Servers

When Planning Your Virtualization Project

Virtualizing your servers can bring many benefits in they way of reducing costs, consolidating your servers, and planning for disaster recovery. However there are some questions you should address before you begin your virtualization projects.

1) Are your applications supported in a virtual environment?

Not all applications are supported on virtual servers. It is very important that each application is researched and tested before implemented in a virtual environment.

2) Am I putting all my eggs into one basket?

You should take into consideration things such as:

• Location of Domain controllers in your virtual strategy
• Critical Applications and their location
• Storage Devices to run your VMs
• Backup and or Failover equipment

3) What Hardware am I planning to use?

Not all servers will be up to the task to be a virtual server. A thorough study of the application and it’s resource intensity as well special hardware requirements need to be determined. For example: Some server based phone systems would not be a fit for a virtual environment based on the hardware (Dialogic cards etc…)

4) What Virtualization Product should I go with?

There are some great products on the market today, each with it’s own pros and cons. The best way to approach this is to have a good understanding of your different requirements such as application and hardware as well as your budget for licensing the product. Be aware of the different support plans and licensing agreements with a particular product.

5) How many VMs or Guest Machines can a Virtual Server Hold?

Capacity planning is key in determining the answer to this question. Storage size, Memory, CPU, Read/Write access to the drives. This should be mapped out and tested before you go live!

Summary

Above are some key areas to understand when considering virtualizing your servers. At JND Consulting Group, we have many solutions and offerings that can help you make these decisions, so give us a call today to get started. –  561-705-2905