Eight key considerations for adapting your virtualization strategy

[StorageExperts]

Definitely, it can be challenging to evaluate and choose your virtualization platform. Here are eight top considerations to keep in mind.

–  By Diego Delgado, Technologist at HPE’s Advanced Technology Center

Back in the day, I was sitting at my desk at work when my manager came out of his office and said to a coworker and me, “We’re becoming a VMware distributor. You are both my main presales folks, and you need to get certified.” The next thing I knew, I was attending a VMware: Install, Configure, and Manage class with the goal of obtaining my first virtualization certification. A lot has happened since then, and the virtualization landscape has changed significantly. However, one thing remains true: virtualization is still the primary architecture for deploying enterprise applications everywhere.

Creating a virtual machine seemed like magic back then, and adoption took its time. But nowadays, not only are various choices for different hypervisors on the market, but also a plethora of features and tools surrounding them. Choosing the right option for a corporate data center can be challenging, especially when IT used to “just know” what the right choice was.

So, what should you consider when choosing the right virtualization solution for your needs?

I’ve seen customers take these eight considerations into account when planning their own data centers. You might find them useful in your evaluation of virtualization solutions.

1. Stability and reliability – You want your business to be dependable, and for that to happen, your IT platform needs to be reliable. Reliability starts at the hypervisor level. If your hypervisor is stable, you can trust it to schedule and distribute your compute resources evenly across your virtual machines.
2. High availability – Failures happen. When they do, you need your workloads to survive, which is where high availability comes into play. What happens when a couple of power supplies fail or when a server simply gives up? Your virtualization stack should be able to recover and restart the virtual machines automatically as quickly as possible. Sometimes, multiple failures occur simultaneously, and you should always consider how tolerant your environment is to such failures.
3. Flexibility – It’s easy to get lost in the latest trends. More and more offerings out there claim simplicity but sacrifice flexibility, killing resiliency in the process. You need to be able to design your platform according to your needs rather than adapting your needs to a specific architecture. When choosing the right virtualization platform, you should be able to plan for single or multiple failures based on your business's tolerance. And don’t get me started on planning for growth...
4. Ease of scaling – (OK, I told you not to get me started.) Adding capacity to your platform should be seamless, and you should be able to grow constrained resources only. Need more storage capacity? Fine, add more disks. Need more compute power? Great, add a server. Of course, inflexible market options force you to acquire a large number of disks just to grow by a few tebibytes or to buy additional servers and their licenses for the same purpose. (Yes, I’m a tech guy, not a marketing guy!)
5. Management features – Sure, you could manage your hypervisors one by one, but this approach becomes unsustainable as the number of virtual machines grows. When choosing a virtualization solution, consider the management capabilities it offers and the scale at which you can manage your infrastructure. It's not just about having the biggest clusters; it’s about how many clusters you can manage effectively.
6. Orchestration and automation – As your infrastructure grows, so does your need to automate some cumbersome or repetitive tasks to save time and avoid mistakes. It’s important to choose a virtualization management solution that helps you by pre-creating and triggering automation workflows, simplifying your day-to-day tasks.
7. Data protection – Things go wrong. Someone might accidentally (or not so accidentally) delete your data. For this very reason, having a solution that delivers reliable backups and fast restores affordably with tight integration with third party backup software is critical so you should always consider what data protection solutions are available in the market before choosing your virtualization platform.
8. Enterprise support – Your virtualization platform is the foundation of your business. While there are many solutions you could download and deploy, having support from a trusted partner is critical. This ensures you maximize the solution’s potential and receive help when issues arise.

As you can see, you’ll want to take into account many considerations when evaluating and deciding on a virtualization platform. It can be daunting to choose the right solution, especially when the answer seemed clear for most IT departments until now.

Adapting your virtualization strategy

At HPE, we have the experience to help you decide on the right platform for your needs. We also offer the most comprehensive portfolio of virtualization solutions in the industry – solutions that provide the right mix of hardware, software, and services to help you achieve your financial and operational goals.

The recent announcement of HPE VM Essentials software puts us in a unique position to offer differentiated solutions that address your specific challenges around virtualization and operations management. We’re ready to help you re-platform to the HPE VME hypervisor, manage existing virtualized workloads, and enjoy a seamless VM-vending experience.

Learn more about HPE Virtualization solutions.

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Meet HPE blogger Diego Delgado, Technologist at HPE’s Advanced Technology Center

Diego has a strong background in IT architecture. He has focused on virtualization solutions for most of his career, and is always pushing forward to help customers succeed from a strategic standpoint. Connect with Diego on LinkedIn.

Storage Experts
Hewlett Packard Enterprise

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