The VMware HCL listing for our NSS VA can be viewed here:
Now that server virtualization technologies have been proven in many environments, more people are looking at virtualization to improve the efficiency of their primary workloads in the data center. Despite the realized benefits from virtualizing non-mission-critical applications, two questions remain on the minds of IT professionals. One, since traditional backup doesn’t work in virtual environments, how can I effectively protect virtualized workloads? We are talking mission-critical applications here! Two, I know how I reduced my server infrastructure with virtualization, but I also know how my storage cost went way up as a result. So how can I reduce my storage costs while implementing server virtualization?
In a recent report from ESG on the “Impact of Server Virtualization on Data Protection,” when asked about top server virtualization initiatives for 2010, most respondents placed backup, recovery, and replication right after virtualizing more workloads. It is very well understood that server virtualization breaks traditional backup processes. The consolidation of servers and workloads is leaving very little resources for backup applications to perform data copies. In virtual server environments, CPU utilization climbs to more than 60 to 70 percent, up from an average of 20 percent in physical environments, leaving very little for the most demanding job of them all, backup. In addition network resource utilization is increased to such a degree that very little bandwidth remains for massive data transfers required by backup operations.
When VMware took a look at how virtual shops were approaching data protection back in 2008, the responses from data centers indicated that, for all the benefits of virtualization, the shift away from physical machines was coming with some significant growing pains. Eighty percent of respondents to the survey said they were backing up to tape and failing to meet their backup windows. The traditional back-up challenges they faced before going virtual were magnified in their new environments, and they faced shrinking CPU, I/O and networking resources.
And over the past two years, companies have hunted for a solution that would deliver on the promise of virtualization and meet internal expectations for always-available, easily accessible data. Most of those attempts were variations on traditional back-up methods with virtualized Band-Aids on top.
Today, we know that the key to success in protecting data in these environments does not lie in tweaking traditional backup methods to fit virtualized enterprises. Rather, the foundation of the solution starts with storage.
vSphere is the platform which can host a self-sufficient Virtual Data Center, complete with Backup and Recovery, and DR... Maybe it is not quite there yet, but that is probably what VMware would like to achieve. And in my opinion, it is certainly heading towards the right direction, more so than other Server Virtualization solutions. To that end, VMware has done a very good job with their partner ecosystem, and 3rd party vendors are now constantly designing and developing solutions to complement vSphere's own built-in features.
Looking for a DR solution for you VMware environments? I can comfortably say that VMware has developed one of the best DR automation tools I’ve ever seen. It’s intuitive, comprehensive, and allows you to execute DR plans efficiently, and DR tests and rehearsals with no disruption to your production environment. vCenter Site Recovery Manager - we’ll use the abbreviation SRM for this post, not to be confused with Storage Resource Management – leverages the storage infrastructure to replicate data between the primary and DR sites. This integration allows for a full execution of DR processes and a seamless operational failover. In the labs you’ll learn how to set up you SRM environment, execute a DR test, trouble shoot and resolve issues that you may encounter. How to find them? Here they are: ALT3001, LAB11, and LAB12. You can also see the schedule at FalconStor @ VMworld 2010 website.
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