How Management Drives Consolidation and Virtualization
Hello everyone. It’s been a couple weeks since I last posted but I was on a much needed real vacation (one without daily E-mails or relatives). :)
Without a doubt, one of the most important new technologies in IT today is Virtualization. And it’s very easy to see why. Virtualization, especially server consolidation, gives significant, hard cost savings with reduced numbers of servers, leading to greater efficiency, decreased space and facilities costs, and an overall decrease on the physical impact of the servers.
Still, there are several factors that many virtualization implementations have overlooked. The first is the cost of implementation and infrastructure. In the past, the actual cost to implement a virtualization solution was not a significant planning factors, due to the fact that is was a “cost” of the technology and the significant returns of virtualization overshadowed the upfront costs. In today’s IT and economy, it’s difficult to ignore costs in any way, even if you get great returns.
This is why the Microsoft Virtualization solution, with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and the System Center suite of applications, is becoming so popular for Virtualization implementations. By including Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008 R2, along with key features like clustering and Live Migration, customers can implement virtualization with an existing Windows Server infrastructure. Also, the Microsoft Virtualization tools are easy to use and leverage existing Windows skill sets and extends Enterprise class virtualization to all customers.
The other factor that is often lost in virtualization implementations is the need for great management of the virtual machines (VMs), especially the applications and services running inside the VMs. The System Center suite, with Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, and Data Protection Manager, provide not only a great virtualization management but best in class management of Windows applications and services.
Like I often say to customers when I meet with them, we must not forget that virtual machines are machines first, virtual second. We have to manage and configure virtual machines with all the requirements as the physical systems, then factor in the additional virtualization specific requirements.
The System Center suite of programs provide not only great management of physical systems but Enterprise class virtualization management. Microsoft has integrated physical and virtual management together, along with the unique capability for in-guest management. Only Microsoft integrates the in-guest management, insight into what is happening inside the virtual machines, with the actual applications, along with the standard virtualization management. This offers an end to end solution that allows administrators to manage all the different layers of IT, from physical to virtual to application to services.
For more information on what Microsoft offers, check out the Microsoft System Center and Virtualization websites.
