Planning server virtualization should consider the top ten issues

Server virtualization is becoming more and more popular, and everyone seems to be willing to virtualize their data centers, although the benefits of server virtualization are not controversial, but before you start virtualizing your server, you have to have some problems. well considered.

1. Does the virtualization plan have a single point of failure?

I recently worked as a virtualization consultant for a company that virtualized all servers. The problem is that they put the virtualized domain controller server on a physical host. If this host Downtime, servers and desktops in the entire domain will be severely affected, so when planning server virtualization, you should avoid single points of failure so that there are no potentially catastrophic incidents.

2. Does all applications support virtualized environments?

Believe it or not, some of the more common applications do not support virtual servers. For example, some versions of Exchange Server can only run on physical servers, and other versions only support running on specific virtualization platforms. Before you start virtualizing your server, you should check to see if your application can run in a virtualized environment.

3. Is there a server that is not suitable for virtualization?

Some servers may not be suitable for virtualization. For those applications that run resource-intensive applications or require special hardware, for example, some enterprise applications implement copyright protection through dongle programs, but The dongle rarely supports virtualized environments.

4. How to place the domain controller?

As I mentioned earlier, never put a domain controller on a physical host. When planning virtualization, domain controllers need special consideration. You must consider whether you want to have all domain controllers. Virtualization, if all is virtualized, you must consider whether the host server is going to be a domain member, which will create a paradoxical situation like "chicken or egg first", although all virtualization can be implemented normally.

5. What is the most suitable virtualization platform?

There are too many server virtualization products in the market. Each product has its own advantages and disadvantages. It must take time to find the virtualization product that best suits your needs.

6. If the server fails, what is the contingency plan?

Although server failure has never been a good thing, the consequences of server failure in a virtualized environment are even more serious. If the host server fails, the virtual server running on it will be affected, since the host server The catastrophic failure is so strong that you must have a contingency plan to minimize the impact of host server failures.

7. How many clients can I host per host server?

When virtualizing the entire data center, one of the most common mistakes an administrator can make is to load too many clients to the host server, causing the host server to be overloaded, do some capacity planning in advance, and determine each one. The maximum number of clients that can be hosted on the host server is critical, because each client is different, so you need to implement a foothold for each client. One is to avoid overloading the host server, and the other is to To avoid some host servers idling.

8. What changes have been made to the software license?

In a virtualized environment, software licenses are usually a bit different. For example, if you use Hyper-V, you may not need to run the client's Windows operating system to purchase a license, but things are not that simple. Because the licensing methods of different Windows operating systems are somewhat different, you must implement the license requirements for the operating system and applications running on the client.

9, how to use the old server?

Virtualization usually results in a large number of server surpluses. You can use some of the higher-profile servers as host servers, but there are always some servers left, and you should plan for the purpose of those servers.

10, how to deal with the current server cluster?

Although some cluster nodes can be virtualized, you will find that the cluster nodes on the physical server will perform better. If you plan to virtualize your cluster nodes, you must not put all the cluster nodes in the cluster. On a host server, this will result in a single point of failure, which in turn will drastically degrade the performance of the entire cluster.

Server virtualization technology is inherently a huge advantage and potential, but effective planning is the key to the success of server virtualization. Before starting to implement virtualization, please consider the above 10 questions.