Ten Tips for Building a Virtualization-Ready Infrastructure

By Scott Farrand
published: Monday, July 13 2009

While virtualization originally gained the most traction with individual servers, the principles are now being applied more broadly so that servers, storage and networking resources can be converged and pooled across the data center.  Today, you can apply the principles of virtualization throughout the infrastructure in ways that could only be imagined a few years ago.

While the range of benefits virtualization can deliver to the infrastructure is particularly compelling, customers must be prudent and consider the physical infrastructure as well.  The goal is not to create virtual silos within the data center that need to be managed independently, rather it is to establish a single unified virtual and physical infrastructure.  Every virtual server must run on a physical system and access physical disk storage somewhere in the environment. Therefore, customers must consider the links between the physical and the virtual.

Before you get entrenched in ad-hoc projects, take a step back and examine how to build in virtualization at all levels of your infrastructure, from the physical and virtual to servers, storage and networking in order to meet business objectives. By prioritizing management within the overall plan, IT can minimize security vulnerabilities, performance issues and server sprawl.  Here are some additional points to consider:

Converge your infrastructure to optimize your technology infrastructure.

By designing a virtualization strategy that goes beyond servers to include storage, networking and management, IT managers can share and pool resources from across the infrastructure. In this way, the business can demand services from the infrastructure which can be met more easily with a broader pool of resources to pull from. This convergence of storage, networking and server resources maximizes virtualization's benefits across the entire infrastructure and greatly increases the flexibility of the data center.

Maximize performance.

By creating a balanced architecture with hardware that has comparable performance capabilities, administrators can maximize the potential of each component and ensure high performance. For example, the full potential of quad-core servers can be realized only when paired with equally impressive memory and networking capacity. Otherwise, the potential of each component is limited and results in reduced performance.

Achieve optimal flexibility with your infrastructure.

Most applications have specific recipes for the amount of network, storage and server resources they need, which is why vendors tend to offer so many different hardware models. Since each model has its own firmware, spare parts and procedures, it quickly becomes a challenge for IT administrators to know the nuances of each application. The alternative, a one-configuration-per-box model, can quickly become expensive and complicated. By moving to a bladed infrastructure with shared storage, you can break free of multiple configurations, providing the flexibility to take one configuration and expand its memory, network capacity and storage when needed. This enables standardization on fewer hardware configurations for more applications. And, it allows for better use of storage by pooling and sharing it.

Optimize bandwidth and capacity across different workloads.

A single, large high-bandwidth network connection with virtualized links to servers and storage distributes bandwidth where it is needed most. In turn, this increases flexibility in how virtual machines allocate capacity for different workloads.

Speed network configurations.

Virtual connections, used in place of conventional switch modules, abstract and pool the server-edge connections. This allows server administrators to independently manage server blades and their connectivity, while accelerating deployment of applications or business services.  In turn, the network simply follows the application, regardless of the location of the physical or virtual server.

Ensure high levels of scalability and performance.

By investing in a storage area network (SAN) that is storage optimized, customer environments can sufficiently meet the capacity utilization, performance, management, and availability requirements exerted by virtualization on the infrastructure. In order to meet these unique demands, it is best to choose a SAN that offers a shared storage architecture capable of supporting virtual machines.

Ease the transition to virtualization by leveraging existing storage resources.

Software or hardware, such as iSCSI devices, Fibre Channel networking technologies and storage disk arrays, enhance existing storage by offering flexibility, scalability and ease-of-management necessary for virtual environments. This helps customers meet the unique demands of a virtual server environment, even without expertise in SAN technology or the scalability of a dedicated SAN.

Simplify management and reduce administration time.

Instead of having separate management consoles for physical resources and virtual resources, choose management software that views them the same way and lets you manage them together. With a holistic management tool, workloads can be easily deployed, moved and changed from physical to virtual or vice versa.

Eliminate the cost and time of manual processes.

A management solution that enables automated workflows allows you to design templates for many frequently repeated tasks for specific applications, such as Exchange or SAP. The entire infrastructure life cycle can be automated, from provisioning through retirement, and cuts weeks out of the provisioning effort in the process.

Maximize the business value of virtualization.

Vendors, like HP, and third-party services provide skillful expertise when IT staff has limited experience. Services representatives help businesses develop a specialized virtualization strategy, designed to meet their individual needs.  Most importantly, services help customers maximize business value of virtualization. Service professionals enable companies to drive out costs, improve ROI, reduce the risk of downtime and increase flexibility across the business.

By considering these best practices when embarking on a virtualization deployment, customers can ensure they reap the flexibility and cost savings afforded by virtualization.  Through considering all levels of the infrastructure, they can also minimize potential for problems during the process.

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