Your How-To Guide To Server Virtualization

Virtualization-enabled management software can help. However, conventional tools won’t track virtual machines unless you install special monitoring agents on a customer’s physical hosts. Some management products don’t yet offer such agents, and if your client uses one they’re going to need new administrative software. Most hypervisor makers offer virtualization management products, as do major management tool vendors and smaller firms such as Kace Networks Inc. and Virtugo Software Inc.

But don’t be surprised if those products still leave some gaps in your customer’s administrative abilities. Few virtualization management systems are as robust as their physical environment counterparts. “Frankly, with the rush to virtualization that we saw in the last two years, the maturity of the management side of things has not quite been keeping pace,” says Sloan.

Sound management policies are every bit as important as tools. “Virtual server sprawl,” in which virtual machines proliferate wildly, is an all-too-common by-product of virtualization. “When people see how easy it is to make a new server, the number of servers they have starts to get a little out of hand,” observes Ric Bassler, director of technology at Quatro Systems. The best antidotes, he says, are rules and processes requiring technicians to apply for approval before creating new virtual devices.

Ultimately, the most important advice about virtualization is not to let the many issues it raises scare you—or your clients—away. “The technology is pretty stable, and it’s going to be the future of infrastructure. There’s no doubt about that,” says Chen. Get started with the basics, he suggests, and then grow more ambitious gradually. As with so much else in IT, virtualization is easy to digest so long as you don’t bite off too much at once.

RICH FREEMAN is ChannelPro-SMB’s senior consulting editor.