This document describes some of the components and concepts involved in designing a highly available deployment of VMware vSphere on a SAN, in conjunction with the Cisco MDS 9000 and Emulex HBAs.
Published by: Cisco Systems, Inc.
Today’s data centers are faced with many challenges such as consolidation, resources optimization, power, cooling, cost reduction and more. Cisco foresaw these requirements and developed Virtual Storage Area Networks (VSANs) in 2002 to address these issues in the data center.
Published by: Cisco Systems, Inc.
Windows XP is still by far most used operating system worldwide as you can see here and here.
Also, virtualization is one of the most popular technologies and a lot of companies use Hyper-V as their virtualization solution.
So then they have many XP clients (and licenses of course) which they would most likely want to use for remote administration of Hyper-V servers. Of course, Remote desktop can be used for that purposes in many different ways because Hyper-V allows administrators to define role-based access control for Hyper-V by using Authorization Manager.
More than a year after the global recession came roaring in and battered their IT budgets, data center managers are hoping to get at least some money back in 2010, according to IT professionals and analysts. Theyre also looking at technologies:from virtualization and cloud computing to Ciscos UCS and Intels Nehalem EX that will save some money on capital and operating expenses and spare some of the bottom line.
- With the global recession in full swing for much of 2009, data center
managers saw their IT budgets shredded while the demand for services only grew.
Given that, its no surprise that when data center professionals look to
2010, at the top of their wish list is money not only money for their budge…
Data center administrators in 2009 saw their budgets hammered by the global recession. So as the calendar turns to 2010 and signs of a recovery are beginning to emerge, topping their wish list for the upcoming year is money, according to IT professionals and industry analysts. Specifically, IT administrators are hoping to get some of their budgets back, though a Gartner report from earlier this year says that might not happen for many of them. However, other wish list items are aimed at reducing data center capital and operating expenses, while making it easier to manage the resources within the facility. Those items revolved around virtualization and cloud computing, as well as such hardware as systems sporting Intel’s Nehalem EX processor, Cisco’s UCS and IBM’s XIV enterprise storage system.
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In this excerpt, we begin our exploration of several popular virtualization strategies and explain how each works. The aim is to bring you the operational information you need to make informed choices for your strategy. Each vendor’s software has its own interface (console); its own methods of building, importing, and altering virtual machines (VM); and its own idiosyncrasies, tweaks, and tools.
Now more than every there is pressure on IT to offer higher levels of service and a greater degree of availability all while cutting back on costs. As such, making sure your technology environment is efficient and effectively managed is absolutely essential. The data center, by its very nature, is the one place where IT resources are most concentrated, and the one place where potential strategic gains are most likely to occur. If you want to improve your computing environment and cut costs at the same time, you need to start with the data center.
The Benefits of Data Center Consolidation
One of the best ways to do just that is through consolidation. By simplifying your data center environment, you achieve several goals:
• Increased manageability
• Reduced costs in areas of human resources, facilities, complexity and capital expenditures
• Improved service levels
• Higher availability
• Minimization of impact from outside factors
In short, if you get your data center humming along the way it should, your business will ultimately do the same.
Factors in Data Center Consolidation
Data center consolidation is about more than just combining servers. While that’s certainly part of the process, there are a number of areas that go into data center consolidation. Each of these factors is an opportunity for reduced cost and greater manageability.
One factor to start with is the issue of physical locations. A business that has multiple physical data centers has multiple cost redundancies, all of which are ripe for cutting. By combining physical locations, you greatly reduce overhead. While multiple data center locations can be one way to address disaster recovery and business continuity, there are much more effective (and cost-effective) ways to address those concerns.
Another important issue is server consolidation. This doesn’t just include combining like servers, however. It also includes looking at issues like application consolidation. If two departments are handling the same data from two different applications, you have another opportunity for improved efficiency. The obvious concern here, of course, is making sure that you can provide the same features to both departments that they had pre-consolidation.
Infrastructure is another area of data center consolidation. This includes creating more efficient networks, as well as more efficient storage management. It also includes utilizing shared services to whatever degree is possible.
The final area of data center consolidation is the most difficult, and it relates to people and processes. While you can switch out a server in a matter of hours or even minutes, bringing personnel up to speed on those changes can take much longer. Still, for your company to be at the top of its game, it’s sometimes necessary. The key to dealing with these kinds of issues is to have buy-in from someone in upper management, as well as department heads, who understand the business case for consolidation and can really get behind your consolidation efforts.
The Modern Virtualized Data Center: Download the whitepaper
Data center resources have traditionally been underutilized while drawing enormous amounts of power and taking up valuable floorspace. Storage virtualization has been a positive evolutionary step in the data center, driving consolidation of these resources to maximize utilization and power savings, as well as to simplify management and maintenance. Read more by downloading the white paper from Pillar Data Systems.
DataCore Software, a provider of storage virtualization, business continuity and disaster recovery software solutions, has responded to market demands, this time by stretching the size of its virtual disks from 2 Terabytes (TBs) to 1 Petabyte (PB). “Rather than inch up to 4 or 16 TBs as others are considering, DataCore made the strategic design choice to blow the roof off the capacity ceiling with 1 Petabyte LUNs,” commented Augie Gonzalez, Director of Product Marketing, DataCore Software. “But we’re still frugal on the back-end, using thin-provisioning to minimize how much real capacity has to be in place day one.”
This Essential Guide offers a collection of tips, tools and techniques that you can use to back up your virtual servers more efficiently. Find out about the intricacies of using VMware’s Consolidate Backup (VCB) application and get tips on how to fine-tune your current backup app for virtual servers.
Published by: EMC Corporation
The need for training and skills development has never been higher than it is right now and technical staff at all levels realizes that if they want to earn more, then the best way to do so is to learn more. eLear-nIT Training’s latest web-based training courses for Sybase professionals everywhere offers a wealth of resources that are fine tuned for the exact needs of contemporary working environments.