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14 Common Virtualization Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

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14 Common Virtualization Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

Author

Introduction
Once you have surmounted the toughest task - getting a yes from all the people involved to start slowly migrating your physical server environments to virtual environment - you need to know the common mistakes that are made by most people going from a physical to virtual environment. This white paper will help you with the basics and common issues that you will find.

Mistake #1: Thinking that the job is done after the servers are virtualized
The first and the biggest mistake folks make is that they dont realize that the first task is that you are virtualizing servers, virtualizing network components like Network Interface Cards (NIC), virtualizing switches, virtualizing storage, and much more. This might seem too much but remember, now you need to coordinate folks from different departments and communicate. Communication is the key. You need to communicate your intentions to the Network folks so your virtual switches can communicate with physical switches, for example. I would need to talk to physical switch administrators to tell them if my host (device hosting Virtual Machines - ESXi for my VMware environment) is plugged in the port that is enabled or not. Should the port be configured as a trunk on the physical switch side or not? There are so many things that could go wrong, so communication is the key.

Mistake #2: Counting on cost savings before they are actually realized
People assume that it will save them a lot of money when they go to a virtual environment. Well, Im not saying its not true; it could save you money by consolidating multiple underutilized servers into fewer servers that host multiple virtual machines (VM) and give you more use of the high-end processing power today. Plus, fewer servers means you have lower space requirements. It also means less heat generated, which lowers cooling requirements. Remember you cant just pick some cheap high-power servers. Many of the virtualization products have a hardware compatibility list (HCL) that tells you the approved hardware for the appropriate virtualization products. For example, VMware has compatibility list available on their website for various hardware components at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php. Maybe it would be better to go through the budget needs to get the approved hardware so you dont run into any issues or unexpected crashes. We are very familiar with such crashes in Microsoft boxes as BSD (Blue Screen of Death). In VMware its called PSD (Purple Screen of Death). I have very few colleagues who have run into PSD, which could be attributed to not using the hardware on the approved HCL of these vendors.

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Mistake #3: Not getting proper training before installing and configuring your virtualization environment
So, now you have the coolest, meanest, and most expensive hardware that is approved by your management and is on the HCL. You cant wait to get started, but let me ask you: How many people in your department are trained to install, configure, and manage your virtualization environment? Many products might be easy to install, maybe a few Next buttons on some wizard, but at the end, you have to configure it fully optimized for your environment. The more people you have trained, the better it would be. Remember every aspect of virtualization. If you will be using some kind of SAN environment, you might need training in that, too, in addition to VMwares various virtualization classes or from any other vendors like storage.

Mistake #4: Poor load planning

Have you looked at the load on your current servers? Do you know what the CPU and memory utilizations are currently? You will probably notice that today the servers are so fast that we dont really need those super-fast servers all the time. Maybe you do need them for your specific requirements, like your databases, but what about all those file and print servers? Maybe you are at 2-5 % utilization most of the time. What if you could run VMwares ESXi host, hosting multiple servers in a Virtual environment? I can definitely get more utilization out of these expensive servers this way. Note that the load on these servers is often not properly planned and could cause issues for your network. How many virtual Servers to run on these expensive VMware ESXi hosts? is a good question to think about while planning for virtualization. I might consolidate a few File and Print Servers on one big powerful host running ESXi.

Mistake #5: Assuming virtualized servers take care of themselves

In the past you had physical servers, and people took care of their own servers. Who will take ownership of these virtual servers now? Who looks at the logs on the host and on the VMs. Remember to look at both the logs of the ESXi and that of the VMs. Talking about logs, you should have a procedure for when to look at the logs. I hope its every 12 or 24 hours. When I ask that question, the answer I sometimes get is that some people only look at the logs when there is a problem. It might be too late at that point. Appoint someone to look at the logs regularly.

Mistake #6: Failing to record log time entries

Do you know when the entries in the logs happened? Do you have a centralized time synchronization mechanism? I hope you have some kind of Network Time Protocol (NTP) implementation, or you rely on the NTP from some reliable source in your organization, or on the internet. Remember that NTP, meaning correct timing implementation, would also be important if you have logs that are being saved. You would definitely like to know what happened and also when it happened. Correct time is going to be very important for troubleshooting purposes in case of failures.

Mistake #7: Falling for all the bells and whistles

Some virtualization products allow you to go to the Internet on the host. To me, this is an absolutely no because if you are on the Internet and downloading possible bad applications, it could cause the host to crash and bringing every VM on it down with it. The more restricted host I have the better. I want to strip down every unnecessary service and hardware from the host and from the VMs, so I would also look at the VMs I have. Do

Copyright 2011 Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved.

you need all the hardware that is available by default? For example, do I have any need for the floppy drive in my VM running some server product? The answer is probably no unless you are using some application that wants to have a floppy image for license purposes.

Mistake #8: Failing to have a backup plan

Lets say that something happens, and your host or VM crashes. What are your plans then? What kind of work was the VM doing? Can you afford to live without this VM? Most probably, the answer is no. So, do you have another machine that will take over in case the primary machine fails? This would imply that there was a machine ready to go in case of a failure. Maybe you just have the VM in a shared storage, and you have some kind of fault tolerance mechanism that will kick in and another host will revive that dead VM by restarting it on a different host. Consider the downtime involved; if you have a standby machine, it will kick in within moments of when the original VM goes down. But with fault tolerance, the VM will have to be restarted on a different host. There is the delay involved in restarting the machine.

Mistake #9: Improper storage allocation

A common issue that folks run into is committing a certain amount of disk storage for the VMs but never really filling up the virtual drive. If you dont have a need for it, maybe you shouldnt have pre-allocated that storage. For example, VMwares virtualization product allows you to allocate the storage on demand. This is called the thin provisioning mechanism. For example, if you specify a hard drive size for your VM to be 500 GB but only have 50 GB of content, then it will only consume 50 GB storage space and will grow to 500 GB as needed. Thin provisioning is provided to you by the VMware product and is one of the commonly ignored features, but it could save you when it comes to storage and storage related cost. Remember to be careful not to over-commit some storage drive. What would happen if all your VMs started growing and get near the maximum space allocated to them? Do you have enough space available for all of them?

Mistake #10: Poorly planned host management solution

How are you managing your ESXi hosts from VMware? How are you managing your VMs on these ESXi hosts? If you only have one or two hosts, then maybe you can connect directly to your ESXi host to mange them, but what if you have many ESXi hosts? If thats the case, then you need some kind of a central management solution. In case of VMware, you have the vCenter implementation. This will definitely make managing your ESXi hosts easier as well as many other features that are covered in a VMwares Install, Configure, and Manage class.

Mistake #11: Lack of a plan for managing the virtual environment

Since we are talking about management, who will be managing the virtual environment? Is it going to be the Windows team, or your router team, or your security team, or who knows? Since the VMware product and other similar virtualization vendors are touching almost every single thing, such as networking with switches, security implementation, and storage, maybe there could be disagreements on whose territory is it. I would have a separate group within my Active Directory domain for VMware admins, and it is separate from the Windows Administrators group to avoid any confusion. This way, Windows Admin group can manage Windows and another group (vSphere Admins) can administer vSphere related components for the Virtual Machines.

Copyright 2011 Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved.

Mistake #12: Failure to update VMware tools

Many students who install Windows machines in the VM right away realize certain things dont feel right. For example, maybe they dont have good control of the mouse movement, the video driver might not be what they want, and networking drivers might not be optimized. VMwares virtualization products give you the VMware tools that make a lot of these problems go away. Maybe you should update these VMware tools if there is an update available, and maybe you should also update the VMware tools after you have moved the machine from one ESXi host to another.

Mistake #13: Forgetting to run antivirus products

I hope you are still running antivirus products for your VMs. Treat them as if they were regular physical servers. What are your backup strategies for these VMs? Again, remember that this is your server and do whatever you would do it if it were a physical server.

Mistake #14: Incorrect software licensing

Never forget that when you implement the servers in a virtual environment, you still might have licensing considerations. Find out from the manufacturer of the Server software about their licensing and support needs if their product is installed in a Virtual environment. Remember, treat it like it were any other servers.

Summary
There are so many things we can talk about as common and simple gotchas or possible issues. I want to make sure that you dont run into them. There are many classes that provide the details behind these concepts; I hope to see you there. Good luck

Learn More
Learn more about how you can improve productivity, enhance efficiency, and sharpen your competitive edge. Check out the following Global Knowledge courses: VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V4.1] VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V4.1] For more information or to register, visit www.globalknowledge.com or call 1-800-COURSES (1-800-2687737) to speak with a sales representative. Our courses and enhanced, hands-on labs and exercises offer practical skills and tips that you can immediately put to use. Our expert instructors draw upon their experiences to help you understand key concepts and how to apply them to your specific work situation. Choose from our more than 1,200 courses, delivered through Classrooms, e-Learning, and On-site sessions, to meet your IT and business training needs.

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About the Author

Dheeraj (Raj) Tolani has been working with Global Knowledge as a contract instructor teaching various courses, including authorized VMware training. He has been in the industry for over 18 years working with various technologies, including Cisco, Banyan Vines, Microsoft, Novell, and VMware. Dheeraj has worked as a consultant for various medical, financial, legal, government, and publishing companies. He runs a consulting company based in New York City providing IP integration solutions (www.rajtolani.com).

Copyright 2011 Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved.