You must have heard much about the hype around Virtualization. I am so dead sure. Just earlier this year in Feb 08, a member of our community used virtualization, while in beta, and got positive about it. The way forward for Kit Kai was clear, go virtualized. Read about his adventure here in this previous post. Kit Kai’s Project was also highlighted in Edge.Microsoft.Com.
Today, i want to introduce another member, Bernard Lai. He isn’t a new member to the community. In fact, this would be his second project in the IT Pro Momentum, aka {Insiders} TSP in local context. Bernard works for O2Micro as an IT Manager. As an IT Manager, he needs to meet the business process needs with IT infrastructure that is cost effective, and good Returns of Investments. In the past months, he’s been working on virtualizing his computing environment.
He started off with Server Virtualization. I’ll spare all the technical details of the implementation. If you are interested to get in touch with Bernard to learn more, let me know. Bernard participates in IT Pro Momentum, and through the program, he learns and implemented SCVMM.
The Project
Totally convinced of Microsoft’s virtualization strategy, Bernard commenced on a project which involves 8 Windows 2008 Hyper-v Hosts, distributed over geographical locations. The focus of the project was to replace a current fleet of aging hardware. At the same time, he used SCVMM to manage another 12 Virtual Server 2005 Hosts. In his global environment, he has a total of about 70 Virtual Machines serving O2Micro. His company has presence in Taiwan, China, Singapore, USA and Malaysia.
With about 70 virtual machines running in the infrastructure, powered by 20 physical hosts, Bernard certainly knows how to save money for his company in times of this financial situation in the economy. By virtualization, you save tons of money with virtualization.
Managing Virtual Machines
O2Micro has presence in 5 countries. Enabling an agile computing infrastructure on a global basis and providing the support and management for this company can be a challenge. Both Virtual Server 2005 and Windows 2008 Hyper-V provide excellent individual box management. Though you can use the tool to remotely connect to a remote machine and manage it, you simply start losing track of which VM is in which host. Unless you have very good documentation, you ain’t going to be very convinced that management of virtual machines can be very simple.
Bernard implemented System Center Virtual Machine Manager, aka SCVMM. SCVMM allows you to have a single view in entirety of your infrastructure. It can give you a host view, and it can give you a virtual machines view and allows you to manage any virtual machines in the infrastructure from that single console.
Migrating: P2V and V2V
By harnessing the agility of virtualization, you are able to easily move virtual machines around easily in the infrastructure. After you started using and initially deploying it, you will realize that it is super flexible. With SCVMM, you can convert a physical server into a virtual machine. You can also migrate from one host to another host for various reasons. Best of all, you can use SCVMM to manage your VMWare infrastructure if you have one.
And if you so decide not to use VMWare, SCVMM can also help you migrate from VMWare to Hyper-V. And there you go, P2V (Physical to Virtual) and V2V (Virtual to Virtual).
Costs Savings
In Bernard’s project, he managed to save lost of money, in both hardware costs, and licensing costs. Instead of purchasing 70 sets of hardware, he got away with just using 20 sets of hardware. Immediately, you would have save on hardware costs. In licensing, Windows Server 2008 Enterprise allows you to run up to 4 VMs on the host without having to pay extra licensing costs. If you’re using Windows 2008 Data Center Edition, you can run unlimited number of virtual machines.
Why Hyper-V?
Available today is VMWare and Hyper-V as the major choices for server virtualization. Microsoft has a fully strategy from Datacenter to the Desktop, a strategy in entirety. It becomes a simple choice. Hyper-V is the way to go. Hyper-V is also a much more cost effective model. Driving costs down is in every IT Manager’s top of mind. Lastly, dealing with 1 vendor is so much better than dealing with two.
Management in Totality
Instead of having different solutions (VMware and Microsoft), O2Micro has chosen to stick to Microsoft. The natural choice was System Center virtual machine manager. Since O2Micro already has licenses for System Center Tools and are using it, SCVMM adds another dimension to the management solution. You can manage both physical and virtual environments and combine the capabilities of the system center tools to help fully automate and monitor operations.
Moving Forward
O2Micro will over time, invest in virtualizing their infrastructure and reap the benefits of the savings it brings. Over the next few years, when budget is available, Bernard will look into every opportunity that will help his company save money, improve utilization of the computing resources, provide new capabilities and bring the business advantage Microsoft solutions brings. Truly turning IT in O2Micro, into an asset.
If you like to do what Bernard is also doing, please get in touch with me. i-dchung@microsoft.com. I can help you realize how Microsoft technology can help you transform your IT, from a cost center to a strategic asset in the company.
Here is a post of how much Bernard saved in this project: http://pingdennis.com/virtualization/how-much-money-can-i-save-with-virtualization/
/Dennis
