Evolving Solutions has been getting a lot of questions from our customers about the new VMWare VSphere 5.0 licensing model. As you may have heard, VMWare has added a memory restriction to VSphere 5.0 licensing. They call this new model vRAM entitlements. Your vRAM entitlement depends on which version of VSphere you currently are running in your data center. Standard edition is 32GB, Enterprise edition is 64GB, and the Enterprise plus is 96GB of RAM per socket license. Customers must remember that this is not based on the physical RAM in the server, but the RAM allocated to guests. VMWare has not yet set a hard limit to this number. They are planning to look back at the last 12 months of usage and find the highest daily high water mark and use that to check compliance.
To aid our customers in the transition to VSphere 5.0, we have a tool we can run against your environment that will analyze what you are licensed for today; look at your environment and show you how it will translate into VSphere 5.0 licenses.
Contact your Account Executive for more information.
Increasingly, organizations are using the mobility functionality of virtualization to create a dynamic agile data center. From a networking perspective, the paths that virtualization is taking require innovation on the data center network in order to achieve the promise of a fully virtualized data center. Organizations that strive to create a dynamic and agile data center need to ease the migration process of any virtual machine while enabling applications to remain highly available and secure.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be posting a Q & A with IDC analyst, Lucinda Borovick, Program Vice President, Enterprise Communications and Data center Networks.
Questions answered include:
How do I make sure the network doesn’t become an impediment in the path to the virtualized data center?
What is network locality and why is it becoming an application and security problem?
What should I consider when evolving to a data center network that will enable the virtualized data center?
Check back on Friday, March 4th for the first part in this series.
In addition to finding ways to cope with an expanding storage infrastructure, data center managers also have to:
- Providing continuous access to data stored on reliable and secure media
- Meet stringent compliance regulations that require longer data retention
- Create operational efficiency while simultaneously cutting costs
To maximize efficiency, companies must tier storage between high-cost, energy-inefficient disk drives and lower-cost, energy efficient,
long-term tape archive systems to manage the bottom line. In addition, many installed tape systems don’t provide mixed media support, partitioning, or library sharing, making it difficult for data centers to scale and share hardware and software to leverage existing resources and reduce operational costs. With the right tape storage technology, companies can consolidate multiple smaller systems onto larger solutions (or large systems onto fewer, higher-density solutions) and store more data at less cost.
An enterprise’s data represents one of its most important assets, so how that data is stored, accessed, and secured is of paramount importance. . Providing economies of scale, a sound storage consolidation strategy can lead to lower costs, less energy consumption, improved response times, better performance, increased capacity, and more.
Today’s article on TMCNet.com by Tammy Wolf talks about the right steps to take to monitor, test and analyze non-productive data servers before decommissioning them.
According to Wolf, 30% of data center servers are underutilized and fail to comply with business protocol. There is a temptation to simply shut down the non-productive systems, but this can cause many problems. It is important to understand why the server is idle and underutilized before taking action to shut it down.
There are many reasons for this under-utilization, including:
Companies are unaware of how their applications are performing
Companies are limited in their tracking capabilities (IT assets, space, power, server cooling)
Servers are left running when new applications replace old ones
It seems like a no-brainer, but so many companies really have no idea about how their applications are performing and the impact they are having on the overall performance of their data center.
Wolf recommends the following process for managing data center servers.
Monitor and analyze servers for function
Virtualize the operating system
Redeploy or decommission less-useful servers
Taking this approach reduces power consumption and frees up capacity for other business applications.
An article published today in ComputerWorld discusses the differences between Server Virtualization and implementing a Private Cloud.
Analyst, Bill Claybrook, explains how Server Virtualization is an important building block for creating a private cloud. Part of the building process is capacity planning, that is, figuring out what happens when you add servers and other resources to the cluster as needed to keep up with business demand. Most organizations are not good at monitoring and keeping ahead of capacity. It’s somewhat of a balancing act to ensure that you have sufficient, but not too much, capacity on the data center floor.
When it comes to security, the way in which firewalls are handled in traditional data centers is not going to always work in cloud environments where workloads can be moved around. In a virtualized environment, servers may be organized into different security groups, and the security of the target host may not be satisfactory for a virtual machine (VM) being migrated to it.
Organizations that take on the task of deploying a private cloud are generally doing it to lower costs and provide more agile provisioning. However, many of the processes and procedures that have been used in data centers for many years require changes. IT organizations have many processes and requirements in the provisioning process, including budget requirements, discussions with storage, network and server groups — and lots of paperwork. These methods are directly opposed to the streamlined, short-duration provisioning associated with private cloud computing using automation and orchestration.
Posted on September 21st, 2010 by Judie Van Keulen
Now that we’ve explored the various cloud computing options available, how do you decide whether cloud computing is right for your business?
In a recent article on securitycatalyst.com, Craig Nelson discussed reasons why businesses opt for the cloud and what they should consider before turning to cloud computing.
There are some simple reasons that business choose to go with cloud computing:
1. Lack of time or expertise (including security) to build and maintain an in-house solution.
2. Seeking the advantage/speed of new features that are released quickly.
3. It’s cheap (either free, or subscription fees).
But before jumping into it, discuss the following key questions with your internal team:
1 – What regulations is your business subject to? What operational principles and policies does your business have? Can the cloud provider provide an adequate level of support? If not, can deficiencies be mitigated?
2 – Does the cloud provider offer security controls that allow an adequate level of protection? If not, can deficiencies be mitigated?
3 – Does the cloud provider offer a level of operational transparency, so appropriate metrics and logs can be used for monitoring and reporting?
For more information on cloud computing and how it fits into your company’s IT infrastructure, contact Evolving Solutions.
Security? Privacy? Compliance? They are all legitimate concerns when it comes to public cloud computing. That being said, the public cloud has undeniable benefits. As a utility service, public clouds offer easy and inexpensive setup, scalability for growing needs and a pay-per-use model that eliminates waste.
The public cloud simultaneously solves three resource bottlenecks: power, data processing and access to software-as-a-service (SaaS) without ownership costs. The public cloud essentially becomes a boost for your regular systems, offering additional power when needed and the ability to process large amounts of data that traditional file systems cannot handle.
But back to the cons. There are certainly some very important issues to consider before using a public cloud.
1) You can’t move data between service providers. Companies therefore must ensure that they have selected a public cloud service provider that has a good reputation and the ability to scale based on their needs. Switching providers at a later date is not a viable option.
2) As public cloud computing is available to anybody, the risk of a security breach is much higher. The data may be stored in different locations or even different countries, making it difficult to ensure that private data stays private. Companies must therefore limit the access of individual users and strongly enforce password policies.
3) When using an external service provider, there is always the chance of service outages. If your public cloud goes offline, how long can you survive without it?
Even with all these issues, the economies of scale put public cloud computing at a clear advantage and service providers realize that. It is in their best interest to address key customer concerns and work towards creating a secure and reliable service.
There has been a lot of talk about private versus public clouds because of data security concerns. A private cloud is a proprietary network or data center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people. Private clouds generally pose fewer security and privacy risks than public clouds.
What distinguishes private clouds from the average data center is the ability to pay-per-use and scale usage up or down as demand dictates. This scalability is made possible by the pooling of storage resources.
With cost and scalability being two important business issues, private clouds are extremely attractive to many businesses. According to a recent InformationWeek survey, more than half of the business technology professionals interviewed said that “they’re either using private clouds (28%) or planning to do so (30%).” That said, there is still a lot of hesitation when it comes to implementing a private cloud environment. With a heavy technology investment needed, businesses quite rightfully are trying to determine whether the long-term savings will be worth the upfront investment.
Forrester Analyst, James Staten, believes that most businesses are not ready for an internal cloud because they “lack the experience and maturity to manage such an environment.” Staten says that “to be ready, they must first scale operational standardization, automation, and virtualization mountains.”
With automation and consolidation being best practices for running a better, more efficient data center, perhaps preparing for a private cloud will inadvertently help companies optimize their data center?
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings are finished applications that companies rent. SaaS applications are delivered via the Internet and priced based on consumption (number of users or “seats”). While you cannot modify SaaS applications, it is possible to make small customizations. Some examples of software-as-a-service are online social media monitoring tools such as ScoutLabs.com and CRM tool Salesforce.com.
The cost to use an SaaS application ranges from $0 to $500 per user per month depending on the application, use, and addition of supplementary modules.
When we talk about the maturity of the various cloud computing offerings, SaaS, which has been around as a technology solution for more than 10 years, is at a higher level of maturing than most other cloud services that have fewer than three years on the market.
According to Forrester, SaaS has become an established software delivery model for certain segments of the market. Forrester survey data shows that 20% of enterprises and small-to-medium size businesses have implemented or are piloting at least one SaaS solution. All major enterprise ISVs have SaaS offerings, and all major SIs are building large SaaS practices.
That said, software-as-a-service still has room for growth. Not all applications are suited to SaaS delivery, and not even all implementations of SaaS-suited software are appropriate for a SaaS delivery. SaaS does, however, have the potential to significantly increase corporate efficiencies and productivity.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) refers to software and product development tools hosted on the provider’s infrastructure. You pay the host for the use of their platform, but may also pay someone else for other software or services. A good example of PaaS is Google Apps.
According to Forrester Analyst, James Staten, PaaS is a “build-deploy-manage environment. These cloud services provide a framework and a software system for application developers to create new services and rapidly deploy them on the Internet. They typically support a particular type of programming language or environment and provide cloud-implemented services that the developer can integrate into their application. It’s becoming common to see PaaS offerings designed specifically for the enhanced use of a SaaS service. For example, Force.com is primarily
used to create new applications that directly leverage the Salesforce.com CRM service.”
The biggest challenge with PaaS is how limited it is in terms of applicability. Many PaaS platforms are focused on a particular class of developer or application, which means that applications will not run on other platforms. The “lock-in” that PaaS provides is therefore a big downside. According to Staten, PaaS will take 3 – 5 years to reach the next stage of development because “significant function build-outs are still needed, as well as maturity of the platforms and greater enterprise adoption.”
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
