The
re-emergence of Virtualization technologies, such as VMware, Microsoft's
Hyper-V, Xen and Linux KVM has provided organizations with the tools to create
new operating system platforms ready to support the services required by the
business, in minutes rather than days.
Indeed IT
itself is a service to the business.
In more
recent times, Cloud computing which in itself is underpinned by Virtualization,
makes use of the functionality provided to satisfy
·
on-demand
resources
·
the
ability to provision faster
·
rapid
elasticity (refer to NIST 's description
of Cloud Computing)
Cloud
computing makes full use of the underlying clustered hardware. Constant strides
are being made by Virtualization vendors to improve the Virtual Machine (VM) to
Host ratio, without affecting the underlying performance.
But, you may
ask "What's this got to do with Idle VMs?"
Well, as I
described earlier Virtualization provides the means to easily and quickly
provision virtual systems. Your CTO/CIO is going to demand a significant ROI
once an investment in both the hardware
and virtualization software has been made, possibly switching the focus to an
increase in the VM to Host ratio.
“What's wrong
with that?” I hear you say. Nothing at
all, as long as you keep track of
·
what
VMs you are provisioning
·
what
resources you have granted
·
what
they are for
Failure to do
so will mean that your quest for a good ROI and a satisfied Chief will be in
jeopardy, as you’ll encounter a term most commonly known as VM Sprawl.
More about
this on Wednesday
Jamie
Baker
Principal
Consultant
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