Executive Viewpoint: Vic Nyman, BlueStripe Software By Vic Nyman published: Friday, January 02 2009
Applications Become
Center-Stage with Virtualization Growth
Throughout 2009,
virtualization will continue to be disruptive and impact IT management on
multiple fronts. First, VM Administrators and IT Management will be
pushed to drive ROI from virtualization efforts. Second, managing
business applications will stress relations between Application Owners (those
responsible for keeping applications available and performing well), and VM
Administrators/IT Management (who are pushing to convert more servers -
especially those with business-critical applications running on them.)
This culminates in application management becoming a focal point - as the data
center becomes more dynamic, with pieces of applications and services using a
variety of resources for businesses to realize ROI from their virtualization
efforts and drive business efficiency.
The New Battleground:
VMs Meet Business Applications
Today's organizations
are pushing hard to realize the benefits of virtualizing their systems.
But as easy conversions are being completed, new challenges are arising.
According to industry
analysts, initial server conversions - roughly 12-15% of total servers -
represent the easiest to convert. These are typically non-critical
servers; print servers, file servers; those that are low risk, low transaction,
and non-critical to the business. If the conversion fails, it won't truly
hurt the business. If it isn't functioning at its highest capacity, the impact
is still minimal.
This can't be said
about the next challenge for VM Administrators. Converting servers with
integrated, complex business-critical applications is next on their list.
But application owners are hesitant to risk converting their application if it
means less manageability. To manage the application, they need complete
application visibility down to the individual process-level, in order to
understand the dependencies and ensure it's functioning and operating
properly.
Better management solutions
will be a necessity for effectively handling applications running on a virtual
infrastructure. Though many tools deliver strong value, managing complex
business applications cannot succeed by solely managing the VM or the
server. Inherently, managing the dynamic data center in this manner
doesn't enable the application owner to see how the application is functioning
and what is impacting its performance, as well as where it is actually
residing.
Application Service
Management: A Better Approach to Managing Dynamic Data Centers
In tomorrow's virtual,
dynamic data center, application management needs to become application-centric
versus hardware and VM centric. This involves following the application
wherever it goes, tracking dependencies and understanding from a process-level
what the application is dependent upon to ensure it is operating
optimally.
Once the application
can be viewed and its performance measured, potential bottlenecks and
performance problems can be isolated. If there are service-level issues,
those need to be highlighted and brought to the attention of both the
application owner and IT Support team for quick triage and fast resolution in
order to keep the application available and ensure "business" is not
interrupted.
Today, a new
generation of application service management (ASM) tools is capable of
capturing real application-centric performance data - a first for the
virtualized data center environment. This gives application owners the
confidence to virtualize complex applications, knowing they will perform as
expected.
With visibility and
ASM providing details on service levels within the application, IT service
management (ITSM), service-oriented architecture (SOA), and business service
management (BSM) can offer additional insights into services being used.
ITSM requires a process-based approach to align the delivery of IT services
with the needs of the enterprise. This allows enterprise executives and
IT management personnel to determine the status of various processes and
identify potential problem areas - all beginning with delivering application
visibility at the process level.
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 With over 20 years of systems management experience, Nyman is a successful veteran of multiple ventures in the systems and application management field. Prior to founding BlueStripe Software, he served as Chairman and CEO of Relicore, Inc., in the ITSM Discovery and Configuration Management market. Nyman led Relicore to a successful merger with Symantec in 2006. Prior to Relicore, he was the first business executive hired by Wily Technology. Prior to Wily, Nyman served in several executive positions with IBM in the Tivoli and Networking Software organizations. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
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