A couple of months back, I had involved myself in a discussion on the CA-Information week IT community where we were talking about virtualization and how managing it is an issue. Grew pretty interesting. Check it out:

Kim Moutsos: Virtualization: Everyone's doing it, but no one knows how to manage it?

Re: Virtualization: Everyone's doing it, but no one knows how to manage it?

Hi Kim,

Pretty interesting thought. Actually no one does think of the "management" side of virtualization these days!! Well that being said, I do believe virtualization has its own issues of management. Technically its as imperative as managing a physical system. The firm I work in, are pioneers in virtualization n having implemented virtualized environments alot, we do understand the "issues" in managing such environments. And with the likes of Microsofts System Center management software and VMware's Virtualization Management tools this does seem feasible.
But the question is how different is virtualization management from virtual system management or is there any difference at all.

Regards,

Koshy

Re: Virtualization: Everyone's doing it, but no one knows how to manage it?
Thanks for your thoughts here, Koshy. I'd be very interested to know your own answer (s) to the question you raise.

Best,
Kim

Re: Virtualization: Everyone's doing it, but no one knows how to manage it?
Hey Kim!!
Well personally I do not see much of a difference in virtualization management from virtual system management except that both occur at different levels in a layered approach. But the functions at these levels is very different. I had read a report published by EMA (Enterprise Management Associates) sometime back where they mentioned that IT will need to distinguish virtualization management from virtual system management.

Answering your question if people know how to manage virtualization:

Virtualization management I believe is about managing the low-level capabilities dedicated to the virtualization system itself. Virtualization management takes care of managing the hypervisor, memory allocation, virtual machine migration and such functions. If i am not mistaken EMA predicted about 75% of enterprises are grappling with virtualization management issues.
Virtual systems management on the other hand addresses higher level needs. Needs such as managing the life cycle of the virtual system, monitoring servers being provided by the virtualization system and automating operations of that virtual system. Again here about 18% management disciplines fall under these categories.

Back to the final question put forward by you, I guess it stands true. Even with all the technology around people are still facing issues with Virtualization management.

Regards,

Koshy