VMware ESX
May 8, 2009 by · 7 Comments
If you’re reminiscent of several IT supervisor you may feel like to exercise VMWare ESX Server for virtualizing servers but perhaps get closer opposition from others in your company. several people are disagreement on putting dealing decisive relevance on VMWare Virtual Servers and possibly conflict if you struggle to go whole dominate virtualizing these appliance in the face of such confrontation. We investigated a thriving introduction to VMWare ESX and virtual servers could be finished by selecting to virtualize older structure and use VMWare initially to execute other task in addition restore physical hardware for critical systems. combine older organization and stand alone processes: We had several enormous older servers that wanted to be in succession but were not precious of apparatus developments.
Each person in IT required these boxes out of the server room but the data needed to be accessible in case of an check or historical must. Some scheme achieve low level processing on a scheduled basis. We imaged theses organization to VMWare ESX virtual servers using Ghost and an in place upgrade to get them booting again. We were proficient to run eight servers on a two processor Dell Blade server. exercise VMWare for a increase and Staging Environment: Today most organizations are moving to a system where they utilize up gradation and staging servers as well to their production servers. VMWare ESX Server running on ESX makes great environments to Use Dev and Staging servers without adding a bunch of servers to your data center. Using Citrix Metaframe Installation Manager? make use of VMWare ESX Server for your packager. If you utilize Installation Manager for Citrix Metaframe Enterprise you will necessitate a clean scheme running the same operating arrangement as your Citrix server. Using VMWare Virtual servers as your packager facilitates you to keep a clean packager without adding hardware and rebuilding servers in your data center. We used the ideas above to get cost from VMWare ESX Server and Virtual Servers in a “safe” environment. This provided a proof of concept for the gun-shy doubter and has paved the way for us to Use VMWare ESX Server in more critical environments.
There are numerous pay back of VMware ESX Server that you might wish to consider. These benefits consist the benefit of company connection, desktop management, and software lifecycle. In addition, VMware ESX Server can also help you with infrastructure optimization. company link supply by VMware ESX Server is essential for any selling. This tells that you can have an mentor that is devoted to guiding you create and manage a robust and critical system. In order for continuity to occur VMware ESX Server can facilitates you make it happen.
VMware ESX Server can also aid with desktop management. This will assist your selling optimize the availability of optimized software. Your users will be very satisfied with the ability to control another user’s desktop from theirs. This is a big pay back and ensures total satisfaction and ease of support. It is vital for your dealing to judge software lifecycle. VMware ESX Server Software can be very significant for productivity of your business but you may not be able to afford the cost of upgrading to a new version every year.
VMware ESX Server can help you with software lifecycle issues and help you with rolling out new VMware ESX Server versions, upgrades, add-on tools, and more. They can also aid you make the most of your software so it lasts longer. This might aid you with upgrading less often or just having an easy installation. They can also take away the problems of rolling out new applications if you don’t have the staff to do it or if you don’t have the time. infrastructure optimization is another vital factor you might consider when it comes to VMware ESX Server. They can facilitates you with the implementations of in expensive methodologies on your network. You can rely on consultants that you need and achieve very high standards with virtualization on your network. VMware ESX Server is very beneficial to a production when you want to optimize your performance in many different ways.
http://www.badcredithomeownerloan.net
Surgient’s Virtual Datacenter Updated with Woven Systems’ 10 Gig
January 28, 2009 by · 8 Comments
Surgient, a company that provides self-service virtualization automation and lab management software, provides its technology to customers in two ways: a licensed model and a hosted model. In its hosted model, the company makes its platform available as part of a hosted service that enables businesses to save considerable resources and slash time-to-market for new software products with a hosted datacenter for testing, training, or demonstrating their software.
Surgient’s virtual datacenter leverages virtualization technology from Microsoft and VMware. And as the company’s list of hosted customers continues to grow, so too must its datacenter. Even though its datacenter is itself virtualized, the company has to deal with increased scale without compromising performance.
To help solve that problem, Surgient looked outside of its organization and found Woven Systems and their Ethernet fabric switching solutions based on the company’s patented vSCALE technology for datacenters and high-performance computing clusters.
Surgient chose Woven’s technology to upgrade its datacenter to 10 Gigabit Ethernet using Woven’s EFX 1000 Ethernet Fabric Switch. With only a single EFX 1000 switch, Surgient is able to interconnect all of its virtualized servers and its storage area network in its datacenter. So why did Surgient choose Woven Systems?
“We looked at Ethernet switches from multiple providers, and Woven’s Ethernet fabric provided the most impressive performance,” said Evan Watkins, director of operations at Surgient.
“Dynamic datacenter environments that make extensive use of virtualization have dynamic networking requirements. As virtual machines are moved around to different virtualization hosts as part of normal operational tasks, the networking load shifts with them, changing the load on various switches in the environment. In a traditional networking environment using spanning tree protocol, it is normal to manually plan that load shift, making sure that the intermediate distribution layer switches have sufficient bandwidth and uplink capacity to handle the loads. With the Woven Systems EFX-1000, it dynamically adjusts the load on the various paths in its internal fabric, avoiding bottlenecks and optimizing throughput without any operational efforts on our part.”
In a typical virtualized datacenter, it is critical to have a reliable SAN environment. However, it can prove to be extremely expensive for most organizations to build out a Fibre channel storage network system along with a Gigabit network environment. And Surgient’s hosted facility is no exception.
Watkins said, “With the Woven Systems switch we have a reliable, high speed, multi-path, load balancing iSCSI storage network but only have one type of network to manage. We didn’t have to deploy a Fibre channel storage network. We didn’t have to hire or build Fibre channel networking skills on our datacenter team. This saved us a considerable amount in capital and operational expenses.”
“Surgient’s deployment proves it is now possible to build an all-Ethernet datacenter that scales without compromising performance,” says Joseph Ammirato, vice president of marketing at Woven. “They’ve amassed an impressive and growing list of customers that demand the mission-critical reliability afforded by Woven’s Ethernet fabric.”
Networking Predictions for the New Year – Application Acceleration
January 6, 2009 by · 5 Comments
As 2008 draws to a monotonous close, there is still a sliver of time left for me to make my 2009 networking predictions. Yes, money will be as tight as a Minnesota Senate race next year, but there certainly will be a number of bright spots. Here is my list of 10 technology areas to watch in 2009 (in no particular order):
1. Managed network services. Unlike other IT infrastructure areas (servers, storage, security equipment) large and small organizations have been buying network services for years (think Frame Relay, Centrex, etc.). This comfort level will persuade frugal chief information officers to pad contracts with additional services in 2009. Network service providers like AT&T, BT, and Verizon will prosper as IT managers eschew internal efforts and instead dabble in areas like managed network security, remote access, and WAN optimization. I expect increasing quarter-to-quarter growth in many managed network services in 2009 and beyond.
2. Phat networks. While many IT projects will be put on the back burner, I still believe that we will see a lot of network backbone upgrades next year. Why? All of this Web 2.0/IT consumerization stuff generates a lot of traffic and the load isn’t getting any lighter. Like it or not, CIOs will have to spring for 10Gb core switches and routers to keep remote and branch office workers productive and happy.
3. Unified communications. OK, now I’m in buzz-word territory but I see a problem and an opportunity here. The problem is that we are all communicating with each other using a half dozen or so independent technologies. We need to rein this in soon while integrating the concept of “presence” into our communications processes. On the flip side, there is a great opportunity to integrate unified communications into business processes to improve efficiency and service. Imagine how happy you’ll be when your service call is answered by a product expert rather than a series of frustrating menus and gatekeepers.
4. 802.11n. I’ve been a believer in this next-generation WLAN (wireless local area network) standard for a while. In 2009, we should see significant growth in penetration and revenue. Given improvements in bandwidth and security, I expect to see 802.11n as a replacement for access switches as organizations refresh the network edge. I also anticipate additional manufacturing, health care, and government applications built to take advantage of the 802.11n momentum. Look for HP to become an aggressive competitor in the WLAN space while independents like Aruba and Meru get gobbled up by the likes of Juniper and Brocade/Foundry.
5. Core network services. I’m talking about services like DNS (domain name system), DHCP (domain host configuration protocol), RADIUS (remote authentication dial-in user service), and IP address management. With all of the networking activity in the past few years, these core services have been a virtually ignored kludge leading to unplanned downtime, security vulnerabilities, and manual operations. This mess must be fixed soon. Good news for Blue Cat, Infoblox, and Juniper. Look for Microsoft to stir the pot with a core networking services appliance in 2009 as well.
6. Application networking. I’m combining two categories here: Application acceleration and WAN optimization. The year 2009 promises to consolidate tons of applications and services in massive data centers running on top of virtual servers. Users and virtual machines will be in a constant state of mobile flux while exchanging enormous files and speaking an ever-growing variety of network protocols. Someone has to play traffic cop to avoid gridlock so A10 Networks, BlueCoat, Citrix, F5, and Riverbed should do just fine.
7. Telepresence. The use of video conferencing should grow as companies restrict employee travel and equipment prices plummet. Cisco is about to announce a sub-$1,000 SMB platform while carriers are planning managed services offerings. But, telepresence growth will also expose its limitations. Business managers will discover that boring six-hour telepresence sessions are no substitute for actual human contact.
8. Virtual server and network integration. As physical servers host dozens of virtual guests, and virtual machines move from host to host, networking can get pretty dicey. The way around this problem is tight integration between virtual and physical switches. VMware and Cisco are already working on this but what about the other hypervisors (Citrix, Microsoft) and switching providers? Look for open application programming interfaces and one-off relationships in 2009.
9. Data center networking. Closely related to virtual server integration, expect to see more specific data center networking equipment from Extreme Networks, Force 10, and glamour start-up Arista Networks. Data center equipment will offer functionality like virtual switch integration, clustering, dense port counts, and support for IP storage. Cisco and Brocade/Foundry will focus in this area while Juniper and HP will aggressively push products and programs.
10. Real Cisco competitors. Cisco is a well-oiled machine but I see a perfect storm for others to gain share. With organizations looking to save money, technically advanced low-priced alternatives will look extremely attractive. I’ve already seen Aruba and Extreme win deals like this when Cisco was the incumbent. Along these same lines, the competition has never been stronger in terms of both technology and resources. Finally, as Cisco enters the blade server market, look for HP and IBM to cozy up to others or push their own gear. Brocade/Foundry, HP, Huawei, Juniper and others may gain share at Cisco’s expense in 2009
