New virtualized Data Centre

The need for virtualisation is not particularly a technological one - it is far more based on the needs of the business. Flexibility, greater control over costs and greater responsiveness to the business' needs means that virtualisation is increasingly being used across greater proportions of an organisation's IT estate. 

For organisations looking to embrace virtualisation, much planning has to be undertaken. Virtualisation can offer a great deal in providing a flexible and cost-effective platform for supporting the business – but can also create a new level of chaos and cost for those who get it wrong.

A virtualisation strategy has to be carefully thought out in order to maximise the benefits that can be gained.

Just attempting to take existing IT and move it to a virtual platform will not work - far more planning and work is required to ensure that virtualisation works.

Software and operating system licensing models have to change to make virtualisation work,

Entire DC design Rack/ floor layout have to be changed and re-evaluated. Existing approaches to power distribution and cooling will not meet virtualisation's needs.

Current Hardware Placement in racks and temperature maintenance will be entirely different from what we do today

Virtualisation brings with it higher densities of hardware, with increased heat generation. A complete mindset change is required to move away from looking at cooling down the whole data centre to just ensuring that critical components are kept within their design limits. Better structured cabling and data centre zoning will be needed to keep up with best practices. 

Best Design STRATEGY for Change

I have segregated all major design considerations in 10 points to build your strategy for upcoming change

1) Get the architecture right.

segregate the resource pool:

use virtualising where it makes sense, using existing and new assets in the best possible way.

Heterogeneity is possible - different workloads need different hardware.

and you know your "NW Demons and Nightmares" best , so have control over the risk you for see in future , calculated risks are "okay" but business critical applications are to be protected.

2) Keep it dynamic.

there is not point investing huge CAPX in new technology if your data centres can't grow and shrink providing significant difference in OPEX figures for Management. plan well in advance so that you can change according to change in organisational strategy of organisation as well

3) The application :

Most critical thing in whole setup.

Many enterprise applications are still ill-architectured for true virtualisation:

the flexibility of having multiple small instances of an application, of being able to roll it out across an estate of unknown physical hardware and the capability to only use what functionality you need is still some way off being supported by other vendors as well.

4) Keeping control of virtual images.

Everybody know virtualisation is so easy. and we all love to play screenshot-spin up backups back and forth ..i mean why wouldn't we its too much fun :)

However, the image still needs to be maintained - patches, upgrades, security and so on all need to be applied, and if you have thousands of images, then this can become a major ongoing task.

5) Maintaining control of software licensing.

An image that has been used once, but has not been deconstructed, is still using up an operating system licence, as well as an application server and application licence.

Dynamic licence management is required, using libraries and check in/check out capabilities.

6) Optimising energy usage.

Virtualisation should lower immediate energy needs just through server consolidation. However, there is more that can be done to drive energy usage much lower. Higher data centre temperatures are viable, targeted cooling and technologies such as hot aisle/cold aisle and heat pumping can all help in driving energy costs down.

you'll not able able to take best out of new technology if u don't reconsider DC design for optimal use.

7) Separating data and power pathways.

Unstructured cabling in any data centre is bad practice in every DC of any kind , and in the virtualised data centre becomes a real issue due to the increased density of mission critical assets.. u remember less hardware and cabling bring lots of responsibility as every thing becomes highly critical and dependant on few hardware resources .

8) The death of the Traditional applications.

Massive applications should be seen as the Monsters they are rapidly coming to get you any time, and organisations should be looking at far more dynamic composite applications built from aggregated functionality.

Web services and Service Oriented Arch. help this - and cloud computing will move things even further forward.

09) The hybrid cloud.

Much has been said about cloud, and much has been misunderstood.

Cloud is an important part of the future, but i still believe it is not a replacement for the our on true love of life "Traditional data centre " - it is an adjunct.

Understanding this will help to create a scalable, responsive and highly competitive IT platform for the future.

10) Don't worry be happy .

at the end you just don't we worried stick to what you doing its not going anywhere for long time , but just keep your eyes and ears open new exiting stuff is going to come...

and we/NW engineers have always loved challenges :)

-- time to sign off /comments welcome/