Manage your data centers with intelligence

Virtualization is changing IT operations, but you can manage the change with resource planning and cost allocation

Tapan Patel

What is virtualization and why is it getting so much attention? At its core, virtualization decouples the traditional model of provisioning a dedicated hardware resource for a single application that runs on a single operating system. Essentially, virtualization breaks that link and makes it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same piece of hardware at the same time. In other words, virtualization transforms or “virtualizes” hardware resources to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system
and applications.

Virtualization is a hot concept because it has the potential to improve utilization and application response times. Of all types of virtualization, server virtualization has experienced the most rapid adoption over the past few years. The inexpensive status of x86 servers has created islands of computing capacity and server sprawl, resulting in low utilization of x86 server environments. Server virtualization will remove the fixed status of IT resources and make them available as virtual assets for relocation. For example, virtualized servers can be used when increased workloads require improved utilization or when application response times need improvement.

Managing benefits of server virtualization
Server virtualization enables efficient use of shared IT resources, rapid provisioning for high availability and disaster recovery, and migration and consolidation of underutilized IT resources with minimal disruptions. Server virtualization technology also gives organizations the opportunity to drive capital and operational efficiency.

With these types of benefits, it’s no wonder server virtualization offerings from VMware – the dominant vendor in the marketplace – and from infrastructure vendors like Microsoft, IBM, HP and Sun Microsystems are getting a lot of interest from enterprises around the world. 

However, server virtualization affects IT organizations in many ways and should be managed properly. Consider these two key questions when initiating a virtualized environment:

• How should you plan, manage and deploy resources? 
• How should you charge back to business units?

What to buy when, and where to virtualize
As the adoption of virtualization technologies increases, the need for IT resource utilization, performance monitoring and capacity planning increases. As with any high-value application, IT should focus on improving service levels and results, and tracking compliance and accounting down to the minute. Tracking such detailed information requires a system that can predict needs and outcomes so that you can quickly make changes to service-level agreements and costing models.

How can you find a safe, manageable and logical way to virtualize your physical IT resources and conduct server-consolidation exercises? Follow these steps:

1. Consolidate and analyze available resource data from multiple IT infrastructure sources to gain visibility into the usage, availability and performance of IT resources. 
2. Apply analytics for optimal placement of virtual resources and physical-to-virtual server migration.  
3. Conduct resource optimization exercises to build credibility and deliver foresight into planning scenarios for future growth.

A strong foundation of fact-based decisions will lead to the proactive placement of IT resources based on your IT operational goals, including server consolidation, workload balancing and controlling virtual machine sprawl. Further, a centralized view of IT metrics that link to business measures (such as growth rate and business processes) will help build credibility for IT executives. Progressive IT organizations have also added green IT-related goals (such as reducing their carbon footprints, and power and cooling costs) to the mix while deciding on resource allocation and future purchases.

In particular, your resource optimization models should analyze both physical and virtual IT resource needs. By doing so, you’ll understand how much resource needs are overprovisioned or underprovisioned, and how to reconfigure capacity during failure or disaster events. Modeling and forecasting capabilities should inject new light on the impact that business growth might have on your infrastructure components; therefore, you can plan for capacity reallocation, service-level commitments and compliance with license agreements.

A healthy ratio of virtual machines per physical server host can prevent an overallocation of infrastructure resources and virtual sprawl. Properly assessing physical server and application candidates for virtualization can help achieve operational flexibility, cost effectiveness and improve hardware utilization. Factors to consider include application performance, availability, type of application and licensing.

Chargeback that shows business benefits
As more physical servers are deployed and shared between applications and business units, and as server virtualization becomes more popular, IT will have to come up with a rational way to track usage, allocate costs and charge costs back to business units utilizing the resources.

Server virtualization improves application availability, which in turn increases usage and/or future demand. IT chargeback is important in this type of scenario, allowing high-priority and high-demand workloads to be prioritized for virtualization. A strong budgeting and financial management process should tie utilization directly to costs.

Your system should include a formal chargeback mechanism for business units, especially since most IT resources are now in shared-services form. In particular, IT chargeback should support a wide variety of accounting methodologies, providing flexibility to meet your organization’s needs now and in the future.

Consider visibility into the use, availability and performance of IT resources as a way to demonstrate value to the business and other stakeholders. Undertake cost allocation and chargeback to identify opportunities for cost reduction, transparency and process improvement without negatively affecting service levels and performance.

Virtualization is just one way for IT to deliver on the increased demands and requirements from business. Remember, your IT infrastructure growth – virtual or otherwise – should reflect business cycles and growth scenarios in order for both parties to understand and complement each other.

Bio: Tapan Patel is Global Marketing Manager for IT Intelligence Solutions at SAS. He  focuses on persona-based marketing, awareness and messaging for IT-related topics areas such as in-database processing, SOA, virtualization and grid/high-performance computing.