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virtualization

Why virtual machines should be the 1st choice to run your systems

Jul 2nd, 2009
by david.
1 comment

Lately, I’ve been on phone calls with several companies to discuss whether they should run their applications on virtual machines or physical machines. Typically, some user or software person has been told the plan is to run their application on a virtual machine. They believe their application is “so special” and will not work properly if it runs on a virtual machine. In general, the concerns are:

  • Vendor Support
  • Performance

To be frank, when possible, I don’t tell users if the machine is virtual or physical. I’m not hiding this, but I don’t volunteer non-relevant information. Part of planning an application has to do continue reading » »

Software licensing in a “cloudy and virtualized” world

Jun 14th, 2009
by david.
1 comment

“Cloud Computing” is being called the “next big thing”. In 2008, Gartner Group identified “Cloud Computing” as one of the top ten disruptive technologies. I’m sure there is going to be a lot of FUD spread about what the “cloud” can and can’t be used for; however, I’m confident that over the next 5 to 10 years the reality of “Cloud computing” will set in.

It appears that a “perfect storm” of events are “brewing” at the same time: Social Media, Web 2.0 and smart phones. I believe these forces will drive the delivery of application services to the cloud. What is clear, to me, is that “cloud computing” will use hardware virtualization as its foundation. Hardware virtualization turns a physical machine into a virtual machine, which resides on a physical machine. However, the virtual machine can be moved around. If the system requires more resources than what is currently assigned to it, then more resources can be added to ensure the system meets your customer’s service level agreement. One question in my mind is: are the underlying software licensing mechanisms keeping pace with these changes? continue reading » »

Windows 7 and Virtual XP mode – What and Who is it for?

May 22nd, 2009
by david.
No comments yet

The new Virtual XP Mode in Windows 7 requires a CPU supporting virtualization and a supporting BIOS. The vast majority of XP users do not have a computer with a CPU or BIOS that would support this option. With this in mind, this is not a feature that is going to be used by the masses in 2010.

You are probably asking yourself; “So who and what is this feature for?”
continue reading » »

Application software and license procurement can become the “long-pole-in-tent” in production deployments with server virtualization using VMWare, XEN or HYPER-V

Jan 7th, 2009
by david.
No comments yet

At my company we’ve been using server virtualization with VMWare products for 2-3 years. During that time we’ve created processes and procedures that allow us to deploy a server and its supporting operating system in as little as a few minutes. My reading suggests it is the same with the Hyper-V and XEN virtualization products as well.

Unfortunately, obtaining software licenses for the applications that we run on these servers can and does still take many weeks.  The procurement process remains basically unchanged.

Although we’ve been taking this into account and It may be obvious to many others, you’ll want to be sure that you take the software and license procurement time into account when establishing project plans.

As an aside, we have one “well-known” vendor that keeps sending us 90-day temporary licenses for a product that is paid for and the check has cleared the bank.

Tracking VMWare ESX 3.x or ESXi Host resources with Cacti

Dec 14th, 2008
by david.
5 comments

I’ve been using Cacti,  RRDTool, SNMP and custom scripts running on Linux for several years to collect and display historical data regarding Network, System, and FlexLM license resource usage. I recently began tracking the Host resources used by ESX.  I was interested in tracking the following:

  • CPU utilization
  • Memory Free
  • Total Memory
  • IO activity
  • Network traffic

continue reading » »

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