EricSiebert, a virtualization expert, covered various virtualization deployment processes in his article "Virtualization Deployment: Assessment and Planning Stage". Next, I will expand and describe every step he described, and at the same time add some extra considerations and questions that need to be clarified.
-Create a virtual environment. In this step, install the server, load the selected virtualization management program (such as ESXServer or Hyper-V), install the central management platform (SCVMM of Microsoft or vCenter of VMware), and finally add the virtual host to the management platform.
-Configure the virtual environment. In this step, configure the static IP address of the server, correct the parameters of the network system, and configure VLAN if necessary.
-Security of virtual environment. In this step, you will set complex login passwords for all virtual hosts, add a group to the WindowsAD server, and then add a newly added certified VMware administrator to the group. Next, the group is authenticated as an administrator of VMwarevCenter, and the domain management account is deleted. If you have other types of users who need to manage their virtual machines (such as SQL administrators or development environments), consider adding other groups and new roles.
-Construction of virtual environment. In this step, add a new virtual machine to the virtual architecture, complete the conversion from physical machine to virtual machine (P2V) by creating a new virtual machine and installing a brand-new operating system, or with the help of tools such as Vmware's ConverterEnterprise (introduced in the second part), and download the virtual application from VMWareVirtualAppLian Marketplace. Please select the conversion method for your P2V migration.
-Monitor the virtual environment. At this step, at least you want to be able to monitor the new virtualized host through basic management tools, which can be achieved by using the free ESXiServer and the simple graphical interface provided in the vSphereClient. In addition, you may want to use some advanced performance management monitoring provided by vCenter. Settings allow you to notify designated administrators when performance problems occur. With the deepening of use, it is likely that you will want to use more complex performance monitoring tools, as we mentioned in "Selection of management tools".
-Maintenance of virtual environment. In the environment of a single virtual host and a group of virtual machines, maintenance is a very simple job. But if your system architecture expands, you will use maintenance tools. Please don't confuse it with the concept of virtual environment monitoring. The most important work in the maintenance phase is patch management. Fortunately, if you purchase VMwarevSphere, UpdateManager will be included in all commercial versions. With UpdateManager, you can manage patch upgrades for existing ESX servers, including those that may involve certain operating systems and certain applications. If you also use VMware's DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) function, you can upgrade ESXServer without stopping users.
-Backup of virtual environment. Just like using a physical server, it is extremely important to establish a backup mechanism for a virtual server. When you virtualize a physical server, you need to build an effective backup mechanism on the same day. Although the existing traditional backup software can also achieve virtual machine backup, it is not the best choice for virtual environment backup. By using backup software customized for virtual machines, they can know which physical host all virtual machines are located on, and then they can determine when they need to migrate virtual machines to a new host. These backup softwares can support Microsoft's VSS(VolumeShadowCopyService), ensure continuous backup of applications, and provide some special additional functions, such as file-level and mirror-level backup, deduplication and data replication. Typical backup softwares of virtualized environment include: DATA Recovery of VMware, backup of Veeam Software and VizioncorevRanger.
-Fault diagnosis of virtual environment. We certainly hope that we will not encounter any problems after the newly deployed virtualization architecture. But if something goes wrong, we need documents and charts about the virtualized environment. Moreover, there should be after-sales support information and contact windows related to all devices-server, SAN, network, storage and virtual software.
-Training and documentation. Although the last step is not mentioned in Siebert's article, training and documentation are also important steps to complete a successful deployment. All good deployment plans should include training for other administrators in the company, as well as documentation on the new virtualization architecture and daily management tasks. Although for other administrators, virtual servers may not be much different from physical servers. But the management and fault diagnosis of virtual machines are completely different from those of physical machines. Therefore, training courses are necessary for those support personnel and main administrators to understand the changes in the physical system architecture they are facing and how to accomplish the same work in the virtual machine environment.
Avoid pitfalls in virtualization deployment.
Although problems in virtualization deployment can be avoided by following the installation plan based on the above installation steps, there are still some pitfalls to pay attention to during the installation process. Let's give a few examples to illustrate some similar problems:
-Underestimated the amount of memory required to virtualize the host. Although you use VMware's memory over-allocation technology, the virtualized hosts in the production environment are likely to use the total installed memory. Many virtualization hosts used in production environments have 16GB or more of memory installed.
-Underestimated the storage space required for * * * storage. Although the new version of VMware provides a thin configuration function, which can help users reduce the storage space occupied by virtualization, virtual machines soon occupy a lot of storage space in exclusive storage. If possible, use VMware's thin provisioning or SAN storage to reduce the occupancy of hard disk space. You can also reclaim the allocated storage space by using the vOptimizerPro tool of Vizioncore.
-Virtualization is much faster than training and document collection. Virtualizing a physical server is easy and can be completed in a few minutes, but it takes much longer to train senior administrators and upgrade documents than virtualization itself. So be sure to avoid virtualizing all physical environments at the same time, and then face a long process of virtual machine fault diagnosis. And virtualize some applications without the permission of the application administrator.
-Overallocation. During the initial installation, it is easy to over-allocate virtual machines, because the process of creating new virtual machines seems very simple. Just like managing a physical server, we should only allocate the virtual machines needed by the business. Each new virtual machine will occupy additional server resources and bring additional operating system license purchase fees.
-Lack of testing. Testing the application in the virtual machine is very simple, just migrate from the physical machine to the VMwareWorkstation virtual machine, and then verify the results in the virtual machine. According to my experience, 99% of applications can run on virtual machines, but please pay close attention to those applications with intensive image processing (such as running computer-aided design CAD on virtual desktops) or those that need to purchase additional software licenses. After verifying the compatibility of the software, we need to consider the supporting ability of the virtual machine architecture: whether it can meet the computing needs of the application and provide the same performance as the physical server.