What is Server Virtualization?

Written on 11:21 AM by Right Click IT - Technology Services

Server Virtualization

Have you been reading about server virtualization. Heard it is the next big thing, going to save you a lot of money, make IT management easier, decrease the amount of space you need to dedicate to your servers.

At Right Click, we are well equipped to teach you about the pros and cons of virtualizing and make a recommendation if that is the way to go.

What is it? Server virtualization is running multiple copies of a server software on one physical box. For instance with a virtualized server you can have a domain controller, exchange server and a terminal server on one physical box, but you have three separate copies of Windows Server running. It is as though you have three machines, but only one physical box.

Why does it work? If you look at your CPU utilization it hardly ever goes about 10%. With virtualization you can get more out of your existing servers and be able to offer additional services to your users without significant hardware spending.

How does it work? Virtualization begins with base software which can be Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or a small program like VMWare’s hyper visor. Once you have your base software, you begin to setup new machines on your one box. You can install different operating systems, even different platforms on one box.

Why do you want it? There are a number of reasons to virtualize:

    • Decrease number of servers to maintain. You can put 5 – 7 servers onto one box.
    • Spend less money on hardware. If you need a new server, just install a new one on your virtualized machine. • Decrease need for cooling and space. With the price of energy increasing, virtualization is going to become mandatory in the future.
    • Easier to manage, no longer do you need to be familiar with 10 different types of machines. As long as you know your one machine you will be ok. Only one set of drivers and bios’ to worry about.
    • Easier to test with. Imagine having a test environment you can setup in minutes. If you break something and want to start from scratch, just restore your image you started with and you are good to go.

  • Who makes the software? The leader today is VMWare http://www.vmware.com. They have a two year headstart on their closest competitor. Microsoft and Citrix are making a hard charge to claim some of this space. We believe the battle is just starting to begin amongst these companies.

Why Select Right Click? Jim Harrington and Avi Lall both are VMWare certified. After working with many customers we know what products and add-ons you are going to need. Our installations go smooth and customers enjoy the benefits of virtualization immediately. Please call or email us for a free consultation on how virtualization can help your firm.

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10 Tips for Technology Management

Written on 10:33 AM by Right Click IT - Technology Services

– Julie Bort, Network World May 07, 2007

No. 1: Fine-tune your IPS.
"There's a lot of set-it-and-forget-it mentality in intrusion-prevention system marketing, and it's dangerous," says David Newman, president of testing facility Network Test and a Network World Lab Alliance member.

Fuzzing, in which the exploit is changed just enough for the security mechanism to miss it, trips up many IPSs, Network World's recent IPS test showed.

Network managers need to understand how each exploit works and how their IPS detects them, and then upgrade that protection routinely.

No. 2: Sell security by its benefits.
Start selling security to the purse-holders the way you do all other technology investments -- in measurable terms that relate to the business, recommends Mandy Andress, president of testing facility ArcSec Technologies and a Network World Lab Alliance member. Rather than saying how dangerous viruses are as a method to gain the budget for a reputation services antispam defense, for example, illustrate how much productivity could be gained by adding another layer of antispam control.

No. 3: Automate desktop and network access.
Wireless badges can come in handy for automated access control to desktop PCs, particularly those shared by multiple users in medical exam rooms, warehouses, call centers and the like.

For example, Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group implemented Ensure Technologies' XyLoc MD, which uses 900MHz radio-frequency technology encoded on staff ID badges for authentication, says Guy Fuller, IT manager at the Chicago healthcare organization. This saves the staff time while ensuring that network access and sensitive information are not available to other users.

No. 4: Link physical access to enterprise applications.
IP-based building-access systems built on industry-standard servers and using the existing data network are more affordable than ever because of open architecture products. Advances in server-management technology mean these systems not only are deployable by network (rather than the physical security) staff but are centrally manageable. Plus, they can integrate with ERP applications and network access-control systems.

Georgia-Pacific, a US$20 billion paper manufacturer in Atlanta, is rolling out Automated Management Technologies' WebBrix, an IP-based building-access system, to the majority of its 400 locations. IT used WebBrix's open application interface to write a custom application called Mysecurity that integrates the system with SAP, among other duties. When employees swipe their badges to gain access to the building, they also are sending data to SAP for time and attendance tracking, says Steven Mobley, senior systems analyst at Georgia-Pacific.

No. 5: Delegate an operating systems guru.
"Operating systems configuration can seem to some like a black art," says Tom Henderson, principle researcher for testing facility ExtremeLabs and a Network World Lab Alliance member. Setting the wrong combination is bad news. For example, large memory-block move options can affect the amount of dirty cache with which the operating system must deal, he says. If memory/caching options are balanced incorrectly, the machine could freeze. By assigning a staffer to master the voluminous documentation published by mainstream operating system vendors, servers can be safely fine-tuned to optimal performance for every application. The guru also should master Web server and BIOS setting options.

No. 6: Use VMware server memory smartly.
Without spending a dime, you may be able to boost the amount of memory available on virtualized Windows 2003 physical servers, thereby improving performance of the virtual machines. If all the virtual machines on the same physical box need the same memory-resident code, such as a dynamic link library (DLL), you can load the DLL once into the physical server's main memory and share that DLL with all virtual machines, says Wendy Cebula, COO at VistaPrint, an international online printer with U.S. operations headquartered in Lexington, Mass. "We've gotten big memory usage benefits by caching once per physical box rather than once per usage," she says.

No. 7: Move applications to a Linux grid.
If you have compute-intensive mainframe applications, don't shy away from lower-cost alternatives such as grid computing because the applications were written in COBOL, says Brian Cucci, manager of the Advanced Technology Group at Atlanta-based UPS, which has such a grid. The application will likely have to be redesigned somewhat for the new hardware platform. But vendors can be counted on to help, as they'll want to ally on the new technology.

No. 8: Recognize WAN links may degrade VoIP QoS.
This is particularly true in areas of the country where the public infrastructure is aging, says Bruce Bartolf, principal and CTO of architecture firm Gensler, in San Francisco. Having completed VoIP installation at seven of 35 sites, Bartolf found unexpectedly high error rates or complete failure on many links. To provide the kind of uptime and quality demanded of phone service, you need to design with alternative failover paths on the WAN. Cable may not be much better, but Metro Ethernet, if available, could work well, he says.

No. 9: Ease IP management with an appliance.
Although the tasks that appliances perform can be done with each vendor's gear, "with something as important as IP management, if you don't do it well, you can really hurt your five-nines," Gensler's Bartolf says. He chose Infoblox appliances, which manage numerous tasks, including Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) firmware upgrades. "Rather than dealing with Microsoft distributed file system, loading a TFTP server on a Microsoft server, running DHCP on a Microsoft server, running SMS on top of that, and managing it all, I have an appliance," he says. "I put it in, and it works."

No. 10: Shelve the fancy visuals.
"We found it highly impractical to make our monitoring visual," VistaPrint's Cebula says. VistaPrint relies on remote monitoring to manage its data centers, including one in Bermuda. It uses homegrown tools to track everything from CPU usage to event correlation. Visual graphing of events slowed down detection and analysis, taking network operations staff an average of five to seven minutes per event to use, Cebula says. When the tools used simple red, yellow and green lights, detection and correlation dropped to one or two minutes per event, she says.

And don't forget to keep your monitoring tools on at all times and run spot checks, advises Barry Nance, independent consultant and Network Lab Alliance member. The most common mistake is not to turn them on until an event occurs.

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