Virtualization offers ease of deployment, which can become a bit of a Catch- 22 scenario for IT managers. The faster servers can be provisioned, the more it seems they are in demand — and that quickly leads to too many virtual machines.
“We find that new machines are spun up and down on a more than once-a-day basis. Lots of those machines are put up for development, testing and staging,” says Adam Gray, CTO of
Novacoast, an IT professional services company in Santa Barbara, Calif.
IT managers and industry watchers say controlling virtual server sprawl requires the same processes and auditing that would be used in physical server deployments to ensure only as many machines as needed get provisioned.
“We have it set up so that no one has the rights to add virtual servers without requesting them through IT,” says Marc Kraus,
manager of IT infrastructure at Merkle in Lanham, Md.“We run weekly scans as well to keep that in check.”
While policy-based management and inventory tools can help IT stay on top of the number of servers, IT has to be disciplined about putting processes in place to prevent virtual sprawl from corrupting the success of a deployment.
“People know we are able
to bring up a new virtual server
and turn that around quickly so
Virtual server adoption on the rise
Forrester Research found IT managers plan to increase the number of virtual servers deployed in their environments in the next two years — which will increase the need for management.
Percentage of x86 servers virtualized today
35% 30% 31% 25% 20% 22% 15% 10% 15% 5% 7% 4% 8% 2% 3% 4% 2% 0%
0% to 10% to 20% to 30% to 40% to 50% to 60% to 70% to 80% to 90% to
9% 19% 29% 39% 49% 59% 69% 79% 89% 100%
Percentage of x86 servers expected to be virtualized two years from now
35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 20%
10% 13% 13% 5%10%9% 9% 11% 2% 3% 9%
0%
0% to 10% to 20% to 30% to 40% to 50% to 60% to 70% to 80% to 90% to 9% 19% 29% 39% 49% 59% 69% 79% 89% 100%
Base: More than 200 server decision-makers Does not equal 100% due to rounding.
the requests have increased. We basically have had to push back a bit against server creep,” says Albert Ganzon, director of network services and engineering at international law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in San Francisco.
Ganzon says he is in the middle of a VMware deployment with a dozen virtual servers running, and his team created a “bureaucracy of sorts” in which departments must formally request servers to control an outbreak of unauthorized virtual machines.“It’s really about pointing out the resources they already have and asking,‘Do you really need another server?’” he adds.
Tim Antonowicz, senior systems engineer at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, says he uses a basic“sanity check” to keep his VMware ESX virtual servers from running amuck.“When a new server is requested, barring emergencies, make sure you go through enough evaluation to determine if it is truly needed or simply convenient,” he says.
Industry watchers suggest adopting a server life-cycle management process in which a virtual or physical server’s purpose and status from creation to retirement is tracked. Failure to curb lax deployment habits can exacerbate other challenges around managing virtual machines, such as patch management.
“If you don’t know how many machines you have or how many are being rolled out, there is no way you can patch them,” EMA’s Mann points out.
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