Living in a Virtual World

It never ceases to amaze me how fast our world can change around us. The quote "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." from the classic 1980's movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off has never been more true. I really believe that virtualization is one of those technologies that have recently caused our world of Information Technology to accelerate at rates that have never been seen before. If we don't take some time to stop and look around us, we might just be missing some awesome new things. I want to take a few moments today to take Ferris's advice and stop to look at the world of virtualization and what it means to those of us in IT.  

Let me preface my statements by openly admitting that when virtualization first came onto the scene a number of years ago, I thought it was an overhyped non-issue, particularly for those of us working for mid-sized or small businesses. Let's face it; with the lack of scalability available from Microsoft's Virtual Server product line and the high cost of other virtual server solutions, I was right. These frustrations caused most of us to give up on the failed promises of virtualization and to go back to running our networks in the real physical world.

All that being said, I am thrilled to be able to say that Microsoft's release of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, combined with the System Center product line, truly does bring virtualization to all IT organizations in a way that is both cost-effective and easily managed. Let's touch on some of the more important features that Microsoft's recent product releases have brought to the table, as well as some very exciting new capabilities that soon to be released products will be making available.

Here are the high points of these game changers on a product by product basis.

Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft touts 5 areas of improvement in Hyper-V R2 from the original Hyper-V RTM, but I really want to concentrate on 2:

• Increased availability for virtualized data centers
• Increased availability is dramatically improved through the addition of the new Live Migration feature. Live Migration allows an administrator to move a virtual machine from one host to another with no interruption of service to your users. This capability had been a critical piece of the virtualization puzzle that had been missing from Microsoft's arsenal in a world where hosts still need to have updates and patches loaded every month. With this addition, Hyper-V truly is worthy of our data centers. 
• A simplified method for physical and virtual computer deployments by using .vhd files
• Hyper-V now supports the ability to boot a computer from a .vhd file. This new ability is wonderful to me, as I have struggled to understand why it wasn't there earlier. Being able to boot from a local .vhd file allows administrators to greatly streamline the number of images that they must keep to enable quick and easy deployment of new servers when needed.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

Like Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 has undergone many improvements in the areas of performance and compatibility. The cross platform capabilities of VMM 2008 R2 have also been improved, allowing for even better control of VMware hosts that might exist in your environment.

The biggest addition to VMM 2008 R2 however, is the ability to control and queue Live Migrations between Hyper-V hosts. Combining the monitoring capabilities of System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 with Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 makes it possible to monitor the resources of physical host servers and move virtual machines to the most appropriate host based on performance and availability, all with no effect on your end users.

While we are discussing the updates to VMM2008 R2 I want to be sure to include 2 products that I feel do not get enough recognition by those working in the small and mid-size markets.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Workgroup Edition

The Workgroup edition of Virtual Machine Manager gives you all the same capabilities of VMM 2008 with the one limitation that it will only manage up to 5 physical host servers. This allows for the management of up to 20 virtual servers using 5 Windows Server Enterprise licenses, which will make virtualizing a large part of any mid-sized business an extremely cost-effective possibility. In the event that a company outgrows the Workgroup Edition, making the upgrade to the full version of VMM 2008 R2 is a simple process.

System Center Essentials 2007/2010

System Center Essentials 2007 has been around for over 2 years and is a very good management product for small and mid-sized businesses. SCE allows administrators to more proactively manage their networks by making it possible to monitor, update, and install software to both client and server systems all from one console. With the release of Systems Center Essentials 2010 in early 2010, SCE will soon include virtual machine management capabilities built into the management console. Organizations with fewer than 50 servers will be able to deploy, manage and move virtual servers in their environments all from one window. The combination of virtual machine management with machine administration all within one central application also brings forward the ability to deploy and move virtual machines based on resource utilization of the available physical host servers while at the same time tending to the administration of the operating systems on both the physical hosts and virtual guests of your network. As with the Workgroup Edition of Virtual Machine Manager, if an organization outgrows System Center Essentials, they will be able to upgrade to Operations Manager.

I hope that this helps to highlight some of the great new advances that Microsoft is making in the world of virtualization. Whether we are deploying a single server or building out a whole new domain; what once took months, now takes days or even hours; what once took 10 power supplies to run, now takes 2; what took 30 fans to cool, now needs only 6. With the obvious cost savings that are there to be had, and the minimal investment that is required to get started, let's all stop looking around and get busy building our virtual worlds.