Reaping the Benefits of Multiple Hypervisors

Transcription

1 Reaping the Benefits of Multiple Use cases show how organizations can achieve groundbreaking results in virtualization by using combined solutions from Dell and Microsoft to choose the right hypervisor technology for the right business problem. Virtualization offers businesses tremendous opportunities: reduced costs, improved efficiencies, reduced power consumption and improved business agility, among others. According to a recent survey by CDW, approximately 90 percent of businesses have adopted virtualization at some level 1. Yet, in reality, the deployment of virtualization by most organizations has only scratched the surface of its potential. According to recent research from Gartner, overall data center server utilization is just 18 percent the same as it was four years ago 2. With opportunities to reduce costs and enable the deployment of nextgeneration cloud services, organizations around the world can achieve significant competitive advantage if they can break through the barriers and adopt virtualization across a far greater percentage of their infrastructure. The proof of the benefits of increased virtualization is in some of the groundbreaking results achieved by companies that have moved down the path of optimized virtualization, including: pp72 percent reduction in servers at retailer Target, which has 1,755 1 Server Virtualization Life Cycle Report, CDW, Jan. 11, 2010: 2 Server Virtualization Has Stalled, Despite the Hype, InfoWorld, Dec. 31, 2010: server-virtualization/what-you-missed-server-virtualization-has-stalled-despite-the-hype-901 PAGE 1 OF 7

2 stores, 300,000 end points and 15,000 virtual machines ppa 66 percent reduction in servers and licensing costs, along with 88 percent faster server deployment time, at Schneider Electric pp40 percent reduction in servers at Harley-Davidson Canada pp97 percent faster deployment rate, with less than five-minute failover, at electronics retailer Crutchfield ppan 80 percent reduction in the server footprint and a 30 percent increase in server utilization at energy company Maxol pp30 percent reduction in management time and a 75 percent server consolidation at Karlstad University ppan 80 percent jump in SQL Server performance, 94 percent faster backup time and $100,000 a year in OpEx savings at Claims Solutions These achievements are just part of a larger picture of how virtualization is helping to change IT environments and increase business opportunities. As seen in these examples, increased virtualization can help organizations not only realize cost savings, but also deliver on the promise of replicable IT services to make the business more agile, competitive and responsive to the needs of customers. For organizations to actually achieve these benefits, however, they must overcome specific challenges, including data centers that are increasingly heterogeneous; a lack of centralized management tools; operational and technical silos in which cross-enterprise applications are difficult to build and support; and the growing problem, literally and figuratively, of virtual machine (VM) sprawl. Another challenge is vendor lock-in, which can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities to grow virtualization by matching the right hypervisor with the right business need at the right cost level. THE BENEFITS OF USING MULTIPLE HYPERVISORS One way to increase and optimize virtualization is to deploy more than one hypervisor. The ability to use and centrally manage multiple hypervisors can pay dividends in reduced licensing fees and in more efficient integration of applications across the enterprise. While virtual machine licensing costs have been an economic barrier to greater virtualization, that paradigm is shifting because Microsoft has bolstered the features of its Hyper-V hypervisor and included it as part of Windows Server 2008 R2. That means organizations can save on acquisition fees and achieve savings as their virtualization environ- PAGE 2 OF 7

3 ment grows, since Microsoft s pricing model does not charge for each virtual machine. The benefits of adding Hyper-V and deploying a multi-hypervisor environment are particularly appropriate for organizations that use applications built on key Microsoft applications such as SharePoint, Exchange and SQL Server and, in particular, those organizations using Windows Server 2008 R2, since they don t have to pay incremental licensing fees for Hyper-V. Along with the potential for significant cost advantages in using Hyper-V even in environments were VMware may be predominant there are also opportunities to increase the efficiency and agility of a wide range of applications. In addition, IT organizations can extend the benefits of server virtualization to branch and remote offices by using existing management tools that are familiar to IT professionals. DEPLOYING THE RIGHT ARCHITECTURE To successfully deploy a multi-hypervisor environment, organizations need to put in place an overall architecture for infrastructure management that supports not only heterogeneous virtualization solutions, but also heterogeneous hardware environments, with the ability to manage both physical and virtual environments from the same platform. You want to be able to manage your entire infrastructure from the desktop to the cloud while addressing all aspects of the physical and virtual infrastructure, from the hardware to the applications to the hypervisors. The ability to use and centrally manage multiple hypervisors can pay dividends in reduced licensing fees and in more efficient integration of applications across the enterprise. The partnership of Dell and Microsoft addresses all of these critical architectural considerations through solutions that work together, such as Dell Advanced Infrastructure Manager (AIM) and VIS Self-Service Creator from the Dell Virtual Integrated System (VIS) architecture, as well as Microsoft System Center. Together, these solutions enable organizations to manage heterogeneous and multihypervisor environments, leverage the use of existing hardware and software, deliver a unified approach to application and infrastructure man- PAGE 3 OF 7

4 agement, and manage physical as well as virtual workloads. The functionality delivered by these combined solutions is not only critical for today s virtualized environments, but also clears the path for growth of virtualization in missioncritical production applications that require integration across a wide range of business departments and functions. In addition, these combined solutions put in place a foundation for organizations to deliver private cloud services that can help eliminate VM sprawl and enable IT to deliver replicable services that enhance business agility. USE CASES IN MULTI- HYPERVISOR ENVIRONMENTS For many organizations, the idea of increased virtualization and the use of multiple hypervisors undoubtedly sounds good in theory: It makes sense to take advantage of integration and reduced licensing fees; to more effectively utilize existing technology investments; to avoid getting locked into one vendor for virtualization; to simplify management of the virtual infrastructure; and to increase levels of server consolidation and improve utilization rates throughout the data center. But what happens when you move from the theoretical to the practical? If you choose the right solutions, the results can be groundbreaking. The following are some of the ways in which customers can benefit by taking advantage of the partnership and synergy of joint solutions from Dell and Microsoft: Matching the right workload to the right virtualization technology: As organizations move to virtualization for a greater portion of their data centers compute infrastructure, the most cost-effective approach is to match the requirements of the next workload to the right hypervisor solution. From a management standpoint, organizations can take advantage of the Microsoft System Center family of products to manage multi-hypervisor environments: Extending the benefit of virtualization to the branch/remote office: Organizations can extend the benefits of server virtualization to branch and remote offices to enable greater flexibility and improve total cost of ownership by using Microsoft systems management tools. This can be enhanced through Dell AIM, which delivers dynamic provisioning and workload mobility physical-to-virtual, virtual-to-physical and physicalto-physical for streamlined updates and seamless disaster recovery. AIM enables organizations to move PAGE 4 OF 7

5 workloads seamlessly between physical and virtual machines and across hypervisors. By also adding VIS Self- Service Creator, organizations can deploy a single platform from which they can uniquely deliver and manage virtual desktops and workloads in a multi-location, multi-vendor environment. Organizations can extend the benefits of server virtualization to branch and remote offices to enable greater flexibility and improve total cost of ownership by using Microsoft systems management tools. Building private cloud environments: In building private cloud solutions, organizations should be looking at platforms that are open, heterogeneous, highly virtualized and easily scalable. You want to be able to take advantage of your existing infrastructure, while enhancing the ability of your organization to create agile services that can be deployed not just by the IT department, but by business decision-makers as well. Dell AIM and Microsoft System Center provide the underpinnings for that type of heterogeneous, scalable infrastructure, while VIS Self-Service Creator provides authorized users with a self-service portal they can use to deploy and manage resources throughout their lifecycle. Dell s Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track architecture combines Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V along with the management capabilities of Dell AIM, VIS Self-Service Creator and Microsoft System Center to deliver an easy-to-implement private cloud infrastructure. Providing a better Microsoft-on- Microsoft hypervisor/application stack: As organizations look to virtualize critical workloads like SQL, Exchange and SharePoint, customers can gain the benefits of a betterintegrated Microsoft hypervisor/ application workload stack. It not only provides potential gains in enterprisewide applications management, but also an environment that is much simpler and more intuitive for IT professionals to manage. Enhancing cost-effective and efficient disaster recovery: Customers can leverage Dell AIM to enable a disaster-recovery architecture that uses physical or virtualized servers based on any hypervisor in the main location and Hyper-V at the redundant location, taking full advantage of the multiple-hypervisor environment. PAGE 5 OF 7

6 Improving lifecycle management: While the solutions offered by Dell and Microsoft are vendor-agnostic, there are definite advantages to deploying them on Dell hardware. For example, Dell s Lifecycle Controller Integration v1.2 for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Support provides agentless, OS-agnostic configuration and the updates of Dell s 11th-generation PowerEdge servers. Administrators can configure servers remotely, install multiple operating systems, view hardware inventory, update firmware and accomplish many other tasks, saving IT staff time and steps in both virtualization and physical deployment of servers and desktops. Enabling tighter governance and compliance: As organizations increase their use of virtualization, one of the key benefits is the improved ability of the IT department to offer services that can be directly accessed by users to create their own solutions and applications. In this more virtualized private-cloud environment, IT governance can be a significant challenge. However, VIS Self-Service Creator enables IT departments to define policies to limit resource consumption, ensure that IT requests are provisioned to standards, enforce process workloads and define which users have access to specific resources and processes, among other features. Controlling VM sprawl: The ability to quickly create virtual machines without the discipline and control of physical infrastructures results in VMs As organizations increase their use of virtualization, one of the key benefits is the improved ability of the IT department to offer services that can be directly accessed by users to create their own solutions and applications. being provisioned without proper approvals, being over-provisioned and consuming resources after they are no longer required. Reclaiming this underutilized capacity can be such a labor-intensive and time-consuming process that it is performed rarely, if at all. VIS Self-Service Creator through System Center Virtualization Machine Manager helps companies control VM sprawl and optimize resource utilization by reducing waste, reusing resources and reclaiming unused resources. PAGE 6 OF 7

7 CONCLUSION The path to optimized virtualization is open and available to any organization that is ready to make the commitment and work with technology partners that understand the need for heterogeneous environments that support open platforms and multiple hypervisor solutions. What s ahead? Some of the benefits that companies are seeing today include: ppserver consolidation of 30-to-1 or better pp98 percent faster server deployment ppa reduction in data centers from 135 to four ppremote server recovery in less than 15 minutes ppbetter TCO due to lower acquisition and licensing costs As exciting as these real-world examples may be, in many ways this is just the beginning. Combined solutions offered by Dell and Microsoft offer organizations the opportunity to achieve all of these benefits and more. With integrated solutions combining Microsoft Hyper-V, Dell AIM, Dell VIS Self-Service Creator and Microsoft System Center, among others, organizations can put in place the foundation for enhanced multi-hypervisor environments to maximize all of the benefits highlighted in this paper: ppmaximizing and optimizing virtualization workloads ppextending virtualization benefits to more offices and workers ppbuilding private cloud solutions ppimproving integration across applications ppstrengthening disaster recovery ppimproving lifecycle management ppenhancing governance and compliance adherence pp virtual desktops ppcontrolling VM sprawl The promise and potential of virtualization is the shift to IT as a service, enabling a new generation of businesses that are more flexible, agile and far more adept at responding to the needs of customers, partners and employees. Now is the time to put the foundation for that future in place. p PAGE 7 OF 7