Moving cold virtual machine images from system to system, or even across great distances, is one of the main selling points of server virtualization. But it becomes much more difficult to manage movement of virtual machines that are still running, especially outside cluster or across WAN links. When talking about virtual machine mobility, it is important to consider what is being moved, the state it is in, and where it is going.
The Terrifying True Story Of Virtual Machine Mobility
January 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Virtualization of server, network, and storage services illuminates the link between physical resources and functional applications. A running virtual machine can instantly move from one server, network adapter, HBA, or LUN to another. And when it happens, traditional components have no idea how to react.
Are You a Hypervisor Hugger or a Storage Stalwart?
November 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The time has come to take sides on the core question of storage for virtual servers: Do you want storage intelligence to live in the hypervisor or the array? Most administrators are already lining up on one side or the other, unintentionally casting their vote while the rest flounder. But the storage industry must wake up and embrace the divide.
HDS’ HAM-Fisted Announcement Can’t Be All
May 27, 2009 By 4 Comments
HDS telegraphed that a big announcement was coming today. They even made it fun, with a (literally) cryptic blog entry to make sure we were all watching. But the announcement of High Availability Manager, a software product to manage existing HDS USP-V and USP-VM arrays, underwhelmed. It isn’t HDS’ answer to the EMC Symmetrix V-Max and it’s forthcoming FAST technology.
What If Microsoft Virtualization Editions Existed?
May 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
The fact that Microsoft has embraced virtualization is an understatement. The fact that Microsoft has been slow to embrace other virtualization vendor’s capabilities to run Windows operating systems as guests is equally an understatement, but what if this wasn’t the case? That is, what if Microsoft abandoned the licensing strategy of anchoring Windows to physical hardware?
Is Licensing Turning vSphere Into Vista?
April 27, 2009 By 2 Comments
Although the technical details of VMware’s version 4 product (dubbed the vSphere family) were known ahead of time, the product’s licensing model came as a surprise. Rather than go with the “base product + options” approach used by many software products, VMware decided on a flat tiered pricing scheme. Both approaches have their fans and detractors, but the details of VMware’s system left many off guard. Has VMware pushed the tiered model too far, eliminating flexibility and forcing enterprise customers to purchase pricey top-tier licenses? The Gestalt IT staff put our heads together to think the matter through.
Perfection…
March 13, 2009 By 2 Comments
Arrays Now Good Enough?
February 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Despite a lot of the huffing and puffing by the various vendors, I think that we are about to enter a cycle where most vendors admit that their competitors’ arrays are pretty much good enough for what-ever you want them to do. Of course, there are a few features which differentiate but they are all catching up with each other in this space.
Data Migration Strategies – Part I
February 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Understanding the reasons for migration is a great place to start in developing a strategy. Seasoned IT professionals will know that change for change’s sake is not a good thing; “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – the old adage says, for good reason. Data migrations will introduce change into an environment and with change comes risk. However there are practical reasons to perform migrations.