Efficient use of data center automation, virtualization tools-Linux Enterprise applications-Linux server application information, the following is a detailed description. The number of servers increases rapidly, and management costs keep increasing. The effective use of automation and virtualization tools not only improves server utilization, reduces management burden, but also effectively reduces server management costs.
Remedy the distress of forced upgrades
When Mike Brannon began building his National Gypsum e-commerce website, he set up a server to track orders, a server to process PDF invoices, and another for patch testing. He said that using different servers for different functions has become a habit, but the trouble that comes with it is the high management cost.
After three years, Brannon found that it had dozens of servers with insufficient processing capabilities. Each machine means more devices to be managed and more downtime to cope. "If you have to replace the hard disk, memory, or power supply, you have to stop the instance during this period," he said ." In addition, many applications can easily run on a 350-MHz Pentium III processor, but every time the hardware lease expires, he is forced to upgrade to a more powerful machine.
The senior Internet technology manager uses VMware's ESX Server partition software to fix bad habits. He expects this server integration tool to save the company a hardware rental fee of $5800 per month. Brannon eliminated 53 HP DL360 servers and replaced them with an IBM X440 production server with an 8-processor and an HP Server with four processors for testing.
VMware's Virtual Machine software allows customers to run multiple instances and applications of the operating system on an Intel processor. This software is one of several new tools that provide some form of server virtualization.
IDC analysts said that the rapid increase in the number of servers over the past few years has prompted customers to Manage Server resources more efficiently. As a result, the server automation market, with a scale of $1 billion, has emerged, A number of emerging enterprises that provide server automation tools have gradually attracted the attention of the market. Here we will introduce several of them, including:
● Opsware (formerly called Loudcloud) software automatically completes server configuration, change management, Patch Management, application deployment, and other servers and applications running across multiple data centers.
● Think Dynamics's Think Control Suite allows you to create server resource pools and use policies to automatically configure these resources to meet unexpected demand changes.
● The TopSpin 360 exchange computing system provides vswitch modules for dynamic configuration of virtual memory and CPU, storage and network I/O (including 10-Gigabit InfiniBand connections.
Some tools are more suitable than other tools according to different application environments. For example, Think Control may be more suitable for heterogeneous Web Server Clusters, because in such an environment, once the set code is updated, the new image of this operating system needs to be copied to hundreds of servers. On the other hand, Opsware automatically completes and saves configuration changes at the application level, which is very suitable for complex system combinations.
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Risks of deploying virtualization tools
Galen Schreck, analyst at Forrester Research, said users can deploy a variety of virtualization tools: This is not either a problem, but they must consider the risks involved, such as in some situations, the problem with the server CPU may paralyze all virtual computers running on this CPU.
Michael Mullany, senior director of product management at VMware, pointed out that vulnerabilities mainly occur at the hardware level, such as CPU overheating, memory chip failure on the server, or network interface card or host bus adapter card failure. On the other hand, operating system faults will not affect other virtual servers running on the same CPU. He said that at the operating system level, the physical memory allocated to each virtual server is isolated, which prevents events such as memory leakage.
Brannon said that National Gypsum is very clear about the risks involved in deploying VMware. "Some people are nervous about putting all our eggs in one basket," he said. Apparently, if this basket falls onto the ground, all the eggs will be broken ." Finally, Brannon expects to prevent this risk by installing a Server Load balancer before the two major ESX Consortium (complexes.
Brannon currently runs 80% of the system on VMware. Most of his applications do not require much processing capability, so running VMware on an eight-CPU server saves hardware costs. Although he must also physically copy files to create a configuration server or re-load the image software package to the server, the setting time is reduced from several days to several hours, this is easier than installing and managing a 1U device with half a rack.
Automate server configurations
Although VMware virtualizes servers and CPUs, it cannot automatically complete server configuration or patch management like the Opsware System 3 software. Schreck said: "Opsware can be used to patch, upgrade, and reconfigure the server without the need to deploy a new image ." He said companies with different hardware and operating system versions need a tool to help them manage this complexity.
Electronic Data Systems (EDS) is deploying Opsware in its global application hosting center. This center has 50000 server devices running Windows, Linux, and Sun Solaris. Larry Lozon, Global Service Manager for Web and application hosting, wants to use Opsware to accelerate response time to customer needs. For example, Lozon said that EDS uses Opsware to configure 60 servers in three days, and this process takes four weeks before. EDS says it predicts that Opsware will save $0.1 billion in operating costs over the next three years.
Schreck said that if you want to complete tasks other than the Integration Server and Automatic completion of system changes, Think Dynamics's Think Control treats the server as a virtual resource pool, these virtual resources can be reassigned at any time. "This is actually more like workload management: You change the number of running instances according to application requirements. If demand surges, I can increase from 100 Web servers to 300 ."
Tira Wireless deploys Think Control to meet customers' service level agreement requirements. The Toronto wireless app publisher CTO Allen Lau said: "the load on the Prediction server is quite tricky. If the download traffic increases or the Performance drops, we must be able to switch or add another device to balance the load or immediately increase the capacity ."
Lozon says Think Control automatically configures all necessary software on the second server that is exactly the same as the first device, such as Web Logic or Apache TomCat. It takes only a few minutes to configure the server and balance the load, saving Lozon $100 per hour to hire a consultant to manually install, configure, and test the server. Tira also saves money because it does not have to purchase additional hardware to cope with a 2% surge in demand in a year.
From the above cases, we can see that through server automation and virtualization tools, more convenient and efficient management can be performed on a growing number of servers, while also effectively reducing management costs.
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