http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/073108-linux-cio.html
CIO Reality Check: Linux and Virtualization
In a new series, “CIO Reality Check,” we’re talking to CIOs about today’s most important IT decisions. We set out to find and speak to CIOs from a variety of industries to gain their perspective on the topic of Linux and open source virtualization.
By Jim Romeo, LinuxWorld.com, 07/31/08
We spoke to Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center –a hospital located in Dothan, Alabama; Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture – a manufacturer or high-end outdoor furniture located in Irvine, California; Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solution – a managed hosting and managed services firm located in Herndon, Virginia; Keith Parnell, CIO of Stratum Marketing - a marketing communications agency in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Here’s how our conversation went:
LinuxWorld.com: Do you think of virtualization as a “product” or a “feature”? How seriously are you looking at KVM and Hyper-V?
Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center: Interesting question, because I feel like virtualization is currently transitioning from product to feature as we speak. As long time VMware customers, while we do keep abreast of alternatives, we’re not looking too seriously at any.
Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture: Mainly as a product. Not considering KVM or Hyper-V, as they are early in product life at enterprise level and are not clearly defined as to differentiation with VM products we now use. We use so much of it right now - the pre-Hyper V virtual machines and appliances - that I haven’t seen enough in there to justify us moving in that direction.
Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solutions: Definitely a product. Even though virtual services are purely logical, the set of requirements and outcomes from setting up virtual environments is very physical. Virtualization should be considered as a standalone product and not a feature with another operating system. Those systems created by a virtual product run and produce the same results as a physical server.
Keith Parnell, CIO, Stratum Marketing: To our needs, hardware virtualization is a product. Virtualization will become as much an OEM-produced product as single-partition hardware in days past. Considering virtualization as a feature from a small business standpoint, rings of extra or excess costs against limited budgets. Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology launch has been on our radar for quite a few months. Lower overall costs for hardware purchases, server maintenance and system management could open doors we’ve not been allowed to factor into our current budgeting.We currently run side-by-side systems with almost identical hardware configurations to accommodate Windows-based web services and applications and separately Linux-based web services and applications. Hyper-V will bring scalability and expandability to the forefront within our small enterprise that before we were not able to afford.
LinuxWorld.com: Are you using virtualization to consolidate the same server images you have had in the past, or to add new capabilities?
Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center: Some of both, I think. While we continually look to consolidate existing workloads, the ease and flexibility of deploying virtualized servers makes us more willing to add applications for our end users that would have cost much more in the past.
Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture: Yes - Both. We started using virtualization with that in mind.
Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solutions: We use virtualization to do testing and training. Almost all of our production requirements exceed what a single server can produce so adding the virtualization overhead to any of those functions would not make business sense.
Keith Parnell, CIO, Stratum Marketing: Our current plan is to implement Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology with our next cycle of replacement purchases. Consolidation efficiencies on the X64 platform will allow us explore the possibilities of expansive load balancing that we, as a small business, could not previously justify. Our software engineers will have the ability to take advantage of the virtualization platform, as will the systems administrators in that sharing of disks and resources will encourage not-before-seen efficiencies.
LinuxWorld.com: What applications and workloads do you plan to leave on their own physical hardware?
Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center: We don’t specifically target any workloads to remain on dedicated physical hardware. Really, it’s more of an ISV support question…will the ISV support the application in a virtual environment, and if not, how comfortable are we that we can support it in-house?
Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture: Apps that require very specific hardware access or that are not supported for virtualization. We are going to live applications that are processor intensive and input/output intensive. Having database application will be left on their own hardware. An application that requires its own hardware that wouldn’t be served well in a virtual environment is something that should be considered.
Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solutions: Generally, we use dedicated services (such as managed firewall and security, intrusion detection, web, database, and remote server management) for all of our customer servers due to the size of traffic they generate. Virtualization does not make sense in these environments due to the overhead.
Keith Parnell, CIO, Stratum Marketing: We have custom-developed several processor and RAM intensive system applications that could possibly cause resource issues at the budget level we would invest in. For this reason these applications would require us to segregate them as independent from our virtualization platform. Thus providing the applications the affordable resources they require. Don’t misunderstand our assessment. We are not insinuating that the virtualization platform could not handle our requirements. We are making a decision that our budgets will not allow us to identify and analyze risk assessment tests with the possibility that our test platforms could not fully and efficiently perform. This is the decision-making environment of the small business CIO. R&D is not a commonly affordable luxury.
LinuxWorld.com: If an ISV supports a software product on Platform X, and you run virtual Platform X on Platform Y, do you still get the same level of support? Are any ISVs making you replicate bugs on physical hardware?
Clyde Williams, Infrastructure Systems Manager for Southeast Alabama Medical Center: No, you do not get the same level of support, but it is definitely getting better over time. Where just 3 years ago, an ISV would explicitly deny support if it was discovered that the application was running virtual. Now, most ISV’s are willing to help support and troubleshoot apps on a virtual server, but typically won’t escalate the problem as high as if the app were running on dedicated hardware. Yes, I have had to replicate bugs to physical hardware on several occasions…in every one of the instances, the problem was with the application itself, not the fact that it was running on a virtual server.
Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture: Support levels vary based on vendor knowledge of platforms. If they know the platform and have made it work then support is the same, if not, then no. No on 2nd part.
Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solutions: Generally, ISVs do not care that the product is virtual or not. They only care what the underlying operating system is and how it interacts with the product.
Keith Parnell, CIO, Stratum Marketing: Since we are not currently running hardware virtualization I can only speculate on the reactions to this type of issue from the software vendors. But I do have strong thoughts before venturing down that path. When we purchase and install software that is guaranteed to function properly on a specified “traditional” platform, we expect the software to perform as warranted. As hardware virtualization (such as Hyper-V) becomes more mainstream we also expect the software vendors to accommodate the changes in technology. I can foresee making spec purchases for software against Platform X running on Platform Y. Therefore the software vendors will be responsible for testing their products on the “new” warranted virtualization platform combinations.
LinuxWorld.com: What are the vendor and open source scenes pushing that you don’t want? What aren’t they pushing that you do want?
Walt Cornelison, Director of Information Technology for Tropitone Furniture: Vendors seem to be pushing Hyper-V without clearly defining it related to existing products. Also pushing products that may not be ready for production environments. We want products that are stable and not environment disruptive
Jason Ford, CTO of BlackMesh Hosting and Solutions: While there are many solutions available, currently all our virtualization needs are fulfilled.
Keith Parnell, CIO, Stratum Marketing: Virtualization. Period. Virtualization can bring many great efficiencies to the small business. In my honest opinion, virtualization is not pushed enough. And until virtualization becomes mainstream we will not see these efficiencies produce themselves as major budget influencers. Virtualization technologies, both Hyper-V and KVM, should be on the tip of every conversation around scalable network architecture and deployments.
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/073108-linux-cio.html
