Six secrets of server virtualization Management (1)

In the past year 35, when most enterprises began to enthusiastically deploy virtual servers to replace physical servers, the acceptance of virtual machines by end users and IT staff also increased rapidly. According to a market survey conducted by IDC research companies in December, more than half of enterprises currently prefer to configure new applications on virtual servers rather than physical servers.

According to IDC research statistics by 2014, 70% of all server workloads will run on virtual machines.

Some IT leaders said that, unlike the early stages of virtualization, when business department managers question the IT decision to remove physical servers that run their critical application software, virtualization Technology has hardly caused any problems in front-end business managers.

Target's director of infrastructure engineering division, Brad. thompson spent three years reducing the number of seven physical servers in each of the company's 1755 stores to two, microsoft's Hyper-V management program runs on each server. "I don't know what we need to explain ".

"Our end-user community does not want to waste a lot of time on infrastructure concerns in addition to tracking their costs," Thompson said. They asked if we could control these changes, and we proved them with action. We showed them that we not only did this, but also tried the 10 stores with the highest shipments during the holidays, and they all agreed ".

The advantage that virtualization technology can save costs is that it is so attractive and widely used that it is difficult for end users to prove their concerns about physical servers, even if they prefer to use such servers, gary, Research Manager of Enterprise virtualization software division of IDC Research Company. chen believes this.

However, there are still some misunderstandings about server virtualization, even enterprise users who have deployed virtual servers on a large scale.

1. You don't know what type of virtual server you actually need.

An upcoming IDC Research Report by the Chief Information Officer and senior IT manager clearly shows that, in enterprises that deploy large-scale virtualization for their infrastructure and use virtual machines to run critical task application software, some enterprise users use management programs from more than one vendor, Chen said.

"About 70% of enterprise users say they temporarily stick to a management program," Chen explained. "about 30% of enterprise users say they are welcome to use two management programs, this is not to say that 30% of enterprise users are doing this, but that 30% of enterprise users accept this practice. Among these enterprise user groups, half of the enterprise users, that is, about 15% of the total number, may use more than one management program within one to two years ".

However, according to Dan de, Chief Consultant of the Gabriel Consulting Group, many respondents did not spend enough time in their own data centers. It has been more than five years since ode conducted an annual survey on users of Windows and Unix servers.

"My research focuses more on data center managers rather than the Chief Information Officer or senior IT managers, therefore, their view of server development is more operable than those who use VMware to reduce enterprise costs ".

According to a survey conducted by aode, VMware is a leading hypervisor. Just like the results of IDC research, the ratio of a single hypervisor to multiple hypervisor is a true reflection. "According to a survey on enterprises and industries of all sizes, about 71% of enterprise users say they have deployed more than one type of Virtual Machine, "said ode." Citrix hypervisor and Hyper-V hypervisor are inexpensive and easy to use, so many followers, however, some common users have a special liking for Linux and are willing to use the Linux System in the data center. This is what the chief information officer knows ".

2. A significant decrease in ROI

The virtual server is more efficient than the physical server, and can make better use of the purchased server hardware. However, when an enterprise user changes a physical server in a department or data center to a virtual server for the first time, it will bring about a large-scale return on investment. Generally, in each stage of the multi-stage migration process, the company will not reupdate each year or every time it has to replace the server, Forrester's head analyst and vice president James. stanley thinks so.

Stanley said, "When enterprise users migrate a large number of physical servers to virtual servers, it will save a lot of cost. When the critical point of the migration server is exceeded, the return on investment will decrease ".

Business Departments are used to getting high returns from lower capital costs. Generally, they do not pay too much attention to the part of the operating budget, and the operating costs usually increase to adapt to the virtual infrastructure, Chen explained.

A reduction in ROI and an increase in operating costs will occur when the IT department completes the last phase of physical machine migration to virtual machines. This stage needs to begin to simplify migration support, IT seems like the company has suddenly spent a lot of money, Chen said.

"IT department is better to explain in advance to let managers understand the reasons for the increase in support or operation costs," Chen said.