How to choose the right virtualization management tool

In modern data centers, virtualization has become a powerful technical force. It is very attractive to deploy more applications on less hardware, which not only enhances energy usage, but also saves a lot of money. However, virtualization also has its own challenges.

Adding Virtual Machine VMS will consume the underlying hardware and network resources. To make things worse, traditional system management tools usually cannot accurately analyze the allocation of resources in a virtualized environment, making IT administrators unable to effectively manage resources. In this interview, Nick Martin, assistant to data center editing, discussed virtualization management tools With virtualization expert Brien Posey and how these tools help virtualized data centers achieve enhanced performance.

Nick Martin: What are the differences between virtualization management tools and traditional management tools?

Brien Posey:The key function of most management tools is to monitor servers and report failures or directly provide repair actions. However, in a virtualized environment, traditional management tools play a very small role in managing and monitoring Windows performance. The management tools you are using need to be able to differentiate from host servers, VMS, and individual physical servers, because all these hardware needs to be monitored in several different ways.

Martin: How many tests are required before purchasing a new virtual environment management tool?

Posey:This is a very interesting question, because you can look at it from two different perspectives. The first point is to look at the position. What is the actual effect of this tool on your company. In this case, you need to consider whether you have other management tools that are still in use. If so, do you decide to discard the old tool completely or have a transitional period of using multiple tools at the same time ready? If you have never used any management tools before, what makes it impossible for you to continue using your current management technology?

Another way is to determine whether your investment in this virtualization management tool is worthwhile. If you finally purchase only one license, but can ensure that this tool can meet all your needs, it is worth doing a very wide range of tests.

Martin: If you find that there are many problems with the new virtualization management tool, what kind of rollback plans do you need?

Posey:You need a double-insurance method. When you discover problems for the first time, you will not rashly abandon this virtualization management tool. If the problem occurs, the first step is to call the technical support of the tool immediately. It is possible that this problem is very simple. It can be solved by phone only, and it can help you learn the piece of knowledge you haven't involved yet. However, if the technical support is hard to solve, or the problem may take a long time to solve, you absolutely need a process to switch back to the management technology you used previously. This requires assuming that this management tool is very important, and without virtualization management software, you can't stand one or two days. Therefore, you need to evaluate the comparison between the urgency of using this tool and the time needed to fix the tool failure.

Martin: What types of capabilities or functions do IT employees expect for a virtualization system management tool?

Posey:It depends on your needs. There are no two identical leaves in the world, so each company has different needs. The first and most important thing is: easy-to-use management tools. I have seen some virtualization management tools. You need to have a doctorate in computer science to understand that if you install them, the information provided is also puzzling. A good tool is to use a simple operation panel to immediately display the status information of the system you manage and monitor.

At the same time, this tool needs to be able to analyze the event log information in your system in real time. When some potential problems have not exceeded, it should be able to trigger alarms and notify you in a timely manner. A good management tool should be able to tell you at which point the resources for adding virtual machines can be allocated. This is often happening in the management of virtual server environments, and you need to be able to quickly respond.

Another thing that really matters is that your tool requires support from multiple platforms. Just because you are using VMware or Microsoft-based hardware today, it does not mean that tomorrow will be the same. You want to know that when you need flexible multi-platform management tools, your current tools will not be completely discarded.

Martin: Can you explain the trade-off between a third-party virtualization management tool and a management tool provided by a virtualization vendor?

Posey:This term is forced to select one from the tools provided by the virtualization vendor and one from the third-party tools. I do not agree with this. In some cases, these tools do not even manage the same region. Sometimes, these third-party tools are used to fill the gaps left by virtualization vendor tools. Sometimes using two tools at the same time may be more helpful. For example, Hyper-V Manager and vSphere Vlient. These are utility tools for allocating new hosts, but they do have limited functionality to monitor these hosts. Now you can use some tools such as Quest vFoglight to fill this gap. Basically, you only need to ensure that these tools cover all your work. Do they all use third-party tools or a mix of third-party and original-vendor tools? As long as your needs are met, I really don't think there is a single right or wrong choice.