Datacenter Virtualization

Paul Hosking
Monday, 13 July 2009 07:51

Introduction

This whitepaper examines strategies for moving an organization toward more dynamic IT using datacenter virtualization technologies. Datacenters evolve from manual and reactionary to automated and proactive, and from cost centers to strategic assets, through a series of stages. This paper will show how virtualization is a key technology to help datacenters move through those stages, reduce cost, increase security and availability, and enable more agile business. This paper provides concrete scenarios showing how virtualization can enable server consolidation and business continuity. This paper also examines the technologies that underlie those solutions, which include Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, and System Center.

Finally, this paper explains the partnerships that Microsoft has formed with organizations such as XenSource/Citrix to ensure that Microsoft supports heterogeneous environments including Linux workloads, and the engineering investments that Microsoft has made to support non-Microsoft technologies such as Xen and ESX Server.

Dynamic IT
Technology accumulates in the datacenter over time, leaving many organizations in a position where their IT resources are fully allocated simply maintaining what they have, with no time left over to focus on strategic initiatives. All legacy applications must be maintained. IT organizations have to support existing capabilities, while meeting new business needs. Often viewed as a cost center, IT must meet these challenges while operating under tight financial constraints. Characteristics of a Dynamic IT Organization
As organizations move toward dynamic IT, the capabilities of IT change, and the role of IT in the organization grows. IT organizations that are dynamic have the following characteristics:

Aligned
First, dynamic IT is aligned with the business. This seems obvious, but creating this synergy is often easier said than done.

Becoming dynamic ensures that IT is thoroughly connected with business requirements, by aligning the new goals that the business generates and wants to embrace with the actual IT implementation. Being dynamic means an expanded point of view and a willingness to embrace new players in the IT life cycle – for example, a business architect or analyst. It’s very important to maintain a robust real-time connection between business requirements and IT, making sure that you can connect and synchronize the system used predominantly by those business architects and analysts with technology management solutions in your organization.

Adaptable
The systems must be adaptable to change. Industry trends and new technologies generate significant interest, but IT must be able to evaluate new technologies with the business needs in mind, and rapidly incorporate new technology as part of strategic initiatives. While moving forward, IT must not jeopardize prior investments and tools that are already in place providing critical functionality.

Efficient
IT organizations must stay within budget. Simply purchasing expensive technology does not enable a dynamic datacenter, especially if such technology ends up as “shelfware.” While investments should be expected as organizations move from reactive and manual approaches to proactive automated processes, these investments need to be done with key success criteria and payoff calculated from the outset. As IT moves from being viewed as infrastructure to being a business asset that provides information for decision makers, and becomes a key component in new business initiatives, IT can garner additional budget, as IT is seen as enabling profit rather than simply keeping the lights (or e-mail) on.