The Virtualization Paradigm and the transition to normalcy

     I have been working in the application consultancy for quite some time and it is hard to remember the last architecture or implementation I have done that has not included VMware. For many of my customers, this was the first time the virtualization concepts became a reality within their datacenter. Although they were aware of virtualization, they had some animosity and overall fear that this technology could actually perform “real” workloads.  Often times it took some hard convincing before they would actually accept the proposed architecture.

     Like most, once the implementation was complete and they could actually touch, feel and interact with this new architecture, they quickly gained confidence and were looking for other avenues to leverage their new found love for virtualization. The biggest problem my customers faced was still maintaining the belief in dedicated resources for specific applications. They would deploy silos of ESX servers to support a specific application needs (SharePoint, Exchange, etc…). While this appears to be a logical approach, it does not leverage the virtual infrastructure to it’s fullest. Yes, they are able to achieve server consolidation and a reduction of power, HVAC, and rack space, but they cannot fully appreciate the drive to maximum utilization of their computing resources.

     The hardest thing to communicate to customers new to virtualization is that they not only remove the OS from the hardware, they also remove the dedication of assets from applications. Most customers maintain separate shops for applications. These divisions not only own the applications, but the hardware they are running on as well. It is hard to convince an Exchange admin that they no longer have to worry about which physical “box” their application is running on.

     I often try to communicate this new ideal by leveraging what my customers currently know about their SAN. They have a centrally managed set of disk resources that are presented and consumed by an application. The application admin, although they know how much storage they can use, cannot point to a rack of disks and show you which physical drives they actually “own”. With virtualization, computing resources can be managed in much the same way.

     With virtualization, physical servers are grouped together in a cluster, much like the physical drives in a SAN. The resources of these servers can than be managed as a single entity and presented to applications based on their requirements. These clusters can be leveraged to drive maximum utilization of the physical resources, while maintaining application requirements regardless of which “box” they are running on. This allows the individual application owners to focus on their application and remove the physical requirements they previously had to manage.

     While the end goal is not always achieved quickly, most customers are evolving their virtual infrastructure and driving toward  this end. Once they see the benefits virtualization brings to the table, the long term vision starts to become reality. Removing the physical boundaries normally associated with application deployment, maintenance and disaster recovery allows my customers to not only see a reduction in operating costs, but they also achieve less downtime and easier management.