If you have not heard the term "virtual machine sprawl", welcome to virtualization. While the number of physical hosts in your environment will start shrinking, the number of VMs will grow exponentially once your users figure out just how easy it is to create "another server".
The implications are many:
1. If you thought that you had "too many" servers to manage before, guess what? It will actually get worse. A thousand of anything is too much to manage, ten thousand of anything will send you off the deep end. The management challenge is in the numbers, and there is no relief in sight on this front. To fight it getting organized is the answer. You will have to get really good at keeping asset inventory of your VMs. You have to know how many VMs you have where are they, what's in them, what state they are in.
2. Capacity planing will quickly become an issue. Think about it. Adding VMs at a quick pace will begin to strain your ESX resources. You will be amazed at just how quickly your "plentiful" amount of memory, storage and CPU starts to disappear. Each VMs is consuming recourses and before you know your overburdened hosts begin to develop performance problems. To fight it, you have to get disciplined and control introductions of new VMs. At minimum you need a an approval process to quickly review new VM requests.
3. Audit of VM environment will become even more challenging. With so many VMs being added, knowing who is acting on them,, what changes are being made and where will require a real herculean effort.
Are we having fun yet? What do you think? Drop me a line.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
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