From Virtualization to Cloud Computing: Are You Ready?

Virtualization is the key technology for the cloud. Its ability to separate the OS and application from the hardware enable it to best deliver on-demand cloud services. Charles King, Principal Analyst at Pund-IT said it best: "Without virtualization there is no cloud - that's what enabled the emergence of this new, sustainable industry."  But, how can IT organizations leverage virtualization to create their own private cloud?

Virtualization Evolution:  The Three Stages

Typically, organizations advance through three stages of virtualization.  The first stage is characterized by virtualizing the “low hanging fruit.”  Consolidation and disaster recovery strategies are initiallyfocused on garnering the capital expenditure savings from virtualizing applications that have low business impact.

The second stage of virtualization is when things get tricky due in large part to the complexity created in stage one. This is where most enterprises are today.  Many CIOs now have a “virtualization first “policy, requiring IT to virtualize for the cost benefits. Yet, IT is concerned about how to maintain high service levels. In this second stage, organizations may have started to use IT resources including applications, servers, storage, and networks as pools of resources that can be managed in aggregate rather than isolated silos.  Thinking about IT resources as an entire system becomes important for fully leveraging the power of virtualization, as it allows IT to move resources on demand to efficiently balance computing loads and use capacity more efficiently.  The issue of performance requires attention at this stage as well.  Organizations may have experienced unexpected poor performance in stage one and know they will need help to assure performance of the business critical applications (Exchange, SQL, SAP) that are virtualized in stage two and beyond.

Thus, it’s critical in stage two that organizations obtain the right management tools beyond what comes “out of the box” with their virtualization software.  Tools, such as infrastructure performance management solutions, that can help enterprises optimize while they virtualize are essential.  These tools enable IT to get the visibility and control they need to troubleshoot and assure performance, optimize performance and capacity, plan server and storage requirements, and manage service levels to advance from stage two to stage three.

Stage three is characterized by virtualizing mission critical applications and a transformation in which virtualized resources shift to become a pool that is managed at the pool level.  This allows workloads from different business units to become fluid. At this point, infrastructure is shared and IT must embrace a service management focus to deliver the private cloud in which physical and logical resources are made available through a virtual service layer across the enterprise.

Figure 1: The three stages of server virtualization evolution.

Mastering Stage Two:  Focus on Performance and Capacity Management

Let’s take a closer look at what’s required of infrastructure performance management solutions that can enable the move to stage three and the private cloud.

1) Troubleshooting Virtual Infrastructure