Virtual infrastructure has changed the way we work, providing freedom, scale and economy that physical servers can’t compete with. But a common misunderstanding is that virtualization is a “set-it-and-forget-it” technology. You are leaving performance and cost savings on the table if you haven’t actively optimized and monitored the setup.
This guide will cover practical tips to make the most out of your virtual infrastructure. We’re addressing cautious planning, resource controls, proactive monitoring, and more, helping make sure your virtualized environment is more than capable of satisfying your business requirements. We’ll also cover how solutions like vRealize Infrastructure Navigator can be beneficial through the process.
In the end, you will have the tools and insights to unlock the full potential of your infrastructure.
Planning and Configuration
Good planning and design are the key to a successful virtual estate. By skipping this step, you’re asking for all sorts of inefficiencies and performance white-knuckles.
Don’t Treat VMs Like Physical Servers
The Most Common Mistake is that issue that’s often afflicting IT teams is that they apply the same physical server capacity planning practices to VMs. Virtualization provides resource elasticity, but using legacy techniques can lead to over or under-provisioning. For example, over-provisioning your VMs with CPUs or memory that is not being used lets valuable resources go to waste.
Look at your app-specific utilization trends, not peak capacity. Better bear utilization may allow for better loads and better performance without impact on workloads.
Monitoring and Analysis
Proactive Virtual Environment Management is vital for keeping your virtual world healthy and responsive to new business requirements.
Keep an Eye on Utilization Trends
So what I think we need to watch is the trend lines on how your servers and applications consume resources over the course of time. Keep track of your CPU, memory and storage usage over time and solve inefficiencies before they become a problem.
Tools such as vRealize Infrastructure Navigator give you deep visibility into your infrastructure. They give you the insight into what your dependencies, resource usage and performance trends are like through applications, making you more intelligent about your decision making.
Proactive Capacity Monitoring
It isn’t a box to be checked once and forgotten. Under new regulatory standards, however, you are required to periodically review your infrastructure to ensure that resources are used efficiently. Proactive control decreases the risks of overcommitment and prevents unstable performance for end-users. It also schedules the retiring VM resources to be reclaimed as soon as decommissioned VMs are no longer utilized.
Resource Management
Efficient resource management is essential for improving performance of virtual infrastructures. Here’s how you can get the mix right.
Reclaim Resources from Decommissioned VMs
One of the biggest sources of waste in virtual infrastructure is leaving unused VMs in place or not recycling their resources. Continuously scan your environment and remove virutal machines that are no longer in use, giving up resources for other workloads.
Leverage Container Technology
Virtualization gets a big boost from containers. Unlike VMs, containers have a shared operating system so that you can run multiple isolated applications in a single VM. That goes a long way towards minimizing the cost of running many VMs and making the most out of the resources in general.
For instance, they are great for old applications with odd OS expectations and requirements. Utilize tools such as Kubernetes, Docker, etc., to effectively manage containerized workloads and reduce your infrastructure.
Training and Tools
The best roads in the world will not work well without a knowledgeable team and the right tools.
Train Your Team
Even if they do less in the way of hardware management, your IT crew needs to know how to manage a virtualized environment. Best practices, troubleshooting tips, emerging technologies, and hands-on exercises all help keep your team actively engaged in diagnosing and resolving issues before they affect the end customer.
Equip Your Team with the Right Tools
Advanced technology improves visibility and efficiency. Several virtualization systems include their own control and monitoring dashboards. Solutions like VMware vRealize Suite offer full-featured reports and alerts, allowing your IT team to recognize trends in performance and resolve issues before they become problematic.
Infector Virus Alert
For remember, threats like Infector Virus (it infects the .exe and .dll files) could expose virtual environments to threats. Be vigilant against these threats and ensure your virtual infrastructure has strong cybersecurity defenses in place.
Finding the Perfect Ratio
One of the more neglected aspects of virtual infrastructure performance tuning is the consolidation ratio. This is the count of virtual machines stored on one physical server.
The “perfect” ratio depends on your organization’s individual needs. Too many VMs on a single server can cause poor performance, while too few can represent a waste of resources. Continue to measure resource usage of your VMs and tweak your hypervisors from time to time for performance without sacrificing stability.
Optimize, Adapt, Excel
Virtual infrastructure is not a one-time solution; it needs continued optimization to reflect the changing demands of your business. The larger your org becomes, the more critical it is to make sure you’re running as efficiently as possible so that you can avoid any waste, downtime, & extra costs. By following the process in this guide, you can maximize resource usage, enhance operational efficiency and get an edge in your industry.
But dealing with the intricacies of virtual infrastructure is far from easy without the necessary tools or skillset. Infrastructure Navigator enables you to use these two things to gain a great deal of insight from your virtual environment – figure out where to optimize, improve scalability, and tell if your infrastructure is a green field and ready for the expected growth. And with proper planning and the right tools, your virtualized environment can become a flexible asset that helps drive your business forward.
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