How to make full use of virtual technology in heterogeneous data centers

Virtual technology is designed to reduce the number of servers and optimize resource usage. However, if the deployment is not properly deployed, virtualization can also cause the organization to suffer losses. With virtual technology, organizations can move resources instantaneously, but the wrong move can damage user performance while increasing management costs.

With the increasing complexity of heterogeneous data centers, the scale of virtual projects has been expanding. The data center not only manages multiple platforms, but also manages countless management programs, operating systems, and even virtual tools, resulting in the management of complexity exponentially levels of growth. In addition, virtual machines can expand rapidly, resulting in reduced resource utilization and cost overruns for it integrated management.

However, organizations can use virtual management technology to convert IT environments from closed-end resources to "utility computing" (utility computing) mode. To achieve this, organizations can take the following 10 steps, which I believe can help you successfully virtualize a hybrid Datacenter environment:

• Take it slow. Eager to enjoy the benefits of virtualization and put costs under control? Remember the ancient adage, "think twice before you do it!" blind and urgent virtualization can have unpredictable consequences. Be cautious at the outset, observe the results of virtualization and manage issues, and then take further steps to virtualize.

• Evaluate the existing server workload. A comprehensive understanding of server workloads is a critical first step in determining which applications take a virtualization strategy. The best objects of virtualization include applications running on the web, infrastructure, or application servers. However, applications with high performance sensitivity or I/O requirements are not suitable for running in a virtual environment.

Collect specific information about all hardware and software assets throughout the data center and analyze workload utilization to develop optimized server fusion scenarios. Then use the collected server utilization data generation hardware to make use of reports to confirm unmatched workloads and resources, such as servers with insufficient or overused usage.

• Analyze the complete workload cycle. It is not very effective to analyze the amount of work at individual points at a time, because the workload can vary significantly over time of day or season and may vary with other variables. Log server usage over a longer period of time, such as within a financial quarter, to ensure accurate collection of all changes in usage information. Thereafter, you can develop a workload overview table to clearly describe server utilization trends and exceptions to CPU, disk, memory, and network utilization. This helps to ensure consistency and predictability in workload management while providing the necessary trend analysis data to automate supply and capacity planning.

• Adopt the "If-then" model. Use the "if-then" model to find the best combination of hardware and virtual hosts to maximize utilization, avoid resource conflicts, and predict future workloads. You can also run an outward-extending (scale-up) and up-scaling (scale-out) scenario to ensure adequate resources to meet current and future needs, and to avoid the supply of too much resources for a consolidated environment-a costly common problem.

• Check your management tools. Many virtual management tools allow you to manage only one management program. If you have completely separated the virtual server from the physical data center, you'd better use a separate virtual tool as well. However, if you want to establish and maintain dynamic data centers for automatic movement between physical and virtual machines, it is advisable to use only one tool.

• Test prior to commissioning. Test the virtual server to ensure that applications are not slowed down by combining too many resource-intensive applications on the same physical server. At this point the workload migration Tool can do its work. These tools are used to separate data, applications, and operating systems from the underlying hardware and integrate them into any physical or virtual platform. Testing the server before starting a real production environment will help to deploy the virtual machines successfully.

• Leveraging dynamic supply technology. The deployment of virtualization technology ends here. The next step is to adjust the processing capacity according to requirements. For example, you can set thresholds, and when critical applications reach 80%, the system will automatically add new servers. This type of intelligent resource management helps organizations to design data centers that meet their business needs. For example, a large educational institution virtualization of the entire front-end network. Through virtualization analysis, the agency found that a site in the morning traffic is relatively large, and other sites in the afternoon ushered in the peak visit. By redistributing resources over different time periods of the day, the organization successfully reduced the number of servers by 80%, hardware costs by 30%, and overall IT budgets by 18%.

• Continuous analysis. Virtualization is not a temporary initiative, but an ongoing strategy for optimizing system utilization and system performance. The workload and resource needs change over time, so it needs to be adjusted regularly to achieve continuous equilibrium and keep the data center in the optimal utilization state. Fortunately, we now have a new virtual analytics tool that makes it easy to monitor, move, and integrate workloads.

• Master more information. The use of management tools to accurately understand the various servers on the operation of virtual machines, as well as the increase in workload, increase speed, etc., so that the efficiency of resource planning is greatly improved. In addition, this tool can help companies track workloads and allocate it costs to business units based on the actual use of disks, CPUs, and networks.

• Take advantage of disaster recovery scenarios. By leveraging Business continuity virtual solutions, organizations can leverage their virtual investments more fully. The portability features of virtualization also make it an effective disaster recovery technology. All server workloads, including those running on physical machines or virtual machines, can be replicated as virtual machine backups. If a resource break occurs, the workload can automatically disable the replication virtual machine.

With the application of virtualization technology expanding, the organization can easily fall into many traps under the virtual environment, these traps also exist in the physical environment. Improving capacity planning and modeling helps to avoid resource bottlenecks and virtual sprawl. The virtual server requires new management methods, including prior planning, workload cycle analysis and continuous monitoring. By implementing virtual technology step-by-step with these logical steps, you will succeed in acquiring the virtual infrastructure you need.