Viva la Virtualization!
Lately I’ve been getting many questions from IT colleagues asking about where they should start when it comes to virtualization. There are so many technologies out there – KVM , Hyper-V, ESX, Xen – how does one decide which is best suited for his/her organizational needs?
For me, the first step was to understand what I wanted to achieve. In order to reach my target I needed to set a very clear, and more importantly, achievable goal. I did this by following a very clear flow-chart analyzing all the different aspects of virtualization.
Step 1: Determine if virtualization is appropriate. Determine if virtualization is appropriate for a specific situation.
Step 2: Categorize the workload. Determine if the workload is designed to run on a server or on a client computer.
Step 3: Select server hardware or server software virtualization. Determine which product will deliver the most appropriate platform for virtualization based on the technical needs of the environment.
Step 4: Determine client connectivity. Narrow down the options for virtualization based on the network requirements of client computers.
Step 5: Establish workload location. Determine where the workload should be run.
Step 6: Select desktop or session virtualization. Choose between session virtualization and desktop virtualization.
Step 7: Choose application virtualization or virtualization on the desktop. Determine if the workload being considered is better implemented in application virtualization or in virtualization on the desktop.
Some IT admins like to include cloud management tools such as OpenStack / CloudStack with virtualization, taking them into consideration while choosing a solution. It’s important to remember that management tools cannot exist without virtualization while virtualization can exist and work completely fine without any form of management tools.
All of the steps outlined above aim to give a better understanding of how to choose the best technology for a specific organization. The next step would be to consider how best to implement the technology selected.
There’s no getting around it, the world has changed and organizations, especially IT admins, must improve efficiency by server consolidation, ultimately leaving more room for future growth.
Which virtualization technology have you chosen?
