Virtualization - eWeek

Virtualization: 10 Things You Should Know Before VMs Take Over Your Data Center


The tech equivalent of urban sprawl is virtual machine sprawl. As cloud computing begins to get a real, day-to-day foothold in enterprise IT systems, ad hoc cloud services are being deployed more and more frequently for short-term results. Many times these are used by employees without company sanction to get a short-term result, and the services are kept around longer than is necessary. Without a comprehensive strategy or formal program in place and without anyone having a handle on what exactly is going on or where corporate data resides, this can lead to big problems. In this slide show, Accenture's Chief Technology Architect, Paul Daugherty, shows how this sprawl takes root and what a CIO or data center managers can do to ward off these potential problems.
 
  • Don't Let the Cloud Become a Gathering Storm
    The cloud business model creates the potential for delivering lower-cost services, greater IT agility, more flexibility and better user experiences. But an uncontrolled approach to cloud could cause some IT headaches. In fact, many organizations are unaware they face issues because their staffs have started to use the cloud approach for IT provisioning.
  • Proliferation of Renegade Clouds
    It is simple to create and provision cloud services. But here's the issue: Cloud environments start springing up where they shouldn't, violating departmental borders, duplicating services, and operating outside the auspices of the IT shop. By allowing an unmanaged, unstructured approach to cloud computing usage, a new phenomenon emerges—cloud sprawl.
  • Encouraging Sprawl
    The simplicity of cloud computing can encourage sprawl and the inherent risks that come with an unmanaged IT environment. Securing and enabling infrastructure inside enterprises is often a drawn-out process. What's more, traditional IT is up and running around the clock. Cloud services can be turned on and off on demand. So it's not surprising that users are choosing the cloud in response to the fact that internal IT can be too slow, too expensive, and inefficient.
  • Data Everywhere
    With cloud sprawl, there is the potential for enterprise data to end up all over the place, without the strong control or even knowledge of the IT department. Unless IT shops can get a step ahead of this by providing ways for people to utilize cloud computing inside the constructs of their domain, they will end up with unmanaged environments.
  • Cloudy with a Chance of a Logistical Nightmare
    Sprawl negates the efficiency gains cloud generates. Worse, it can change how and where its data is stored. This ad-hoc approach to usage could cause a logistical nightmare for CIOs, especially as they seek to move to new cloud providers themselves.
  • What to Do?
    The worst-case response would be for IT shops to set up special management silos for cloud services. You need and ought to be able to manage external and internal resources seamlessly as if they were inside your own four walls, applying the same rigor that is seen in other areas of IT provision.
  • Don't Beat 'em, Join 'em
    From a business perspective, however, it is very difficult to prevent people from taking advantage of something that's cheaper, faster, and more efficient. The right approach is to try and co-opt services from the cloud providers, to use them as the basis of IT services, to make the internal IT shop just as fast, just as nimble, and just as elastic as any of the cloud providers.
  • Onus on the CIO
    While being rigid and inflexible is a mistake, so is doing things willy nilly without some sort of management control. There needs to be a meeting somewhere in the middle. The onus is on the CIO, who can begin by offering these services right away. CIOs have to provide an ease of consumption that rivals or exceeds that of the cloud providers. Right now, they are not in a position to do this.
  • Cloud-Like Approach
    The end goal is to adopt a more cloud-like approach inside the data center. CIOs shouldn't resist, as there are valuable lessons to be learned from what the cloud providers are doing. They may not have all enterprise capability, but they are doing things that are very interesting and certainly demonstrate the art of the possible.
  • Increase the Value of IT
    It's all about being flexible and nimble and responsive to your customers, characteristics that, in the long run, increase the value of IT. This is all part of the next-generation data center, where the challenge is to monitor and manage the technology infrastructure to enable business productivity improvements and business growth, while simultaneously focusing on reducing costs, improving operational efficiencies, ensuring security and enabling new capabilities.
xڽZ[s۸~~d_nw7ŗXbwIHB ,JVeSjy|8oi&4oAuB>K9lHbc.!KvfzC7o``ƛVYQ|v$UK*7-;RLDL1OwҨxLO^>.B࿎F:|=F#mX021q #yF.#An{R7Yh[((6j{A،LQLDruzH&$fvȿ+|>o~QLg\M<4#9 "L7'f*Ή{'_tt6g4Wln(3сױ1,?ۈnS3aܰ)M)vtZ4ܪwP臑WhNdm\)I;-<><:1)+Vʢ M&x9tKS:f:bLÃnF1>PC ';!{0#p\V5Ra5G\攪1O|؈{G{(a(;}eq+)P0nC-U̥zU\Ɋn'p` Ձ ^2R`-*T հq셜Þݙo&)?>d R_E!*aR= ׼>Iqv* .[1aCuTD,O4͌3Ky W&?׀c:sBrZ)ĺQĴdv-[9Ϛ 7s.9n ٝօrI/ ah~I%_zlgŎvjf]ffSO0[h>\ !I$STؖN ik'?aWyQq& XR?Ó,)uN~t@|@>c/1)rd|>s\MbSH;{$+}7icqD8 +9 (< ^0ZV {7VeLt"dY> "6#h9p\+ɻtqO@"f.[㑙CB0e_.Ն^ovﶍ#+𫄐Х$^Xr:= vA͘wsN%!JfI+knsqeQapS#Z7>g67c 3O#$vjڧDw% vӂֽWˆלWestOuO~)\9c.4ga-q a cp+)=jѤ:>*7p}SUA^8/VK@V ncFјfTT>g_Y#xO3+(XP.u1sgֽ]0? V|țjUxמo4g{l qEig`oiXI%k#׉x`+,B!S]OLmSgNVӪ2讞]BU:m-.U3g`GG*ar;LmTkqء9j[Xo2cQ JvV_ܔ&˼C]`I`z#p7PD'RMApuPy#y&յy8$Pc.kEb oDz j*cnW~#Z3H䈘 M؞(.D-bt7")th8ɗn &5 ;όF)xp98R.'2]([yw~ޑZuU )RX^c݆̪f;OY*@Λ5`(3<>яv&NXyB)@ SPpxdMADfTaz8ak`9 &*nZS4,PB qٓu"fˆI^KerDdTF-V% yD&'.mϹZ4%f5!jC΅knVuoP7`Tcy^d `. )3_Qg dw %+7L>x G?>HA W{1q;b!+lGrČaUjDOaXnI hNjqE,~BA{S(Ж 3:E !hw==]},w<5Daهy:5wht;iG^xGwpґZ-h%fnHb,