Virtualization - the end of client lifecycle management?

By Stefan Dobe
published: Wednesday, July 29 2009

Simple administration, flexible business processes, low operating and maintenance costs - virtualization seems to offer it all.   But even virtualized environments don't manage themselves - there is still a need for a structured approach to Client Lifecycle Management.

Citrix, Microsoft, Sun, VMware all agree; virtualization is the ‘next big thing'.  Hence they are making massive investments in promoting uptake among organizations around the world.   And there are many good reasons to get involved with virtualization - from improving business processes and reduces hardware spend, to ‘Green IT' and creating a faster, more agile IT organization.

However, in the rush to adopt the benefits of virtualization, it's all too easy to underestimate the need for Infrastructure Management and Client Lifecycle Management.  The problem is exacerbated by vendors claiming that one key benefit of virtualization is that is practically dissolves the need to manage the deployment of ‘machines' and applications in the traditional sense.

This creates a dangerous misconception that can easily create a situation where organizations lose visibility and control of software licensing (even virtual applications need to be licensed), virtual machines roll-outs and physical resources used to support the virtual environment.   Research conducted in August 2008 showed that 55 percent of organizations were actively employing virtualization in their production environments, but also that nearly half of them had no tools in place to report on or manage virtual assets.

This lack of a structured approach to managing virtual environments as if they were the same as physical IT assets can quickly lead not only to frustration, but even chaos in the IT organization.

By adopting a proactive stance when managing both physical and virtual assets, IT Managers can ensure that a sense or order prevails throughout the IT organization, which in turn means that the assets will be better-placed to help the enterprise achieve its business goals.

Here are some common examples of where Infrastructure Management has a critical role to play in managing virtualized environments:

Avoiding sprawl

There is a common misunderstanding that virtual machines solve IT's issues with physical hard and software constraints. However neglecting control of the virtual environments and adding virtual machines randomly will ultimately lead to sprawl - uncontrolled implementation of virtualization which actually explode IT costs and efforts to maintain.   Sprawl not only potentially leads to a chaotic environment, it can also complete undo any intended cost savings the organization was trying to achieve.  Experts agree that currently somewhere between 50-70 percent of all deployed virtual machines (VMs) are redundant.  On an estate with 150 VMs, this can represent as much as $150,000 in wasted spend.

By establishing standardized images, and then more closely managing the process of creating, deploying and managing VMs, organizations can be much more conscious about what assets are available and whether they are making a valuable contribution to the organization's business goals.

Avoiding silos and disjointed asset management

Whether managing physical machines (be they laptops, desktops or servers) or virtual assets, having a consistent ‘unified' management console can help avoid a fragmented approach to asset management - enabling IT staff to use just one management application to cover all aspects of the client lifecycle, from configuration and operating system, through to patch deployment and managing maintenance schedules.

Having the ability to create virtual applications in the same way as physical OS, patch and driver packages also dramatically reduces the administrative overhead and learning curve associated with adopting virtual technologies.

Using exception-based management to ensure compliance

Ensuring that assets meet an organization's establish policies for build and configuration compliance is a major issue regardless of whether they are physical or virtual.  Adopting a policy-driven management approach - where the IT staff focus on managing-by-exception, rather than manually hunting for errors - can dramatically reduce the likelihood of downtime as well as ensuring that assets conform to expected standards.

Avoiding downtime, overtime and productivity lulls

It's a myth that virtual environments require no maintenance or downtime.  Just as with any other kind of asset, critical maintenance is necessary to ensure continued peak performance and that IT is keeping pace with business needs.  However, the impact of such work on end user productivity can be minimized by using automated tools to schedule and perform maintenance operations during times that best suit the business.

There is no doubt that virtualization has much to offer organizations, with the ability to streamline operations, reduce costs and create an environment that can more quickly adapt to the changing needs of the business.  But to believe the hype that virtualization eliminates the need for careful asset and lifecycle management is to prepare for the IT organization to quickly find itself in a state of chaos.  If anything, the virtual environment needs even more careful control in order to prevent it ‘sprawling' in a way that was never intended.

Thankfully, tools such as the FrontRange Infrastructure Management solutions exist to help IT managers unify their visibility and control of both the physical and virtual assets under their control.   From creating and testing virtual machines to the swift deployment and updating of virtual applications, a centralized approach can dramatically reduce the IT overhead associated with client lifecycle management and help deliver a better quality of IT service to the organization.

FrontRange, Virtualization Management