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How Do You Manage Your Virtualized Servers?
Once you've installed the hypervisor and launched some virtual machines, then what? How are you managing or planning to manage your virtual machines and servers as they multiply (even if they're hosted off of your premises)? And what about storage -- directly attached, networked and/or virtualized? What tools and best practices are you using, and how helpful can integrators, resellers and vendors be as you try to tame growing numbers of virtual machines, virtual servers, storage resources, hypervisors and virtualized applications?
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In the small server virtualization environment I'm responsible for, I'm focusing on enabling automation as the key to ease of management. In this case, I'm using VMware Infrastructure 3.5 with vCenter as the management console on two servers connected to an iSCSI SAN. I am currently looking to enable automatic movement of VMs in the event of hardware failure or resource contention. We also established and are adhering to standard VM partition sizes to help anticipate storage needs in advance of future growth. Finally, I'm always in favor of a monitoring/alerting system to catch exceptional changes, and vCenter does a reasonable job in this area for resource usage.
Ultimately, the business is signing off on virtualization based on cost reductions, which means the ability to engage with third parties (VARs, integrators, etc.) is likely dependent on your business plan for virtualization. I think they can be most helpful in:
* Designing an architecture that will scale as the farm grows
* Providing in-depth domain knowledge
* Setting up the initial management tools
Once an IT organization has these completed, the focus should move to minimizing the amount of time spent maintaining the farm to fully realize the financial benefits of virtualization.
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