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Server virtualisation best practices?
My company recently made the switch to server virtualisation and, being part of the IT department, I'm interested in knowing some best practices as this is my first experience with virtualised servers. With regards to maintenance and support, what are best practices you suggest to folks who are new to server virtualisation?
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3 Answers
There isn't much to say except manage the servers as normal, but be aware you now need to look after the VM itself, and its hypervisor. Ensure to keep it up to date as there are some interesting exploits for older versions of Xen for example.
As always, ensure you have backups. Virtualization sounds great, but do remember that if the hardware fails, you may lose more than you might had you operated lots of physical servers.
Are you outsourcing your hosting or is it inhouse?
The best way to minimize exposure of your hypervisor is to select a virtualization solution that does not layer the hypervisor on top of an existing OS. I recommend VMware as they have the thinnest hypervisor in this space. They also have the tools and utilities to make managing a virtual datacenter much easier. This includes monitoring, patching and lifecycling.
I also recommend that you implement using at least a two host cluster. Virtualizing a server onto a single, non-redundant, host is fine for a lab or sandbox environment where you don't care about availability. Doing this is actually beneficial in that you become free of the underlying hardware, seperating application lifecycles from hardware lifecycles. Using a cluster, however, gives you the ability to implement fault tolerance and high availability, protecting you from the pitfalls Robin indicated.
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