Section 7.1. Introduction

7.1. Introduction

Although virtual machines are not a new concept for the mainframe world, the idea is fairly new to the production x86 server realm. Virtualization in an x86 environment is a complete paradigm shift for IT, which has for many years been accustomed to deploying one application per server. Hardware and software vendors have also historically recommended one application instance per server. While this model was financially attractive for operating systems and server hardware vendors, it's increasingly a suboptimal way to run a company's IT infrastructure. Companies are realizing that the proliferation of servers is increasingly difficult to manage and can actually hinder IT from meeting the needs of business. CIOs' agendas for cost performance, mergers and acquisitions, and compliance risk reduction are driving organizations toward server consolidation and virtualization projects. Furthermore, consolidation and virtualization projects involve complexities beyond the technology. Consequently, this chapter deals with the people and process components that make up a server consolidation and virtualization project, and leverages many of the best practices and lessons learned from our customer engagements in the area of server consolidation.

One of the primary messages that Callisma delivers to our clients in our Server Virtualization Lessons Learned presentations is the fact that these projects require a significant amount of planning. Specifically, the planning phase should focus not only on architecture or technology components but also on the people and process components. All three components are necessary to consolidate servers and build operational efficiencies into the environment.

Designing & Planning…
People, Process, and Technology

Addressing the people and process components of your server consolidation project will dramatically increase the acceptance of the technology. In our experience, companies that develop a comprehensive and detailed plan, and that engage the business early in the project, can consolidate a considerably higher percentage of application servers than companies that take an ad hoc approach.

Many organizations have difficulty making proactive decisions when it comes to server provisioning. This can be due to rapid growth, resource constraints, mergers and acquisitions, or a lack of appropriate tools to proactively manage the environment. As a result, these organizations often enlist the assistance of professional services firms with specialized knowledge and experience in server consolidation and virtualization. Through Callisma's services for virtualization and consolidation, we have helped a number of organizations achieve a proactive posture for server provisioning. We do this by helping our clients develop a comprehensive plan for server virtualization that encompasses people, processes, and technology. The previous chapters addressed VMware and virtualization technology. Now, in this chapter, we share many of our "lessons learned" in server virtualization, especially as they relate to a project approach, capacity planning, and server provisioning. We focus on how to achieve a successful server consolidation project, concentrating mainly on the people and process aspects of the project.