Infrastructure Virtualisation with VMware vSphere
Virtualisation is a very hot topic at the moment with companies and individuals finding that the consolidation of servers to less hardware is a fairly straightforward task.
Virtualisation offers many benefits including:
- The reduction of the number of physical servers and associated power, space and maintenance costs
- Easier backup, higher availability and more disaster recovery options
- Easier deployment of new servers
- The ability to isolate difficult or legacy services
Virtualised computers can however quickly become out of control and outnumber their physical counterparts by many factors. Unexpected compatibility, licensing and performance issues can also hinder virtualisation efforts.
With some planning it is possible to avoid the common pitfalls, KN3 offers full consultancy services on all VMware products and recommends a three phased approach:
Key Steps:
- Investigation
- Which servers currently actively in use?
- Which applications are required and of those which are key?
- What is the position with licensing, are the applications and operating systems adequately or even over licensed?
- Which hardware is being used?
- Which resources are currently being used (disk, memory and processor)?
- Which servers are good candidates for virtualisation?
- What would the saving be?
- Audit of Requirements
- Hardware and audits will identify the existing environment and devices
- Compatibility Checks
- If an operating system migration is also planned it will be necessary to check whether each application functions and is supported on the target operating system
How KN3 Can Assist With This Phase...
Key Steps:
- Standards Definition
- Standards for the installation types (operating system, software and patches) need to be defined and documented
- Solution Design
- The virtualisation enviroment is planned taking into consideration the information gathered in the discovery phase and new/future requirements. Backup and availabilty are considered
How KN3 Can Assist With This Phase...
Key Steps:
- Training
- Support personnel will need to be trained on how to manage virtualised servers and networks
How KN3 Can Assist With This Phase...