14.11. Solutions Fast Track 14.11.1. 14.11.1.1. Evolved Virtually You Have Become - The road ahead involves constant learning, something which you should embrace.
- You've already taken the first steps to a virtual infrastructure. As you continue forward, you'll find ever-increasing options and possibilities, and you'll certainly want to virtualize what you can in your environment.
- The further you move down the path of virtualization, the greater the rewards. Buzzwords like ROI and TCO will actually become meaningful.
14.11.1.2. Bigger and Badder Brains - Virtual machines perform better with more memory.
- Sixty-four-bit processing and the increased capacity for memory inherent with this technology will elevate virtual possibilities far above today's levels.
- From a memory perspective alone, 64-bit computing is a technology that will greatly enhance consolidation ratios.
14.11.1.3. ESX Server 3.0…Better the Beta - VMware needs to expand its beta program and be more inclusive instead of exclusive.
- We've heard rumors that ESX Server 3.0 may be based on the 3.0 Linux kernel.
- We've also heard that it will come with metadata enhancements, new operating system support, 64-bit support, four-way virtual-SMP, improvements in SAN storage, and iSCSI support.
14.11.1.4. Faultless Fault Tolerance - With each release of ESX Server, support for clustered virtual servers has increased.
- In the past VMware tried to show nearly equal support between the SAN manufacturers, so you can bet that new and interesting fault-tolerant solutions will become available
- A cost-effective transport for storage supported by VMware would definitely open up more possibilities for virtual infrastructures.
14.11.1.5. The Rise of Utility Computing - With VirtualCenter, all of your ESX Servers are basically one pool of resources, CPUs, disks, memory, and so on.
- With the use of VMware's SDK, the possibilities of utility computing become closer and closer.
- Some interesting technologies exist in VMware's ACE product, such as expirations and policy-based virtual machines that if applied to some future version of ESX Server would allow for tremendous utility computing and server provisioning capabilities.
14.11.1.6. Your Moment of Xen - Xen is a growing virtualization platform that is gaining industry support. Keep your eye on it.
- According to the XenSource site, currently Xen only supports some Linux and does not support any Windows virtual machines.
- The recent release of SUSE 9.3 comes with the most current release of Xen built into it.
14.11.1.7. Microsoft Virtual Server…Watch Your Six - Microsoft's virtual platform is a decent one on which to run Microsoft operating systems. Although the product and its support isn't that old, Microsoft has always found a away of catching up. So definitely keep your eye on it.
- Microsoft Virtual Server and VMware's GSX, as well as the virtual machines, run as processes within the host operating system.
- Although the product and its support aren't that old, Microsoft has always found a way of catching up. So definitely keep your eye on it.
14.11.1.8. Virtual Storage Is the Place to Live - If you have a SAN, great. If not, try to budget for one. A SAN is where you want your virtual machines to live.
- Vmotion requires a SAN, and quality SANs provide stellar redundancy and availability.
- With some clever scripting, you can get some of the benefits of a SAN, such as snaps and BCV-like restore possibilities, even though you still don't have Vmotion.
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