Savannah W-ITS

This event (today, 11/6/08) is hosted under the same environment previously mentioned (bMighty, 5/22/08.)  A few interface notes:

My browser crashed after about 60 seconds into the first presentation so I tried logging in from another system – not! allowed since I was already ‘logged in.’

It would be nice if at least two logins were permitted, i.e.

1. one to ‘watch’ presentations (i.e. my system with a large monitor) and
2. one to multi-task so I could review the other information on the site

Event/Presentation Notes

Virtualization and the Next Gneration Data Center**

A number of quick surveys were taken – indications are:

• that the use of virtual technologies is currently on the horizon for business/IT (hopefully this is not news to you!)
• business/IT interests seem to be focused on overall cost savings (reduce hardware, required support resources, flexibility)

Reasons for using virtualization (Presenter: Joseph Tobolski, Accenture)

• efficiency
• flexibility
• backward compatibility
• security
• continuity (business continuity – BC and disaster recovery DR)

Challenges to VM – organization/people

• need for seamless interoperability (communication!) between physical resource groups (management groups for hardware, storage, networking, etc.)
• people, processes and policies need refinement
• changes in business views of resources (Where is my server/box?)

Challenges to VM – changing technologies

• vendor interoperability (compatibility between VM vendors)
• networking support (significant complexity for physical connections)
• storage challenges (additional cabling and hardware)
• component computing (create right-size ’servers’ for specific needs – Lego-Servers?

Challenges to VM – Business – do sensible things

• Virtual Server Sprawl – who’s on first?
• Use GOLD images or Basic OS and patch management?
• Licensing considerations?
• Cloud/Utility computing – reserve/consider for specific needs

Implementing VM – Do’s and Don’ts

• Plan! use templates, standards – all the steps you should normally take
• Don’t replicate what you already have – assess, simplify, test, plan

My Summary

Overall, the use of virtualization does not preclude the use of standards within your environment; to avoid ‘virtual sprawl’ it probably requires even more attention – you need redundancy, replication, structured implementation processes and procedures; the possible benefits from virtualization will be to see some reduction in operational costs as well as increased flexibility and perhaps simplification of the compute environment (as you adopt and refine your compute environment standards.)   Final suggestions:

• do it now – development and QA environments (provide programmers/designers/testers with on-demand ‘compute resources’)
• long term planning – production environments – a plan should be developed which includes a test-bed component (validation phase – will this work for your environment?)

My ISP dropped my connection so I virtually attended the rest of ‘the day’ when my virtual connection allowed…    BTW – Then entire event should be online (for several weeks.)

** – this post includes many bullet points from the original presentation (along with my comments); the ’show’ will include an archive for viewing at your convenience.

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