When I read the eWeek article entitled, “How to Manage Capacity in Virtualized Environments” I finished wanting more. Actually, I finished realizing TeamQuest already has more to offer. 

Explaining the ITIL definition of Capacity Management is great, but how about expanding a bit further and drilling down into the details – from a Capacity Management perspective. Since the author, Rob Smoot, is a Group Product Marketing Manager at VMware, let’s focus on VMware.

TeamQuest offers scalable, agentless performance data collection for both VMware ESX and ESXi hypervisors and:

• vSphere 4
• AIX PowerVM, including LPARs and WPARs
• Solaris Containers, Zones, and LDOMs. 

TeamQuest Model, one tool in our suite, can predict performance in advance, help to optimize services and avoid costly bottlenecks altogether. We can find the least-expensive, best-performing configurations for P2V consolidation, ensuring that service levels will be met. IT managers can quickly determine the best way to allocate resources to VMware guests. And unlike other tools, TeamQuest Model understands response times inside virtual machines.

Take a look at a previous blog post entitled, “It’s CRAZY to Run Just One App Per Virtual Server.” Ron Potter, TeamQuest’s Manager of Best Practices outlines the benefits of running multiple applications on a virtual machine and the planning needed to ensure you have the right configuration for the right situation. In fact, Potter takes this a step further in his white paper, “Grab More Post-virtualization Savings.”

Also, check out the press release on TeamQuest’s VMware capabilities, or our website on managing a virtual environment, or for some real nitty gritty details, see our white paper entitled, “Managing a Virtual Computing Environment – How TeamQuest Supports VMware’s Virtual Machines.”

Remember virtualization is not a cure-all. Capacity Management improves your virtualization tools. It’s a discipline that, when used with the right tools, allows you to get the most from your virtualization efforts.

If you would like to further the discussion on how to truly manage capacity in virtualized environments, don’t hesitate to contact us directly or leave a comment below. We look forward to hearing from you!

Many organizations operate IT in firefighting mode, reacting to performance incidents when they occur. It is surprisingly less often that organizations perform capacity planning up front, though that would ensure that systems will provide necessary service levels without interruption. Being reactive is more expensive, but nonetheless, more common than being proactive. Maybe it’s human nature. It seems that few organizations possess the maturity to see the value of formally addressing capacity issues in an organized manner.

Maybe that’s changing.

A recent Network World article, “10 best IT jobs right now,” predicts that “Capacity Manager” will be an up and coming job title in 2010. In the article Denise Dubie suggests that tough economic conditions combined with added complexity from virtualization should help influence companies to pay more attention to capacity planning. Evelyn Hubbert of Forrester and Cameron Haight of Gartner are both quoted as emphasizing the strategic importance of capacity management for organizations seeking to maximize the value provided to a business by its IT organization.

At TeamQuest we’ve got tools for both proactive and reactive performance management, but we always try to influence customers to take a more proactive, service point of view. We suggest that the organizations with the highest level of capacity management maturity analyze IT capacity in terms of the business value that it can bring to an organization. (See the recent post here on the TeamQuest Capacity Management Maturity Model).

Demands for more services are increasing and high performance and reliability are expected, yet budgets, labor and floor space are all being constrained. I guess nobody said running a data center was easy.

The need for increased efficiency and reliability points to capacity management processes. And like anything else, you have to crawl before you walk, but the value of capacity management practices is there. So what’s it take to adopt more mature processes?

TeamQuest has released our Capacity Management Maturity Model that identifies different levels of IT management competency.

 

Following the lead of Gartner’s IT Management Process Maturity Model, we’ve drilled down even further to highlight the levels of Capacity Management maturity specifically.

After all, moving to mature Capacity Management tools and processes lowers costs, improves service quality and increases IT productivity since staff can focus on the most important duties rather than fight fires.

Take a look at our latest white paper entitled, Introducing a Capacity Management Maturity Model. Let us know what you think! Post your comments below.

Many organizations have saved both time and money by converting underutilized physical servers into virtual machines and consolidating those machines onto fewer physical servers. IT folks are understandably proud of what they’ve done at that point. But if you stop there, you might be leaving money on the table. There can be plenty of additional savings to be had by consolidating virtual machines, hosting multiple applications on some of your virtual machine instances.

How can that save me money?

I recently spoke with Ron Potter, TeamQuest’s Manager of Best Practices. Ron says there are two common avenues organizations can follow to exploit virtualization. The first is one primarily motivated by cost and environmental savings. The second is one of dynamic routing of transactions and images to provide massively scalable operating environments. If your motivator is primarily cost savings and you aren’t pursuing the massively scalable environments using tools such as VMware DRS, then Ron is a proponent for consolidating virtual machine instances, i.e. running more than one app per virtual machine.

Virtual machines need administrators too. Whatever your virtual machine-to-sys admin ratio is, eliminating some of those machines will save you some admin time. That’s time that would otherwise be spent monitoring, maintaining, securing, backing up, and tuning all of those virtual machines. The fewer machine instances you have to manage, whether they are virtual or physical, the less admin time and effort will be required.

Reducing the number of virtual machine instances usually reduces operating system overhead, which will in turn cut demand for physical hardware requirements. Reducing hardware infrastructure will help trim space, power and cooling requirements too.

Ron says not to forget about software license costs. Depending on the OS you are running, you’ll have to pay for each instance, not to mention the inevitable middleware and management software that is required for each virtual machine instance. Depending on the terms of your application software license agreements, there can be big savings there as well. Generally speaking, running software on fewer operating system images will simplify and reduce license costs.

What should I watch out for?

If you have the performance tools necessary to properly plan and monitor your virtualized environment, there’s no technical reason you can’t begin a wave of virtual consolidation after your initial P2V wave of consolidation. You might, however, run into some politics. Your virtualization vendor has likely sold folks on the idea that there should be just one app per virtual machine. You’ll need a plan that can convince everyone that running more than one will still perform while saving money.

You might also see resistance from business units unwilling to share a virtual machine instance with apps from other business units. That issue is probably best settled by working with management. You might need some new chargeback functionality to keep everyone happy.

How do I make it happen?

Create a plan with goals and metrics for success, such as the number of servers decommissioned, software license reductions, or overall cost savings. Make note of service level requirements coming from the customers, departments or business units you are serving.

• Survey your virtualized environment. Take inventory of your virtual machines and the apps running on them. Measure how they are performing now.
• Select candidates for consolidation. Ron has a long list of things to watch for, but suffice it to say you want to look for apps you feel will be complementary rather than competitive when asked to coexist on the same virtual machine instance.
• Run an analytic model to predict how the consolidated environment will actually perform. Will service levels be met? If not, try different configurations or different combinations of apps. The key to fast work here is a fast tool for making accurate predictions.
• Actually commission the consolidation work to take place.
• Monitor the results. Report your success to management!

Get Real

Basically our best practices manager is saying that a lot of the same techniques you used to consolidate physical-to-virtual will work virtual-to-virtual. And you’ll get similar results: savings in hardware, software, space, power, cooling, and system administration requirements.

Ron’s ideas sound like common sense to me, and yet they run contrary to the advice that you may have heard from other vendors. I think it’s because Ron is seeing it more from the point of view of a business manager rather than as a vendor of virtualization technology.

For more detail, be sure to check out Ron’s white paper on this subject, and by all means, add your comments and observations to this blog entry.

 

Yes, I admit it. At one time in my career I was an adrenaline junkie. As a mainframe systems programmer, I lived for those 2 a.m. calls to rush back into work to fix a production problem. In those days if it wasn’t nightly batch issues, it was getting the online system back up quickly after it crashed in the middle of the day. The operating environment was complex and the mental stimulus was highly satisfying. Being the hero got us a lot of recognition. And we all enjoy being heroes of the moment, especially in IT where being a hero boosted your compensation. Life was good.

Then I tried management on for size. I had direct contact with the business unit leaders. What an eye-opener!  Although they appreciated and generously compensated us for all our heroic efforts to keep things running, they were also asking questions about why all these service interruptions and late report deliveries couldn’t be prevented. The business people analyzed and fixed problems proactively on the business side so why couldn’t IT do the same. Some even suggested that we should be wearing colorful wigs, make-up, shiny red noses, polka-dotted suits and floppy shoes. It was then I realized that although we were getting gratification by attacking and solving complex problems, the value of our reactive culture to the business was low.

The company I worked for at the time embarked on an ITIL journey. I was privileged to be part of the planning and implementation phases (feeling “privileged” now, not at that time). Capacity Management was the first process to be implemented. Boy, what a difference!  Within a year or so, many of our production problems had been mitigated. We had time on our hands. We were invited to participate with Enterprise Architecture teams. We found a whole new world out there. We were looking at new technologies and figuring out if and how they could benefit the business, taking it to new heights. It was more interesting work than scurrying around trying to fix problems. Now when I look back, I wonder how I got so caught up in the reactive thing when there are so many more meaningful things I could do to support my business.

Perhaps it’s time for you to turn in your “adrenaline junkie” hat for a “technology planner” hat.

Until the next time…

Ron

In a poll of IT professionals at the TeamQuest Technology Summit, 85 percent said they were either reactive or more inclined to be reactive in their IT environment.

Maybe it’s the nature of the beast. IT is under demand to produce “more with less” and deliver always-on services. Marketing has a great idea and wants to run a campaign. Are we sitting at the table when marketing pitches a resource-taxing promotion on the company’s infrastructure? Do we allow ourselves enough time to test? Are we given enough time to plan for the campaign?

Some say you can’t sell prevention. But you can sell success. By proving that IT must be part of the strategic leadership on revenue-generating items, the company should have fewer hiccups, decreased headaches and more opportunities to capture revenue.

We’re all after the same thing – success for the company and happy customers. IT, by being ready (i.e., proactive), can help improve a company’s chances by using proper processes to improve revenue-generating and customer-facing opportunities.

For those of you who have had success at being proactive, how do you do it? What needs to happen to move toward being more proactive? Is it better software, processes, or people? Is it a combination?

We want to hear from you.

Craig

We Capacity Planning managers expect and receive information from wide audiences within our organizations. These people have busy schedules just like us.  One best practice I have observed over the years is the use of common courtesy.  When someone, especially in the business area, gives me information that I need to complete a piece of work, I make it a point to thank them.  I let them know I appreciate them taking the time from their busy schedule to get this for me.   

What I have found over the years is that the next time I approach that individual with an information request; I get a much warmer and more cooperative response. Many times those people provide additional information that helps provide more accurate predictions of the future.   

A simple “Thank You!” helps strengthen business relationships and makes it easier to get the information we need to be successful; both personally and organizationally.

Try it.  I think you will be pleased with the results.

Until the next time…

Ron

Just about everyone has access to a dictionary these days. Just because you bought one and put it on your shelf doesn’t mean you have to read every definition and use every word in the book. That’s time consuming and provides limited value. My apologies if you’re a lexicographer.

I’ve read the ITIL tomes – versions 1 through 3 – and while they provide value, I don’t believe that every person in the organization should read them from cover to cover. Just like a dictionary, you should use what’s best for your situation.

ITSO and ITIL are comprehensive sets of processes and best practices. Since every IT shop is different, they have different needs. Since IT professionals have their strengths and weaknesses, the best action is to winnow through the best practices and select the disciplines that fit your circumstances, and provide measureable and meaningful value.

If one of your organization’s shortcomings is in the Capacity Management or IT Service Management arena, I urge you to take a look at TeamQuest IT Service Optimization (ITSO). Just like a dictionary, there may be components of the framework that can provide immediate value.

In these tough business times, every little step you take to improve service quality and reduce costs is important to your organization’s survival. Find out more – ITSO. 

Remember, ITSO and ITIL are frameworks. They are collections of processes and best practices. It’s up to you to determine which components provide value to your organization and then implement them; fill in the blanks in the framework.

By the way, I found some words in my dictionary that best describe this process - “flexibility” and “customization.”

I’m putting my dictionary back on the shelf for now.

Until the next time…

Best Regards,

Ron

While doing my holiday shopping, I encountered less-than-stellar service at a number of businesses. It reminded me of an old business adage about the need to provide better service than the competition. The trap here is that the competition may be delivering extremely poor services so you can slightly raise the bar and perhaps gain an increase in sales – albeit short-term. However this will do little to endear you to your customers or build loyalty.

Competition will continue to raise the bar so your gains will be short-lived and those lost customers will remember you, and probably not in a good light. Best practices tell us that we should provide the best service we can and still make a profit.  

From personal experience, I will pay somewhat more for an item if it comes with good customer service.  For example, I will shop at my local hardware store (in a town of 1,600 people) for many items rather than go to one of the big box stores. The local people know me on a first name basis and offer better advice even though the items cost 15-20% more.  And I don’t need to wander around the store trying to find someone to help me.  

Providing quality IT services is no different. Because of the high rate of change, we throw applications out into production but rarely revisit their performance until someone complains. 

If we just take a little extra time to review applications and services, we can probably find ways to tune them, improving performance with minimal effort. I have seen the results of some of these tuning efforts. Just spending an hour or two to add or change a database index can substantially reduce response times and resource usage – in many cases by as much as 80 or 90%.  Definitely a win-win situation – a little work brings good return and frees up existing resources, delaying costly upgrades. 

The individual saves may look inconsequential (e.g., transaction response dropping by one or two seconds), however when you consider that tens of thousands of transactions are performed each day, week or month, those savings can really add up.  

Faced with the economic downturn, maybe a little time spent tuning your applications and services will reap great rewards.  Our tools can help you accomplish the work easily and quickly.  Besides, these days providing better service without adding additional equipment might be the deciding factor if your business users need to choose between you or an outsourcer.

Until the next time,

Ron 

The afternoon sessions were as enlightening as this morning. John Phelps had a great presentation on Green IT. He started out with the statement that companies were not doing Green IT for environmental reasons, but for cost savings and the environment benefited from the work. My colleague agrees. He went extensively into the topic, including pointing out reasons why Green IT is more than power and cooling savings. He finished discussing using alternate energy sources and predicted future trends in the space. McKinsley Quarterly published an article on this subject too.

The last presentation of the day was Cameron Haight’s “Managing the Virtual Server Environment.” Cameron covered the gamut of management considerations – too many to cover in this blog. He states that virtualization has changed the operations landscape probably more radically than at any other time in IT history, pointing out the benefits of virtual environments and the detractions. Server sprawl is the number one issue for people implementing virtualization and Haight covered options and considerations to control it.

He covered the need for chargeback and the difficulties in implementing and sustaining it. If you have time, watch this chargeback video and tell me what you think.

Cameron closed with staffing considerations, saying benefits will vary widely depending on complexity and individual configurations. He pointed out that 55% of those polled said there was no change in Server per IT Staffing ratios after implementing virtualization. He presumed some of the reasons are that although some admin tasks were greatly reduced, such as provisioning, the complexity of the environment drove greatly elongated root cause analysis times, resulting in no staffing ratio benefits.

 Tomorrow is another day and more reports will be forthcoming. 

Until tomorrow. 

Ron