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Virtualizing your datacenter? Checklist of items to remember!

Congratulations- you are virtualizing your servers and supercharging your datacenter! Virtualization projects can be challenging and full of roadblocks if you don’t take the time to clearly document your requirements, virtualization policies and performance monitoring plans once your deployment is complete. datacenter1

Want to avoid business disruptions, technical issues and escalation calls to your helpdesk?~ Here are some quick notes to help you ensure a smooth transition.~ Just print this list and review it with your extended team.

Datacenter Virtualization - ChecklistYesNoNot sure
Pre-virtualization planning & deployment
Do we have Virtualization Requirement Plans reviewed/approved by all stakeholders (development, IT, business sponsors, etc.) that includes success criteria, constraints and high-level risks?
Do we have a layer 2 topology map in place that documents port-to-port connectivity?
Have we identified under-utilized and over-utilized hardware and servers?

  • Tip: Typically, supplementary servers like DNS, domain controllers (in small or medium size Active Directory environments), DHCP, and file and print servers are great virtualization candidates. Web servers, mail servers, or small database servers can also be very good targets. A good approach is to measure processor utilization, memory utilization, storage, network usage and disk I/O individually on potential virtualization targets for benchmarking
Do we have a Web performance baseline to benchmark and compare once our infrastructure is virtualized?
Who will be updating firmware on all of our hardware prior to the deployment, including switches, storage devices, servers, etc.?

  • Tip: Applications that regularly talk to each other and are on the same subnet can be configured to run on the same host through VMware DRS rules
Who is confirming that processor settings are identical on all host servers (to avoid issues later on when trying to move VMs from one host to another via VMware vMotion)?

  • Tip: Before formatting your vmfs Disk/LUNs, take into consideration how large the drives on your servers will be. Also, don't forget to utilize resource pools especially if you have highly critical systems running with less critical systems
Once virtualization is complete
Do we have a plan to proactively monitor our applications/infrastructure?
Are we going to have one single console to oversee both physical and virtual resources to simplify triage and troubleshooting?

  • Tip: You should start monitoring your infrastructure and applications right away to immediately detect any performance degradation or any other type of problem. Moreover, performance monitoring should be a part of every server virtualization project, BEFORE virtualization takes place - when you have your native servers in place - so that you can create a baseline against which to measure later - AND after to help you ensure that you did your job right.
  • Tip: Key parameters to oversee should include CPU, Interface, Memory, and disk utilization on the VM and host level (monitoring disk utilization on the host level gives you protection against snapshots growing to the limit of your volume).
Do we have compliance and data security policies in place to protect sensitive data that may fall under compliance regulations?
Do we have controls in place to manage our VM creation policies (who can spin off VMs, when, approval processes, etc.) to prevent virtual sprawl?
Have we benchmarked our performance and compared with our initial baseline?
Are we monitoring that Web applications properly display in real browsers?
Are we instrumenting application code to detect potential bottlenecks or underperforming components at a granular level?
Do we need to revise our alerting policies? Do we have the right teams (VMware administrators, system Admin, Web owners, etc.) in our incident response procedures?
Is our website offering consistent response time across geographies? If so , do we have a remediation plan?
Do we have any new expansion plans targeting new regions? Have we checked website performance in those regions?
Have we defined our new reporting structure, templates, distribution list, frequency…?

What would you add to this list? Regardless of where you are, planning a virtualization project, in the midst of a migration or fully running in a virtualized world, Site24x7 has you covered! Only Site24x7 gives you in ONE solution delivered as a service, from the cloud : 1. Proactive Web Performance Monitoring from 50+ worldwide monitoring nodes –so you can oversee your Web applications from your users’ perspective + 2. Complete visibility and control over you back-end infrastructure --across physical, virtual and cloud resources + 3. Deep application code visibility so you can trace end-to-end transactions across all components starting from URLs to SQL queriesCheck it out and sign up for a free trial. Good luck in your virtualization journey!

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