techfocus Server Deployment

Demystifying
Server Virtualization
Deployment
Some IT managers have
steered clear of server
virtualization technologies
because the deployment INSIDE:

process can seem too 13 ASSESSING THE

daunting to begin. But this ENVIRONMENT

step-by-step handbook maps 17 PLANNING

AND DESIGN
out the deployment process in
10 DEPLOYING AND
four easy-to-follow steps. CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
BY DAVID DAVIS
14 CHOOSING
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS

18 SUMMARY

19 SERVER DEPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST

1 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Introduction

Demystifying Server Virtualization Deployment

Some IT managers have steered clear of server virtualization technologies

because the deployment process can seem too daunting to begin. But this
step-by-step handbook maps out the deployment process in four easy-to-
ASSESSING THE
follow steps.
ENVIRONMENT

PLANNING
AND DESIGN the task of deploying virtual servers can be intimidating, so some IT managers
opt to steer clear and avoid the headache. This hesitance to virtualize data center
DEPLOYING AND resources is common despite virtualization’s clear advantages, including improved
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM server energy efficiency, reduced hardware costs and better server management.
But opting out comes at significant cost. An environment without virtualized
CHOOSING resources likely suffers from server sprawl, resource underutilization and poor
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT management. And all these nagging problems translate into a single bigger prob-
TOOLS
lem: wasted dollars. So avoiding virtualization may end up costing your IT shop
SUMMARY
thousands of dollars.
Still, as an IT manager, you may be daunted by the preparation involved in a vir-
SERVER DELPLOYMENT tualization project. But the reality is that deploying a new virtual infrastructure
CHECKLIST
doesn’t have to be burdensome or complex; and you don’t need a team of consult-
ants to get the job done. This guide on server virtualization deployments walks
you through the process step by step. It covers the four critical phases of server
virtualization deployment (and see the four-phase checklist on page 19):

1. assessing your existing environment;

2. selecting a virtualization platform;
3. deploying and configuring a virtual infrastructure; and
4. selecting virtualization management tools.

Now let’s turn to the first phase: assessment. ➽

2 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Assessment

I. Assessment

right from the outset of a virtualization deployment, the intimidation factor

can loom large. Identifying which servers and which applications to virtualize can
paralyze even savvy IT managers. How do you know which servers and applica-
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT
tions to virtualize? How many virtual servers should you place on each physical
server? And how can you ensure that virtualization helps your business to be-
PLANNING
AND DESIGN come more efficient and reduce costs? The key to getting all this right is proper
assessment of your environment before you begin the virtualization deployment
DEPLOYING AND process.
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM

CHOOSING ASSESSING THE EXISTING ENVIRONMENT

VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT To ensure that a virtualization deployment will enable your company to become
TOOLS
more efficient and reduce costs, you first need to build the business case and map
SUMMARY
the business objectives of the company with the goals of your virtualization proj-
ect. This requires identifying the kinds of applications you run, their function and
SERVER DELPLOYMENT centrality to company mission, and other factors.
CHECKLIST
If you don’t have a grasp on your environment’s physical resources, you cannot
successfully virtualize those assets. So the next step is to analyze the current state
of your servers and applications.
If you have worked in this IT environment for some time, you may assume that
you know everything about the current infrastructure and may prematurely begin
virtualizing. Blanket assumptions that aren’t supported by assessment are often
incorrect. Why? Over time and as data proliferates, your infrastructure changes:
Applications have been upgraded, administrators have made changes and your
past knowledge quickly becomes outdated. Take the time to identify which physi-
cal servers are installed, their resource utilization, and which applications and
data reside on each server.

3 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Assessment

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?

List your current inventory of physical servers as well as their CPU, RAM, and
disk configuration and which applications run on each of these servers. This list
can take the form of a simple five-column spreadsheet.
Certainly, taking an inventory of servers and applications is important. But
equally important, you need to understand the function and nature of these appli-
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT
cations. How important are these applications to the company’s business func-
tions? What is the impact of having these
PLANNING applications suddenly become unavailable?
AND DESIGN
Are these applications CPU-, RAM-, disk- The higher the ratio,
DEPLOYING AND
or network-intensive? Does a given applica- the fewer host servers
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
tion depend on others to run? What is the you need, the less space
required availability of this application?
and infrastructure is
By answering questions like these, you
CHOOSING
VIRTUALIZATION
required to support
can determine which servers and applica-
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
tions to virtualize, which to leave alone, and
servers in your data
the priority and sequence in which to virtu- center, and the greater
SUMMARY
alize servers. the ROI you can achieve
SERVER DELPLOYMENT
At this point, you are likely wondering for the virtualization
CHECKLIST what your server consolidation ratio—that project as a whole.
is, the number of physical servers that you
can virtualize and place on a single physical
server—will be. If you can place 20 physical servers on a single virtual host server
when virtualized, for example, your server consolidation ratio is 20:1. You can
imagine how important this consolidation ratio is. The higher the ratio, the fewer
host servers you need, the less space and infrastructure is required to support
servers in your data center, and the greater the return on investment you can
achieve for the virtualization project as a whole. The greater the consolidation
ratio, the greater the management benefits you can derive from having fewer
servers to manage.
So how do you determine this consolidation ratio? By understanding your appli-

4 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Assessment

cations, you can get a good idea. But unfortunately, you can be certain of your
server consolidation ratio only after you virtualize your servers. This reality can
be difficult for virtualization administrators to swallow, so let’s explore some com-
mon consolidation scenarios that you can use as guidelines.

ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT IDENTIFYING PROJECT GOALS
Now you need to identify goals for the virtualization project itself. Perhaps phase
PLANNING one of your project, for example, is to virtualize all noncritical servers so you can
AND DESIGN
determine server consolidation ratios and provide a proof of concept. On the other
hand, you could have goals such as the following:
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
■ virtualize all critical servers and place them in a high-availability and
CHOOSING
load-balanced resource pool;
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT
■ virtualize all end-user desktop systems; and
TOOLS
■ virtualize all physical servers that have CPU utilization of less than 50%.

SUMMARY
Your goal should also identify whether your project is a success. Goals should
be tied not only to the resources that have been virtualized but also to the perform-
SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST ance of these resources prior to and following virtualization. From the end-user
perspective, these applications’ performance should be no worse than when these
applications ran on a physical server.
Most important is that you take the time to understand your servers and appli-
cations, set goals for your virtualization deployment, and demonstrate that you
have met your goals without undermining end users’ experience.

AUTOMATED ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT TOOLS

At this point, you might wonder, “Why can’t an automated tool evaluate my envi-
ronment for me?” The answer is that some tools can indeed assess your resources
for you. These tools take an inventory of physical servers, identify applications,

5 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Assessment

measure physical server utilization over time and then recommend the host
servers on which to put virtual machines (VMs).
Two tools that can automate this assessment are the following:

■ VMware Guided Consolidation. VMware Inc.’s vCenter Server—the virtualiza-

tion software’s management suite—includes Guided Consolidation, which is
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT installed separately but from the same DVD used to install vCenter. Guided
Consolidation can identify physical servers in your domain and their hard-
PLANNING ware configurations (e.g., CPU, RAM, disk) and gather performance data from
AND DESIGN
these resources over time. Combined with the data on your virtualization envi-
ronment that Guided Consolidation has already gathered, this performance
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
data can be used to recommend where to place virtualized physical servers in
your virtual infrastructure. The second element of Guided Consolidation is the
CHOOSING
VMware Converter Enterprise application. Once you accept the recommenda-
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT tion from Guided Consolidation, it can also virtualize servers with Converter
TOOLS
Enterprise.

SUMMARY
■ 5nine P2V Planner (for VMware and Hyper-V virtualization). Available in a
commercial and a free edition, P2V Planner analyzes an environment’s physi-
SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST cal servers’ configuration and utilization. From there, it tells you which virtu-
alization hypervisor offers your company the most return on investment and
total cost of ownership. An upcoming release will perform the physical-to-
virtual (P2V) conversion for you.

Other P2V conversion tools that perform various levels of assessment include
Vizioncore Inc.’s vConverter, PlateSpin Ltd.’s PowerConvert and VMware Go,
which offers P2V conversion at no charge.
While I recommend automated assessment tools such as Guided Consolidation,
these applications will never understand your company’s applications the way you
do. You are an integral part of the assessment process because you know which ap-
plication does what, how it uses resources and how critical it is to your company. ■

6 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Planning
and Design

II. Planning and Design

after you complete your assessment and know which servers to virtualize
and which applications run on these servers, you can begin the planning and
design phase of virtualization deployment. During this phase, you need to select
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT
a virtualization platform and develop an infrastructure and deployment plan.

PLANNING
AND DESIGN

SELECTING A VIRTUALIZATION PLATFORM

DEPLOYING AND During the deployment process, one of the most important decisions to make is
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM which virtualization platform to choose. While there are several virtualization
technologies from which to choose, today most companies choose between
CHOOSING VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V R2.
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT Because administrators differ in their experience and skill level and because
TOOLS
every company has different needs, it is up to you to choose the best technology for
SUMMARY
your company’s environment. But here are some key factors to consider.

SERVER DELPLOYMENT ■ Test-drive platforms. If you’re just beginning and want to test various virtualiza-
CHECKLIST
tion platforms, you can download VMware ESXi for free or a 60-day evaluation
of vSphere as well as a free version of Hyper-V at their respective sites.

■ TCO and ROI. For most businesses, a product’s total cost of ownership and return
on investment are the key factors that direct an IT manager on which product to
choose. Making this determination on your own can be complex; there are hun-
dreds of factors to consider, and they vary greatly from organization to organiza-
tion. If you want hard numbers to compare VMware vSphere with Microsoft
Hyper-V virtualization, I recommend evaluation products such as 5nine’s P2V
Planner (as described previously). For other—while biased—recommendations
consider VMware’s TCP Calculator or Microsoft’s Windows Server Virtualiza-
tion Calculator.

7 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Planning
and Design

■ Past experience. While not a major factor, your prior experience with a product
or virtualization provider may be a factor in which platform you choose. As a re-
sult, the vendor’s technology may already be compatible and integrated with
other software in your environment, or the learning curve may be less steep.

■ Consolidation ratios. While you would generate these numbers in a TCO and ROI
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT calculation, consolidation ratios are important factors on their own. When shop-
ping for virtualization platforms, ask yourself, “Which virtualization platform
PLANNING has the least overhead?” “Which platform offers memory overcommitment and
AND DESIGN
transparent page sharing?” (And the answer here is VMware’s ESX, ESXi and
vSphere.)
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
■ Feature set. Even within each platform, different versions have different feature
CHOOSING
sets. VMware offers features such as Fault Tolerance, memory overcommitment,
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT Update Manager, vShield and more—features that aren’t included in any Hyper-
TOOLS
V package.

SUMMARY
■ Add-on applications. Does the virtualization vendor offer add-on applications to
your hypervisor, and which ones? Microsoft offers System Center Virtual Ma-
SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST chine Manager (SCVMM) and App-V, but not much else. In addition to vCenter,
VMware offers a long list of add-on applications, such as VMware Chargeback,
VMware Data Recovery, VMware Site Recovery Manager and much more.

■ Industry analysis. It can be invaluable to read vendor-neutral, independent indus-

try analysis and ratings of the leading virtualization providers (VMware, Hyper-V
and XenServer). What do Gartner Inc., Burton Group and others recommend?

■ Third-party application support. If you want to buy an application and add func-
tionality, make sure that you can find it. How many third-party applications are
available for a given virtualization platform? There are hundreds available for
VMware vSphere, but not as many for Microsoft Hyper-V.

8 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Planning
and Design

■ Education and grass-roots support. Are educational opportunities such as books,

training videos and classes available to learn the nuances of the virtualization
platform? Does the technology have “grass-roots support”? Are there how-to
resources available to help you?

ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPING AN INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN
Once you select a platform, you need to analyze your existing infrastructure and,
PLANNING probably, make some changes. Here are some things you should know:
AND DESIGN

■ To run vSphere or Hyper-V, you need servers with 64-bit CPUs that have either
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
Intel-VT or AMD-V—hardware-assist technologies that boost virtualization soft-
ware performance and improve application response times—enabled.
CHOOSING
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT
■ To exploit certain virtualization features such as VMware’s VMotion or Fault
TOOLS
Tolerance, you need specific models of Intel or AMD CPUs, and all participating
servers need to have CPUs of the same model.
SUMMARY

■ To store virtual machines and use high-availability features or VMotion, you

SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST need centralized storage connected to all virtual servers and, equally important,
storage that is compatible with your respective virtualization platform.

■ Your centralized storage needs to be able to expand to support these VMs.

■ You will need a strong network with Gigabit Ethernet connected to all servers
that allows you to move VMs that are being virtualized as well as to communi-
cate with an iSCSI storage area network (SAN). I have listed general recommen-
dations here, but depending on the size of your infrastructure, you may need to
plan more extensively to factor in servers, storage and networks. ■

9 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Deployment and
Configuration

III. Deployment and Configuration

at this point in the process, you have assessed your environment, selected your
new virtualization platform, readied your storage and network infrastructure, and
created your virtualization deployment plan. Now comes the most exciting part of
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT
a virtualization deployment project: deployment and configuration.

PLANNING
AND DESIGN

STEPS IN DEPLOYING A VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE

DEPLOYING AND So what is your plan for deployment? Now is the time to develop it.
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM Virtualization expert Eric Siebert lays out the various deployment steps in his
article “Virtualization Deployment: The Assessment and Planning Phases.” Below
CHOOSING I have expanded on each of the phases he describes and have included additional
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT considerations and questions to ask.
TOOLS

SUMMARY
■ Build your virtual environment. During this phase, install servers, load your cho-
sen virtualization hypervisor (ESX Server or Hyper-V, for example), load the
SERVER DELPLOYMENT centralized management platform (Microsoft SCVMM or VMware vCenter), and
CHECKLIST
add the virtual hosts to the management platform.

■ Configure your virtual environment. During this phase, configure servers with
their static IP addresses and correct network settings and configure network
VLANs if necessary.

■ Secure your virtual environment. During this phase, set a complex root password
on all virtual hosts, create a group in Windows Active Directory and add author-
ized VMware administrators to this group, authorize that group to be adminis-
trators in VMware vCenter, and remove domain admin. If you have other kinds
of users administering their virtual machines (i.e., SQL admins and developers),
consider using additional groups and roles.

10 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Deployment and
Configuration

■ Populate your virtual environment. During this phase, add new virtual machines
to the virtual infrastructure by (1) creating fresh VMs and installing a clean OS,
(2) performing a P2V conversion with tools such as VMware’s Converter
Enterprise (or other tools mentioned in section two), or (3) downloading virtual
appliances from the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace. Consider the kind
of P2V migration that you’ll use.
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT

■ Monitor your virtual environment. During this phase, at minimum, you want to
PLANNING monitor your new virtual host using basic tools such as the graphs included with
AND DESIGN
the free version of ESXi Server and the vSphere Client. More likely, you want to
use more advanced performance graphs offered by vCenter, which can be config-
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
ured to alert you about performance issues. As time goes on, it’s also likely that
you will want a more sophisticated performance monitoring tool, such as those
CHOOSING
covered in the “Management Tool Selection” section on page 14.
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS
■ Maintain your virtual environment. Maintenance may be simple and involve a
single virtual host and a handful of VMs. But as your infrastructure grows, you
SUMMARY
will need maintenance tools. The primary task of the maintenance phase—which
should not be confused with the monitoring phase—is patch management.
SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST Thankfully, if you use VMware’s vSphere, every commercial edition includes
Update Manager. With Update Manager, you can keep the patches on your ESX
servers current as well as those for the operating system and even some applica-
tions. If you use VMware’s Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), ESX Server
can be updated without creating downtime for end users.

■ Back up your virtual environment. Just as with physical servers, proper backup of
virtual servers is paramount. When you virtualize physical servers, valid back-
ups must be conducted from day one. While backups can be performed using the
existing backup agents already on physical servers, this method isn’t optimal for
virtual machine backup. To back up virtual machines, use virtualization-specific
backup programs that understand which VMs are on which host and that can

11 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Deployment and
Configuration

identify when VMs have moved to a new host. These backup applications sup-
port Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to ensure application-consis-
tent backups and may support other features such as file- and image-level
backups, data deduplication, and replication. Examples of virtualization-specific
backup applications include VMware’s Data Recovery, Veeam Software’s Backup
and Vizioncore vRanger.
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT

■ Troubleshoot your virtual environment. Hopefully you won’t encounter issues with
PLANNING your newly deployed virtual infrastructure. But if you do, you should have docu-
AND DESIGN
mentation and diagrams of your environment. You should also have support in-
formation and a support contract (which is recommended) for your servers,
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
SAN, network, storage and virtualization software.

CHOOSING
■ Educate and document. While this final phase isn’t included on Siebert’s list, edu-
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT cation and documentation is a crucial step. Part of any good deployment plan in-
TOOLS
cludes the education of other admins at your company and the documentation of
the new virtual infrastructure and common administrative tasks. While a virtual
SUMMARY
server may look like a physical server to other administrators, the administra-
tion and troubleshooting of VMs is quite different from that for physical servers.
SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST Training classes should be held so that support staff and junior administrators
can understand the changes to their physical infrastructure and how to perform
the same tasks in a virtual environment.

DEPLOYMENT PITFALLS TO AVOID

While following your plan based on the steps above can prevent problems during
deployment, there are specific deployment pitfalls for you to avoid. Let’s explore
some of these dangers below.

■ Underestimating the amount of RAM needed in virtual hosts. Even if you use
VMware’s memory overcommitment, it’s likely that your production virtual

12 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Deployment and
Configuration

hosts will use all the RAM you can provide them. Many virtual hosts in produc-
tion environments have 16 GB of RAM or more. As you add more virtual ma-
chines, monitor memory closely.

■ Underestimating the amount of storage needed in your shared storage. While

VMware’s new vStorage Thin Provisioning helps reduce the amount of storage
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT utilized by virtualization, virtual machines can quickly gobble up storage in your
centralized storage. If possible, use VMware’s Thin Provisioning on your SAN to
PLANNING save on disk utilization. You can also use tools such as Vizioncore’s vOptimizer
AND DESIGN
Pro to reclaim overallocated storage.

DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING ■ Virtualizing faster than the rate of training and documentation. Virtualizing a physi-
A PLATFORM
cal server is easy and can be done in a matter of minutes, but training junior ad-
CHOOSING
mins and updating documentation can take far longer. Don’t fall prey to
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT virtualizing all your physical servers and then have to troubleshoot virtual ma-
TOOLS
chine problems or face the wrath of an application development manager whose
systems have been moved without permission.
SUMMARY

■ Overprovisioning. During initial deployment and over time, it is easy to overprovi-

SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST sion virtual machines because the creation of a new VM is so easy. Just as with
physical servers, you should provision only VMs that the business side needs.
Every new VM uses additional server resources and costs another OS license.

■ Lack of testing. Test running an application as a VM, which can be as simple as

doing a test P2V conversion into VMware Workstation and verifying the results.
In my view, 99% of all applications work on a VM, but watch for applications
that are graphics-intensive (such as running computer-aided design, or CAD, in-
side a virtual desktop) or applications that require license-key FOBs. While an
application may be compatible, you also want to ensure that your virtual infra-
structure can handle the application’s demands and provide the same level of
performance as that provided by a physical server. ■

13 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Management
Tool Selection

IV. Management Tool Selection

once you have deployed your virtual infrastructure, how will you manage it?
You have several tools—and in a variety of categories—from which to choose. Let’s
categorize them as centralized management tools, monitoring tools, security tools,
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT
admin utilities and backup tools. Because there are so many tools out there, we can
break down virtualization tools into even more categories and list additional tools.
PLANNING
AND DESIGN But for our purposes here, let’s focus on this list of core tools in the most important
categories.
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM

CENTRALIZED MANAGEMENT TOOLS

CHOOSING Unlike other management tools listed here, centralized (or native) management
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT servers fulfill most requirements if you have a large number of servers. These
TOOLS
management tools offer several advanced features and ease the management
SUMMARY
burden for a larger number of servers.

SERVER DELPLOYMENT ■ Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager. This tool is the centralized
CHECKLIST
management server for Hyper-V. SCVMM can also manage VMware ESX
(but not at the level of vCenter), and an evaluation version is available.
■ VMware vCenter. This tool is the centralized management server for all ESXi
and ESX servers that enables the advanced features of vSphere (such as host
profiles, Guided Consolidation, Distributed Resource Scheduler, Update Man-
ager and many more). VMware vCenter is available in Foundation and Stan-
dard editions, and a 60-day evaluation is available.
■ Citrix XenServer Essentials. This tool manages XenServer and Hyper-V with a
free 30-day evaluation.

It’s likely that you will choose a centralized management tool based on the virtu-
alization platform you have chosen. While SCVMM supports vSphere management,

14 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Management
Tool Selection

for example, more than 99% of users opt to manage vSphere with vCenter because
it offers many more features than does SCVMM. SCVMM might be used only to
manage vSphere if you had several Hyper-V servers and just one vSphere server.

MONITORING TOOLS
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT While your centralized virtualization management tools provide current and his-
torical performance information and alerts, you may need more feature-rich and
PLANNING flexible virtual infrastructure monitoring tools. Here is a list of three of the most
AND DESIGN
well-known tools.
■ Vizioncore’s vFoglight. This tool offers performance monitoring, capacity plan-
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
ning, chargeback and service management.
■ Veeam Monitor. This tool is available in a free and commercial edition. Monitor
CHOOSING
is coupled with the free business view to monitor and report the way that your
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT business is structured. Monitor also provides the data needed for trou-
TOOLS
bleshooting, trend reporting and capacity planning.
■ VKernel Capacity Planner. This tool is a virtual appliance-based capacity plan-
SUMMARY
ning technology for VMware ESX and vSphere.

SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST

SECURITY TOOLS
While traditional security products can help secure your virtual infrastructure,
there are several benefits to having security products that are designed for your
virtual infrastructure (and thus understand which virtual machine is on which
server). Further, virtual security solutions can be so much more efficient for a vir-
tual infrastructure than are traditional tools (i.e., using a physical firewall versus a
virtual firewall).
■ VMware vShield Zones. VMware’s virtual firewall for vSphere is included in
vSphere Advanced or higher editions.
■ Altor Networks Virtual Firewall. This firewall runs inside your VMware infra-
structure (and a free trial is available).

15 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Management
Tool Selection

■ Catbird Virtual Security Assessment (VSA). This free utility assesses the secu-
rity of your virtual infrastructure.
■ Tripwire ConfigCheck. This free utility performs a security audit of an ESX
server.

ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT ADMIN UTILITIES
Every Windows administrator has a list of tools at the ready that he uses daily.
PLANNING Virtualization administrators are no different. Here are my favorite virtualization
AND DESIGN
admin tools.
■ Veeam FastSCP. This tool copies files to and from ESX servers that by default
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM
allow only one Secure Shell (SSH)/SCP.
■ PuTTY. This small but powerful SSH client connects to the command prompt
CHOOSING
of your ESX server.
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT
■ Trilead VM Explorer. This tool moves virtual machines from a SAN to an ESX
TOOLS
server, backs up VMs, creates and removes snapshots, and manages ESX
servers from the command line. For more information, see “Trilead VM Ex-
SUMMARY
plorer: A Standalone Free VM Management Tool.”

SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST And for additional information on great free admin tools, check out my “Best
Free Virtualization Tools Guide.”

BACKUP
Our virtualization deployment plan included a step to ensure that we backed up
our new virtual infrastructure. While you can use your traditional physical server
backup program, if it doesn’t understand which VMs are on which virtual hosts, it
will be difficult to back up these VMs. But there are third-party backup tools avail-
able. Here are the top three virtualization-specific backup programs.
■ VMware’s Data Recovery. With vSphere 4, VMware launched its own backup
application that is included with four of the six vSphere editions. It offers file-

16 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Management
Tool Selection

and-image level backup and restore, VSS support, vCenter integration, and
data deduplication.
■ Veeam Backup. This backup technology offers backup and replication func-
tionality in a single tool, ESXi support without VMware Consolidated Backup,
file-level recovery, near-CDP replication, database-consistent backup with
VSS, deduplication, and rollback.
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT ■ Vizioncore vRanger Pro. As one of the longest-standing virtualization backup
programs available, vRanger Pro offers local area network-free backup, ESXi
PLANNING support and image-level backup support. ■
AND DESIGN

DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM

CHOOSING
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS

SUMMARY

SERVER DELPLOYMENT
CHECKLIST

17 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Summary

Summary

while embarking on a virtualization deployment can be daunting at first, fol-

lowing the four stages outlined here enables you to attack the project with inten-
tion, organization and without becoming overwhelmed. In this handbook, we
ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT
have covered the four phases of virtual infrastructure deployment:

PLANNING
AND DESIGN 1. assessment;
2. planning and design;
DEPLOYING AND 3. deployment and configuration; and
CONFIGURING
A PLATFORM 4. management tool selection.

CHOOSING During the assessment phase, it’s essential to analyze your existing environment
VIRTUALIZATION
MANAGEMENT to identify your servers and applications and their resource use. During the plan-
TOOLS
ning and design phase, it’s essential to create an infrastructure and a deployment
SUMMARY
plan. Next, in deployment and configuration, we covered the steps to take during
each phase of deployment. And finally, during the management tool selection
SERVER DELPLOYMENT phase, it’s important to consider various management tools—native and external
CHECKLIST
to your virtualization platform—to gain control of and insight into your new vir-
tual infrastructure. Remember, up-front planning is essential and will help inform
your platform and management tools choices. And finally, your preparation before
you begin to deploy virtualization will determine whether your virtual infrastruc-
ture deployment is a success or a failure. The next move is yours. ■

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Davis is the director of infrastructure at TrainSignal.com, the global leader in video training for IT
pros. He holds several certifications including vExpert, VCP, CISSP, and CCIE #9369. Additionally, Davis has
authored hundreds of articles and nine video-training courses at Train Signal. His most popular course is the
VMware vSphere 4 video-training course. His personal website is VMwareVideos.com. You can follow
David on Twitter or connect with David on LinkedIn.

18 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

 S E RV E R
DEPLOYMENT
........

Checklist

A VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT CHECKLIST

I. Assessment
■ Make the business case for virtualization.
■ Analyze physical server CPU, RAM, disk, network utilization and applications.
■ Create an inventory of physical servers and their applications using manual

methods (such as a spreadsheet) or automated tools.

■ Understand the types of applications and business criticality of each application.

■ Use manual methods or automated tools to determine which servers should be

ASSESSING THE
ENVIRONMENT consolidated onto which virtual hosts.

II. Planning and Design

PLANNING
AND DESIGN
■ Select a virtualization platform and consider total cost of ownership as well as re-
turn on investment, past experience, consolidation ratios, feature set, application
add-on potential, industry analysis, third-party application support, grass-roots
DEPLOYING AND
CONFIGURING
support and educational opportunities.
A PLATFORM ■ Develop an infrastructure plan to determine where upgrades will be performed

on your environment’s storage area network, local area network and, potentially,
physical servers.
CHOOSING
VIRTUALIZATION ■ Develop a deployment plan to build, configure, monitor and maintain the new virtual
MANAGEMENT
TOOLS infrastructure.

III. Deployment and Configuration

SUMMARY ■ Install virtual servers and load the virtualization platform.
■ Configure virtual servers.
SERVER DELPLOYMENT ■ Secure virtual servers.
CHECKLIST ■ Populate your virtual environment.

■ Monitor your virtual environment.

■ Maintain your virtual environment.

■ Back up your virtual environment.

■ Troubleshoot your virtual environment.

■ Train staff and document your environment.

■ Consider deployment pitfalls.

IV. Management Tool Selection

■ Consider centralized management capabilities (management tools native to your
virtualization platform).
■ Investigate additional monitoring tools.

■ Investigate security tools for your virtual infrastructure.

■ Consider admin utilities.

■ Explore backup tools.

19 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT

FROM OUR SPONSOR

q Windows Servers and Storage: Planning Your Server Room

q Server Room Planning: The Keys to Success

q Dell PowerEdge Energy Smart Servers—The Smart Choice

for Optimizing your Data Center

ABOUT DELL, INC. AND INTEL:

Dell and Intel are strategic partners in delivering innovative hardware solutions
to solve your most challenging IT problems. Together we are delivering virtuali-
zation optimized solutions to maximize the benefits of any virtualization project.

20 TECHFOCUS: DEMYSTIFYING SERVER VIRTUALIZATION DEPLOYMENT