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Introduction
Enterprises worldwide are embracing a digital work style to stay competitive in a dynamic
and increasingly global business environment. This work style requires that teams collaborate
seamlessly across organizations and time zones, while success relies on speed, mobility,
and connectivity.
Virtualization has gained much attention across organizations looking to address these
challenges, improving the efficiency of their IT operations and enhancing their responsiveness
to changing conditions. Originally focused on consolidating resources in the data center,
virtualization now has applications across the IT spectrum, driving down costs and improving
agility. This paper looks at the role virtualization should take in an optimized IT infrastructure, and
presents a set of principles and best practices to help you build a comprehensive virtualization
strategy for your organization.
A well designed and managed virtualization strategy delivers value to the organization in
three ways:
Optimize server utilization, Provide more robust disaster Facilitate dynamic resource
reducing hardware, utilities, recovery capabilities, streamline allocation and streamline
and space expense; reduce server maintenance, and isolate workload provisioning to
application compatibility risk. On the desktop, enable efficiently support business
testing; reduce overall system access to any application growth and meet SLAs
complexity anywhere
Microsoft believes that virtualization is a key component of Dynamic IT, an environment that
helps people in an organization anticipate and respond to business challenges and opportunities.
Dynamic IT is a strategic asset to a company because it increases the ability of a business to meet
changing demands with a quick and effective response. And Dynamic IT technologies—those
that enable dynamic capability in systems—are an essential part of supporting the performance of
businesses and the people in them.
The Infrastructure Optimization Model, identifying the four stages an organization passes through
as its IT infrastructure matures, aids the journey towards Dynamic IT architecture. Each progression
is made through a series of IT projects and processes; the value of the model is in identifying which
projects are appropriate for a particular organization.
Fully automated
Managed and management,
Managed IT
Consolidated IT dynamic resources
Uncoordinated, infrastructure with
infrastructure with usage, business
manual limited automation
extensive automation; linked SLAs;
infrastructure and knowledge
knowledge capture knowledge capture
capture
and reused automated and
use automated
Early progressions are accompanied by significant cost savings and improved service levels. As the IT
infrastructure is optimized for cost, the focus then shifts to enabling business competitiveness, with
IT becoming a key strategic asset for the organization. An organization can be in different stages of
maturity for different IT capabilities—for instance, it might be at a Basic level in Identity and Access
Management, but at a Standardized level in Desktop, Server and Device Management. By completing
a profiling assessment, an organization can identify where it stands on critical capabilities, and
determine suitable projects to progress to a more mature state.
Virtualization is one of the key technologies that help an organization progress towards a dynamic
state, providing more flexibility in IT systems and streamlining change. This paper explores the various
facets of virtualization, its role in a Dynamic IT infrastructure, and discusses the four key principles to
successfully harness this powerful technology:
Before exploring these principles in depth, let’s look at the underlying concepts of virtualization.
What is virtualization?
Virtualization in an IT environment
is essentially the isolation of one Virtual Applications
computing resource from others. Any application on any computer on-demand
By separating the different layers in Application installed to Specific
the logic stack, you enable greater hardware and OS
flexibility and simplified change Virtual Presentation
management—you no longer need Interface bound to process
Presentation layer separate from process
In addition to machine virtualization, the concept of virtualization can be applied to enterprise storage, networks,
applications and desktops. Each of these scenarios provides benefits to the IT organization, but it is important that the
IT manager understands which one to use for his or her unique circumstance, and develops them within the context of a
comprehensive virtualization strategy. Think of virtualization as a complete toolset instead of just a way to reduce physical
servers; a holistic view will help maximize the benefits derived from this technology.
Server Virtualization creates a separate OS environment that Management Desktop Virtualization creates a separate OS environment
is logically isolated from the host server. This allows greater Toolset on the desktop, allowing a non-compatible legacy or LOB
density of resource use (hardware, utilities, space) while Create, configure, monitor, and application to operate within a more current desktop
providing operational isolation and security. maintain virtual (and physical) operating system.
assets
Application virtualization separates the application configuration layer from the Presentation virtualization isolates processing from the graphics and I/O, making
OS in a desktop environment, reducing application conflicts, bringing patch and it possible to run an application in one location but have it be controlled in
upgrade management to a central location and accelerating the deployment of another. This is helpful in a variety of situations, including ones where data
new applications and updates. confidentiality and protection are critical.
“We see Virtual Server 2005 enabling significant cost savings for our customers”
Dennis Luciani, Senior Product Manager, Hosting Solutions, TELUS
IT infrastructure that supports business demands while due to confidentiality concerns, regulatory requirements,
efficiently controlling costs. or end-user mobility needs. A virtualized presentation
configuration places all data storage and processing
Desktop infrastructure—Applications in a central location, with the desktop being simply a
presentation of the user interface.
Managing numerous desktop images drives up IT cost and
consumes significant IT resources, as does maintaining up- Storage and network resources
to-date applications and security patches. By separating
the application layer from the operating system on the Virtualizing enterprise storage and networks provides
desktop image, an IT organization can remove much of the another avenue to consolidate resources for greater
complexity and management challenges it faces every day. flexibility and scale. Managing storage and network
Significant application-to-application regression testing resources in a virtual environment streamlines resource
is typically required before deploying a major application allocation, provisioning, and maintenance while reducing
or OS update. In an environment where applications the apparent system complexity IT managers work with
are virtualized and delivered on demand to the desktop, day to day.
application-to-application conflicts are nearly eliminated,
since the applications execute without impacting the
desktop operating system—or other applications. In “SoftGrid resulted in huge benefits right off
addition, application maintenance and security patching is the bat, including ease and speed of deploy-
streamlined, since it only needs to take place at the source, ing applications, true roaming experiences,
not hundreds or thousands of individual desktops. This and the ability to easily swap out desktops.
not only reduces labor needed for desktop maintenance, It’s been a fantastic solution for us”
but ensures that any security vulnerabilities are adopted
immediately and comprehensively. For application to OS Mike Criss, Manager of Infrastructure Engineering,
compatibility issues, you can use a combination of desktop Swedish Medical Center
virtualization and presentation virtualization to run an
application in its legacy operating system, hosted on the
current desktop. Overall infrastructure—Business continuity
Challenge Mitigation
While server consolidation can provide many business It is important that organizations employing
benefits, it can also add complexity to the IT infrastructure virtualization use a common tool set for virtual and
if the environment is not managed properly. The savings in physical servers. This will help reduce complexity while
hardware consolidation might be offset by increases in IT providing the flexibility to migrate workloads across
management overhead. physical and virtual server resources.
Where do we start?
Returning to Microsoft’s Infrastructure Optimization Model, the appropriate area of focus will depend on the level of IT
maturity in your organization, and how familiar the IT organization is with virtualization techniques and tools.
Fully automated
Managed and management,
Managed IT consolidated IT dynamic resources
Uncoordinated, infrastructure with infrastructure with usage, business
manual limited automation and extensive automation; linked SLAs;
infrastructure knowledge capture knowledge capture knowledge capture
and reused automated and
use automated
For most situations, we suggest the following six-step assessment for developing a comprehensive virtualization strategy
for your organization:
It is critical that you employ the right management tools to manage both your physical and virtual
infrastructure. Microsoft System Center provides a comprehensive, integrated suite of tools to manage
physical servers, virtual servers, storage and network assets, desktops and applications—all from a
unified, familiar interface.
System Center ●
●
Provides scalable migration and provisioning management
Manages patch and upgrades in physical, host and guest OS
Configuration Manager
Employing Virtualization technologies across the IT infrastructure is a major step towards creating a
Dynamic IT environment. From reducing the utility expense in the data center to avoiding extensive
application compatibility testing for desktop deployments, virtualization significantly improves the
efficiency of IT operations. From streamlining backup to rapid disaster recovery, virtualization is
a cornerstone of a robust business continuity strategy. And from rapidly provisioning and scaling
out servers to accelerated desktop deployments, virtualization drives operational agility. In total, a
virtualization strategy spanning from the data center to the desktop is the key to staying competitive
in an increasingly dynamic, global and connected world. Microsoft has the product, the people and
the partners to make your end-to-end virtualized environment a reality.
www.microsoft.com/virtualization
www.microsoft.com/virtualserver
www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm
www.microsoft.com/softgrid
www.microsoft.com/terminalserver
www.microsoft.com/io
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