VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘poll’

I’ve recently listened to a presentation that described the path to virtualization as an evolution of the data center through 3 different phases:

Phase 1 – Exploration

Includes the implementation of virtual infrastructure and includes the learning curve of managing the new technology / technologies. Phase 1 usually includes the assessment, planning and designing,  and active migration of physical servers to virtual machines.

Phase 2 – Expansion

As a virtual data center matures, priority shifts to the management of a shared, dynamic, and distributed infrastructure. Tier 1 applications are virtualized, and designs become complex. Phase 2 emphasizes a focus on top performance, maximizing capacity, and developing operations and configuration management.

Phase 3 – Standardization

Phase 3 could be considered the private cloud. Service levels, self service, and policy driven automation are key concerns. Although they might surface in Phase 2, charge back and virtual machine life cycle management are fine tuned in this phase.

Based on these descriptions, please participate in this informal poll. I’ll close the poll at 11:59 p.m. EST Friday July 17.

[poll id="6"]

Now that the Launch is over and VMware has announced vSphere, virtualization administrators and IT management have some decisions to make. Personally, I’ve heard many different reactions to VMware’s new product, and they have  ranged from being awestruck about the new features to being concerned about the impact of new licensing. So, I’ll ask the VM /ETC readers in this informal poll and with comments on this post to sound off about how you feel about vSphere and what you and your company are planning to do – either with your current virtual infrastructure or in a future implementation.

[poll id="5"]

Like the VM /ETC polls before I plan to let this one run for a couple weeks. It will close on May 15. Thanks in advance for taking the time to respond!

A lot of blogs and web sites are predicting that Cloud Computing will be big in 2009. Instead of offering another prediction I am asking VM /ETC readers to take the following poll about their Cloud Computing interest, expectations, and plans. The poll will run until 11:59 pm EST January 15. Hopefully the response will help put a “from the trenches” perspective on a topic that seems to be everywhere you look right now.

[poll id="4"]

Happy New Year and Best wishes in 2009!

For some additional reading here’s some links to other’s predictions for 2009. Most contain cloud computing as a topic.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you take the time to plan for VMware Update Manager (VUM) when designing your virtual infrastructure architecture? Planning focus is usually on VirtualCenter (VC) server’s requirements, but then, in my experience, Update Manager and it’s default local SQL 2005 Express database seem to be added on the VC server simply because the installer is prompted about VUM during the VC setup routine. This scenario can create a poor performing VUM implementation.

Recently on the VMware Performance Team’s VROOM blog, John Liang’s post titled VMware Update Manager Performance and Best Practices Paper Posted announced a new whitepaper that should be a must read for any virtual infrastructure administrator preparing to use (or already using) VUM. The .pdf is a 14 page discussion on the topics that impact VUM such as performance, networking, resource consumption, and even virus scanning.

I find a few of these recommendations interesting, and the whitepaper leaves me wondering how common using VUM for virtual machine OS patching really is. I’ve created two informal polls, so please take a second to complete them and maybe we can get a quick gauge on how VUM is commonly implemented.

[poll id="2"][poll id="3"]

The whitepaper is a quick, informative read that I strongly encourage, but the following list of best practices was copied from the whitepaper’s Conclusion section.
Read the rest of this entry »