5 Things to Ask Your Virtualization Administrator
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Transcript of 5 Things to Ask Your Virtualization Administrator
5 Things you need to ask your Virtualization Administrator
John Maxwell
VP Product Management, Dell Software
2 Performance Monitoring
Overview
• 5 Questions and Background
• The Solution that can give you answers and solve the problems
• Primer on virtual optimization terminology
3 Performance Monitoring
Question #1
• What is our VM Density?– # VMs / # Servers
• Why is this important?– VM Density is a measurement of how effective you use
virtualization
• Fact– Customers of Dell Foglight for Virtualization have been able
to increase VM density by 1-2 VMs per host by simply optimizing their environment– In one case this equated to over 200 additional VMs on
the same hardware
4 Performance Monitoring
Question #2
• How much wasted disk space do we have?– Over-allocated virtual files?– Abandoned templates?– Powered off VMs?
• Why is this important?– Over-allocation of files is rampant and in some cases VM’s
are “lost” and not visible in vCenter yet still exist and consume space– Even if you thin-provision disks within a storage array,
there is waste
• Fact– Dell Foglight for Virtualization has found 1000’s of
terabytes of wasted disk space
5 Performance Monitoring
Question #3
• How many Zombie VM’s do we have?– VM is running, but is anyone using it?
– In 24 hours?– In 1 week, month, quarter, year?
• Why is this important?– VM Sprawl has created millions of VMs that are powered on
but never used
• Fact– Dell Foglight for Virtualization has found 1000’s of Zombie
VMs and removed them
6 Performance Monitoring
Question #4
• How do we maintain SLAs, and pinpoint virtual performance problems? How long does it take, hours, minutes, seconds?– Do we proactively know if a host or VM is “beginning” to have
problems?– Proactive alerts?– Single pane of glass?– Email/text alerts?– Automation?
• Why is this important?– The optimum VM to Admin ratio is 1:150 – without intelligent
analytics and automation, it is impossible to meet SLAs and a high ratio
• Fact– Dell Foglight for Virtualization is the de-facto standard for mid-to-
large scale virtual infrastructure at almost 8,000 installations.
7 Performance Monitoring
Question #5
• How do we know when a host is running out of resources before it happens?– How many additional VMs can we add to our environment?– What is the gating factor to growth? CPU? Memory? Storage?
• Why is this important?– Would you rather know weeks or hours before you hit a
CPU/Memory/Storage limitation?– How do you plan for future server and storage acquisitions?
• Fact– Dell Foglight for Virtualization has predictive analytics to tell you
when resources are going to run out
8 Performance Monitoring
Visualize,Analyze,Optimize,Automate……
Dell Foglight for Virtualization
9 Performance Monitoring
Real-time Visualization
• The one solution that does it all– Real-Time and Historical Analysis
– Single –pane-of-glass for enterprise wide virtual monitoring– Go from real-time to any-point-in-time performance and resource
analysis
Enterprise View
Real-Time View
HistoricalView
10 Performance Monitoring
Proactive, Actionable Insights
Exception Alarms
+ Expert Advice
• The one solution that does it all– Expert Advice – Find Performance Problems in Seconds
– Pinpoint the problem for immediate resolution– Proactively identify potential future problems
Proactive Insights
11 Performance Monitoring
Analyze and Forecast Capacity Trends
Capacity Trending
Growth Scenarios
Forecast Future
Capacity
• The one solution that does it all– Capacity Management
– View current growth trends and resource consumption– Forecast future resource requirements – Scenario modeling and what-if scenarios
12 Performance Monitoring
Optimize and Reduce Data Center TCO
Optimize CPU and Memory
Reclaim Wasted
Resources
• The one solution that does it all– Optimization: Improve VM Density and Control OPEX
– Right-size CPU and Memory; Reclaim wasted resources
OptimizeStorage
Resources
13 Performance Monitoring
Automation you can Trust
Automation
Custom Workflows
Proactive Optimizatio
n
• The one solution that does it all– Flexible Automation
– Automate remediation to alarms & common tasks – Proactively optimize virtual resources– Powerful AND easy to use automation
14 Performance Monitoring
Terminology you need to know.
15 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• Snapshots– Definition: “A delta file that is created to be able
to roll back to a point in time by intercepting all changes, thus allowing a user or product (e.g. backup software) to backup the static image of the VM.”
– If this snapshot is not deleted and left open, it will grow continuously, causing degraded performance, wasted space and risking an outage.
– Orphaned snapshots are snapshots that vCenter has lost control of. This can happen when deleting snapshots and it fails to merge with base disk.
16 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• Abandoned VMs– Definition: “When user selects Remove from
Inventory option in vCenter the VM is removed only from vCenter but all data files are kept on disk.”
– Accidental – user selected wrong option when deleting VM
– On purpose - leave it there to make sure it isn’t needed and then forgets it
17 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• Zombie VMs–Definition: “A running VM that is using
very low CPU, Memory and Storage resources.”– Probably a decommissioned VM that can be
deleted
– Typically happens when owner doesn´t notify VM Admins about decommission
18 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• Powered Off VMs– Definition: “A VM that have been powered off
more than X number of months.”
– Probably safe to delete VM
– Remember some systems might only be powered on at certain period over time to do a special task, not common but they exist.
19 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• Unused Templates– Definition: “Templates that nobody have
deployed new VMs from within the last X months.”
– Probably safe to delete the template
20 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• CPU over allocation– Based on configuration
– Over allocation leads to increased overhead
– CPU scheduler in vSphere has to work harder to find available resources
– Can affect your VM density / datacenter ROI
21 Performance Monitoring
Terminology
• Memory over allocation– Based on configuration
– Over allocation leads to increased overhead
– Wasted storage due to VMware swapfile is same as allocated memory
– Can affect your VM density / datacenter ROI
22 Performance Monitoring
Thank you for your participation
More conversations on line
www.software.dell.com
Foglight on Facebookfacebook.com/Foglight
Foglight for Virtualization on Twitter@DellVirt
The Foglight for Virtualization Communityhttp://communities.quest.com/community/vfoglight
Join the conversation…
Learn More on Enterprise Editionhttp://software.dell.com/products/foglight-for-virtualization-enterprise-edition/
John Maxwell@VMMaxwell
Visit us on the Web:
23 Performance Monitoring