to use it to improve utilization o their business-critical production servers

Around 2005, organizations also saw in virtualization a way to drive down power consumption not to mention costs

in their datacenters

Virtualization technologies can be applied to storage and desktops as well as servers, but it is x86 server virtualization

that has attracted the most customers Ater all, server virtualization is the quickest and easiest way to reap the benets

o virtualization, particularly immediate cost savings A typical x86 server running Windows or Linux in a distributed

environment uses only about 20 percent o its capacity at best But server virtualization can boost the servers utilization

as much as 60 to 80 percent At this point, mostly enterprises with large datacenters have invested in virtualization, but

smaller companies stand to benet rom the technology as well This is especially true as more and more providers o

hosted and cloud-based services themselves use virtualized platorms to deliver their oerings

With the 2008 arrival o Microsots Hyper-V hypervisor oering, some say that virtualizations time has come In reality,

however, there are multiple commercial hypervisor oerings vying or market share, despite many being based on the

same open-source sotware roots

Vendor Landscape Summary: Todays Major Virtualization Players

Like any market with huge potential, everyone wants a piece o virtualization The industry is dominated by virtualization

pioneer VMware; open source leaders like Citrix and Red Hat; and industry heavy-hitters like IBM, Microsot and Sun

Microsystems Other pure-play vendors include Parallels and Virtual Iron Novell and Oracle also have virtualization oerings

Going Deeper into the Virtualization Market2


8/18


Virtualization technologies are sold as a standalone application, such as VMwares fagship product, as well as integrated

with the latest server operating systems, beginning most notably with the release o Microsot Windows Server 2008 and

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 51

The other side o the virtualization coin is the hardware on which you run it Intel and AMD have designed chips withbuilt-in hardware-assisted virtualization technology, and several vendors, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun

Microsystems, oer systems built on these processors

Market Trends: How the Market Is Changing

The virtualization market is growing quickly as more and more organizations embrace the technology The our most

recent and signicant trends in the virtualization market include:

1. Entry o enterprise players: VMware is, by all accounts, the undisputed server virtualization market leader

Nevertheless, several industry titans have jumped in with oerings based on the open source Xen hypervisor:

Microsot Hyper-V hypervisor (which is included or ree with Windows Server 2008 and or which Citrix Systems

announced a ree express version o its Essentials management tool in July 2009)

Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10

Oracle VM

Sun xVM

2. End-to-end virtualization: Beyond the benets o server virtualization in production environments, growing numbers o

companies are pursuing or considering initiatives intended to extend virtualization and its benets to network storage and

desktops

In a virtual storage environment, separate locally connected and/or networked storage resources are pooled,

then divided into partititions, each congured as storage dedicated to a specic user or task As with computing

servers, storage virtualization increases system utilization It also makes expanding and managing your storage

resources easier and more ecient

Desktop virtualization moves usual desktop applications o o the PC and onto a central server in the datacenter

Users have a thin client-like device but get an authentic, individual PC environment, such as Windows The buzz

around desktop virtualization is how simple managing hundreds o desktops can be when youre handling OS

patches, sotware installations, backups and more rom a centralized server

3. Advanced virtualization-management tools: Managing your virtual environment gets critical ast when you

start setting up multiple VMs on your physical servers In act, as hypervisors multiply and become more commonplace,

virtualization-management tools become a more important vendor dierentiator and more critical or users

Virtualization management should include live migration or VMs, workload management, dynamic provisioning and

virtual machine templates

Advanced virtualization-management eatures should soon also include tools to manage application lie cycles as

well as the physical and virtual servers, networking and storage rom a single view


9/18


4. Application licensing and support: How vendors charge customers or the sotware, including operating systems,

that runs on virtualized servers has been a thorn in the industrys side Even i you have just one server, running and

paying or 100 OS instances is prohibitively expensive Its clear that mapping licensing ees to boxes doesnt work with

virtualization, so vendors are beginning to amend their l icensing to accommodate the technology

OS vendors are starting to oer new licenses One might be priced by the physical server and include license

rights to a particular number or unlimited numbers o guest images A dierent license might allow an

all-you-can-eat use or your existing hardware, which means that you dont have to purchase new sotware or

the virtual environment

The Microsot Windows Server 2008 Enterprise single-server license allows you to run our instances at a time on

one box Novell includes unlimited virtualization rights with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Prices can be based on a variety o hardware metrics, including the box, the number o processors or the number

o cores

Product and Features: The Essential Server Virtualization Features

Most organizations considering virtualization are rst trying to create a virtual server environment, so its important to know

what to expect rom a server-virtualization package Server virtualization is generally delivered either as a stand-alone

application or suite o applications that you install in addition to your server sotware, or it is integrated with a server OS

Every virtualization oering starts with the hypervisor, which abstracts the hardware rom the OS, allowing the computer to

run several instances o the OS The hypervisor also controls the computers resources and allocates them to the various

guest OSes running on the box Vendors dierentiate their products with management and business-continuity tools

1. Administration applications: Server-virtualization sotware operates behind the scenes, and only the network

administrators will work with it Administration applications include:

What Is Virtualization?Virtualization is a layer that separates logical computational operations rom physical

computing resources. This layer lets an application unction as though it has sole access to

compute resources, even though several applications and guest OSes may be running in

separate virtual machines on that computer.

Many commercial server virtualization solutions are based on the

open-source Xen hypervisor, so they are dierentiated by their:

ManageabilitySupport or dierent server OSes and hardware platormsOverall fexibilityCost


10/18


Management console: This is where you create new VMs, start and stop them, monitor their perormance, and

access real-time and historical views o them It is also where VMs can and should be reassigned or deleted as

needs change, to avoid VM sprawl

Support or Microsot Windows and Linux guest OSes: Some server virtualization packages also support the

Solaris OS and Novell Netware as guest OSes on the server

Web browser-based user interace: This should include point-and-click interaces or creating and

decommissioning VMs

Remote management

Heterogeneous inrastructure support

2. VM management tools: Just like physical servers, VMs need to be managed as soon as theyve been provisioned

Tools or VM management may include:

Live migration: This lets you move a VM rom one server to another without powering down, so you have zero

downtime on the applications running on that VM

Rapid provisioning: VMs can be turned into templates or rapidly provisioning similar systems on the same server

or within a common pool o resources With rapid provisioning, new virtual servers can be up-and-running in a

matter o minutes

Import and export VM settings: This lets you clone VM settings across dierent hosts

Scalability and fexibility: The server virtualization sotware can support 8GB o memory to 64 GB o memory per

VM

Dynamic workload allocation: The ability to shit workloads among VMs and physical servers as dictated by

perormance or demand requirements or in response to physical or virtual server outages

Integration with tools or managing physical servers, to give inrastructure managers and administrators unied

views o their computing environments

3. Business-continuity applications: The greatest side eect o virtualization is the reliability it brings to your

datacenter Now most server-virtualization packages include tools to maximize business continuity, including:

Load balancing

Disaster recovery (including real-time or near-real-time avoidance o outages and rapid restoration ater outagesdo occur)

Live backups and snapshots o VMs

Automated process-driven ailover to back up resources in response to unplanned outages and during planned

outages or system maintenance

Automatic restart ater planned and unplanned outages


11/18


4. Advanced management tools: Some vendors now oer advanced management packages in addition to their

standard server-virtualization oering that allow or more sophisticated and global control over the virtual inrastructure

They may include tools like:

VM lie cycle tools: Like physical tools, the lie cycle o VMs need to be managed rom when theyre provisioned

until theyre torn down

Single-view management o physical and virtual servers

5. Implementation: In general, implementing virtualization sotware is no dierent rom installing any other sotware

Many vendors make at least the hypervisor available as a ree download The package usually includes conguration

wizards to quickly walk you through the process Citrix, in act, claims that its XenServer can be installed and running in

about 10 minutes

Instead o the standalone sotware option, you can choose to implement virtualization technology along with a server

OS upgrade In addition, virtualization can increasingly be obtained and provisioned as a remotely hosted service

6. Vendor support: Again, vendors oer support similar to any other sotware product: online service ticketing, a choice

o technical-support levels, telephone support alternatives and sel-service tools on their Web sites I the virtualization

sotware is part o the OS, support is likely to be wrapped up in the package you opt or when you license the OS I you

opt or an open source hypervisor, you should be prepared to support it in-house, like with many open source projects

Benets: Why Businesses Buy Virtualization Sotware

The modern datacenter is built out the cheap x86 servers that prolierated quickly require lots o foor space, power

and cooling Also, the costs o operating the acility around the clock remain the same even i the servers are barely

utilized So, organizations are deploying server virtualization technologies primarily or three reasons: They need to

reduce their operating costs, theyve run out o physical space and/or power in their datacenter or theyre implementing

a green computing initiative (Other reasons include the desire to improve resiliency or to migrate to more modern server

platorms, but these can be viewed as subsets o the three primary reasons cited)

Virtualization can help companies signicantly shrink their operating costs in three areas: energy, inrastructure equipmen

and real estate A virtualized datacenter requires ewer physical servers than a traditional acility, so it requires less space

to rent and less hardware to purchase, run and cool In act, IDC reported that server virtualization can slash the annual

server cost per user by as much as 35 percent to 52 percent

Companies that have outgrown their datacenter space can nd a solution in server virtualization It lets you consolidate

applications on ewer servers and reins in physical server sprawl With server virtualization, you dont need to squeeze

in new boxes or additional capacity or add a new room to the datacenter You simply provision new VMs on an existing

server

As organizations strive to reduce their impact on the environment, many are looking or ways to make their IT shops more

environmentally riendly Virtualization can signicantly reduce your companys carbon ootprint by making the datacenter

ar more energy-ecient With ewer servers running in a smaller space, you consume less energy and ewer cooling

resources


12/18


To simpliy a complex subject, weve included a set o tools that can help you understand the jargon used in virtualization,

a breakdown o the vendors currently oering virtualization products and a list that wil l help you evaluate whether your

datacenter needs virtualization

Needs Checklist: 10 Signs Your Datacenter Needs Virtualization

Glossary o Key Terms

Vendor Universe

3 Tools


13/18


Needs Checklist: 10 Signs Your Datacenter Needs Virtualization

Do you need to reduce the amount your organization spends on maintaining your datacenter?1.

Virtualization can reduce operating costs as well as administration expenses

Do you need to contain server sprawl in your datacenter?2. Virtualization lets you consolidate inrastructure

and hardware by replacing physical boxes with virtual servers and combining applications on virtual servers

Do you need to increase systems utilization in your datacenter servers?3. Virtualization makes the most out

o the resources you already have, increasing server utilization rates rom 5 percent to as high as 80 percent

Do you need a better disaster-recovery plan?4. Virtualization sotware makes it easy to duplicate virtualenvironments as well as create backups

Do you need to increase data availability?5. Virtualization can lead to better perormance or your applications

and storage It also lets you recover data more quickly

Do you need your systems to be fexible and to scale on demand?6. Virtualization lets you move applications

to servers that supports scaling up or scaling down as demands change with just a ew mouse clicks

Do you need to be able to quickly set up and tear down test and development environments?7.

Virtualization allows or rapid server provisioning, which can be done with VMs created rom snapshots o previous

environments

Do you need to make it easier to update and manage user applications?8. Virtualization allows you to push

out sotware updates, OS patching and new sotware installations rom a central server to virtual desktops

Do you need to improve security on your systems?9. Virtualization allows you to isolate applications and give

them very granular access rights

Do you need to make resources available to more users across the enterprise network, regardless o10.

their geographical location? Virtualization lets you pool computing and storage resources, separating them rom their

physical location on the network, and lets users across the enterprise access them


14/18


Application virtualization: Sotware technology that allows an application to be installed and managed rom a central

server in the datacenter while executing on end-user client devices as though it is running on the devices underlying OS

Bare-metal installation: The virtualization sotware is installed directly on the hardware and acts like a host OS

Desktop virtualization: In a consumer context, desktop virtualization reers to sotware that allows a desktop or laptop

computer to run multiple OSes In an enterprise context, it reers to sotware that centralizes hosting and managing

desktops rom a datacenter while delivering individual, personalized PC-like experiences to end users on PCs or so-called

thin client devices Desktop virtualization is also oten called virtual desktop inrastructure or workspace virtualization

Dual-core processor: A processor with two execution cores Dual-core is oten also called two-way

Guest operating system: The OS installed inside a VM

Host operating system: The OS installed on the physical hardware The virtualization sotware is installed on the host

OS, which shares physical compute resources with the VMs

Hypervisor: The thin layer o sotware that runs between the hardware and the virtualization services The hypervisor

manages hardware requests rom guest OSes as though each guest OS was running on separate physical hardware Also

see VMM

Live migration: Moving a virtual machine rom one host OS to another without powering down or disrupting business orcomputing operations

Paravirtualization: The type o high-perormance server virtualization most oten used on x86 servers Paravirtualization

installs a thin layer o virtualization sotware between the hardwares compute resources and the guest OSes

Storage virtualization: Pools storage resources rom multiple physical networked storage devices to create logical

allocations o storage resources that each appears as a single device to users

VDI (Virtual Desktop Inrastructure): Another term or desktop virtualization

VM (virtual machine): The virtual container created by virtualization sotware in which a guest OS and related

applications run It has virtual hardware resources, including processor, memory and more, and is managed by the

virtualization sotware

Virtual machine density: The ratio o virtual machines to physical machines in a datacenter

VMM (virtual machine monitor): Another term or hypervisor

Glossary: Understand the Key Terms or Virtualization


15/18


Virtual servers: The guest OS and related applications running as a server in a virtual machine

Virtual storage: The pool o storage resources created in storage virtualization

Virtualization layer: The layer o sotware that perorms the hardware abstraction

x86 computer: A computer based on an x86 processor, which can support either 32-bit or 64-bit sotware


16/18


A number o vendors are now oering a variety o virtualization solutions The ollowing is a list o the leading providers,

categorized by their products and delivery methods

EMC

Microsot

Sun Microsystems

Hewlett-Packard

IBM

Symantec

Citrix

Parallels

Red Hat

VMware (now owned by EMC)

BEA Systems

BMC Sotware

Novell

EMC

Vendor Universe: Know Your Top Vendor Options

Vendors that provide end-to-end solutions or server, storage and desktop virtualization:

Vendors that provide server and storage virtualization solutions:

Vendors that provide server and desktop virtualization solutions:

Vendors that provide server virtualization solutions:

Vendors that provide storage virtualization solutions:


17/18


OpenVZ

Oracle

Parallels

Virtual Iron Sotware

DataCore

EMC/VMware

IBM

LetHand Networks

Pano Logic

Quest Sotware

BMC Sotware

CA

NetApp

PlateSpin

AMD

Intel

Vendors that provide desktop virtualization solutions:

Vendors that provide tools to manage virtual environments:

Vendors that provide hardware-assisted virtualization equipment:
http://www.platespin.com/http://www.netapp.com/http://www.lefthandnetworks.com/


18/18

About FOCUS

Our Mission

Our mission is to support business proessionals critical purchase decisions by creating and distributing the highest

quality, most relevant purchase research and tool sets

Our Approach

To ensure maximum insight and relevancy, Focus has designed a our actor approach to buyer-centric research All

research at Focus begins with dening the buyer actor Categorized in our research as Buyer Types, the buyer actor

identies the buyer needs and preerences in a market that make a dierence in selecting the right product and vendor

Buyer Types are studied and developed based on Focus interaction with thousands o buyers across a category The

buyer actor in turn shapes Focus recommendations on how buyers approach three other critical actors: 1) productrequirements, 2) cost considerations and 3) vendor relationships

Buyer Feedback

In addition to speaking with industry experts and other participants, a critical priority is to integrate eedback

rom experienced buyers We speak with thousands o buyers each month and conduct our ormal buyer surveys

throughout the year

For more inormation on our research approach, please visit Focus
http://www.focus.com/about/research-approachhttp://www.focus.com/about/research-approach

Documents

Preparing the Data Center for a Move to Virtualization