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Over the last year the uptake of virtualization technologies has risen sharply due to the many benefits it can deliver for businesses. These benefits include simplified server management, reduced hardware overheads and increased agility. Yet, an undesired consequence of virtualization is that it increases the risk of unplanned downtime; a risk that can have costly consequences. Nick Turnbull, director of sales, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Marathon Technologies, provides top tips that businesses need to consider before virtualizing their environments.
1 – Assess the business case for a virtualized environment
Before implementing a new virtualization technology, businesses need to assess whether the technology will provide a reasonable return on their investment. IT executives should first take a hard look at how they are using servers today. Do they have common applications running on a number of different servers? Do they have enough servers that could and should be consolidated? Is the number of applications increasing and the capacity required for the applications continuing to expand? Is the business planning to undertake other large-scale technology implementations, and if so, how will this fit in with a possible virtualization development? In short, the IT department has to make a convincing business case in order to ensure executive management buy-in. Tools to calculate ROI and support the business case are readily available online, helping businesses conduct a quick assessment.
2 – The implications of a new implementation
While any new technology implementation sets out to benefit the business in some way, it is important to understand any associated risks, and whether this could ultimately negate any benefits reaped. Reasons for adopting virtualization should not be simply because it’s a trend – and so an unnecessary cost - but because it will truly benefit the business. For example, businesses may be unaware that the original licensing terms and conditions for the applications may no longer apply after the applications have been migrated to the virtualized environment. In addition, it may be that the providers of the organisation’s key software applications do not support virtualization systems, and are unable to offer technical support for the applications after the migration to a virtualized environment.
3 – Spend enough time planning
As any IT manager knows, implementing a new system requires dedicated resources, budget and time. Industry experts have estimated that the planning stage constitutes 90 percent of a virtualization project. The actual migration is relatively simple to undertake provided that the implementation has been well-planned: any system information to be migrated should be collated and backed-up up to six months before the start of the migration. Businesses should remember to assess how much hardware each virtual machine needs in order to operate efficiently. They also need to ensure that the number of virtual environments residing in a single hardware does not sprawl out of control, because this could have serious consequences on the stability of the environment and application availability. A thorough implementation plan will help businesses avoid any hiccups that might arise.
4 – Assess levels of application availability and business continuity risks
Despite the many benefits of virtualization, businesses are beginning to realise that there are risks associated with the technology. While virtualization is useful for protecting applications from planned downtime, protecting virtual environments from unplanned downtime is a different matter. Today, the cost of just a few minutes of unplanned downtime can be hugely detrimental and with virtual environments the risk is greater because server consolidation often results in a single point of failure for multiple applications. Businesses should therefore consider a solution that combines virtualization technology with the high availability protection necessary to keep the business going through disruptions.
5 – Demonstrate that virtualization won’t impact end users
After the implementation, it is critical to demonstrate to executive management that virtualization can be accomplished without hindering applications performance and without diminishing service to end users. IT managers should monitor closely the performance of initial deployments, and if necessary, modify hardware and networking configurations to ensure that the virtual environment is completely transparent to end-users.
Emerging virtualization technologies are opening doors by removing existing barriers of entry – cost and complexity – and more and more businesses of different sizes are starting to reap the benefits of the technology. Yet, before embarking on a virtualization project, businesses should assess carefully what their needs are and choose the right technology accordingly. Most importantly, they need to understand the implications that virtualization can have on the availability of their critical applications. Only then can businesses get the most out of virtualization technologies.
•Date: 18th January 2008• Region:World •Type: Article •Topic: IT continuity
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