If you only brought your car into the shop when something breaks, the maintenance method would be purely reactive. On the other hand, if you brought your car to the shop for regularly scheduled oil and lube changes, tune-ups and the manufacturer’s recommended mileage check-ups, the maintenance method would be proactive. If you only engaged in reactive maintenance, two things are very likely: (1) your car will not last as long as it could have lasted, and (2) your car will become problematic, unpredictable and financially burdensome.

Conversely, if you engaged in proactive maintenance with respect to your car you would find that (1) only rarely does anything go wrong with it, and (2) it lasts its full life expectancy. Whereas it may seem like this proactive method would cost more than you would have otherwise had to pay, you need only look at what you didn’t have to spend to keep fixing it.

Computer Help Los Angeles provides reactive support and proactive support for IT infrastructures (we are, in fact, great at either). Some businesses want only a quick fix when something breaks or starts malfunctioning in some way. This is a break-and-fix (reactive) operating basis. And while we are happy to accommodate that need (and there is always going to be the need of some physical address to a problem), we know it is not the sole solution to the problem. I’m writing this article right now because I want you to know this as well.

A more complete solution – not the ultimate solution but an interim step – is proactive and reactive support (when reactive is required – except that it will be required LESS with this particular combination). Proactive support is done remotely. A technician plugs into each computer via the Internet and ensures that its software is kept patched and updated, its hard drive(s) defragmented, scanned and cleaned of new spyware or other malicious software that has happened to make its way into that system since the previous proactive session. Its system is kept optimized for maximum performance.

With this combination, you will discover soon enough that you need to call a technician to come out less and less and less. In this way, the proactive support begins paying for itself. The return on your small investment in proactive support comes in the form of less cash outlay for break-and-fix support.

The IT infrastructure of your business, even if that is only 5 to 10 workstations and a server, is vital to your business. That’s where your company’s memory lies. It only makes sense to ensure it is properly cared for.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of engaging us in proactively supporting your infrastructure, just give us a call at 818-352-8700. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how affordable it actually is.

Application workloads were directly dependent on server reliability for uptime. Even planned hardware maintenance and software updates negatively impacted productivity.

IT managers were challenged to meet increasing organizational demands on limited budget and time while more and more resources were needed just to power, cool and maintain existing servers and the number of servers continued to grow. The growing number of servers needed more time, money and people.

At a certain point in a company’s growth the traditional IT approach became more and more costly and complex. More time to deploy and maintain servers, more money to purchase, power and cool server rooms, and more people needed to deploy and maintain them (without budgets increasing) became a growth inhibitor for the company.

Growing IT Smarter

Virtualization helps remove the limitations of the traditional IT approach. It enables a single server to operate multiple applications simultaneously in “virtual machines.” This takes full advantage of the server’s performance.

New applications can then be rapidly deployed without purchasing, configuring or testing a new physical server every time. With virtualization you need fewer physical servers to keep up with your organization’s growing demands.

Fewer physical servers need less energy to power and cool them, and less server room floor space to house them. Your IT staff spends less time maintaining and more time innovating.

Virtualization provides a sustainable growth strategy for your company. It has a great number of benefits, some of which are as follows:

1. More efficient use of computer processing power
2. Less energy consumption
   1. Run ONE physical server instead of several
   2. Less air conditioning usage to keep the environment intact
   3. Less power backup resources required
3. End of endless hardware purchases and upgrades
   1. All the hardware is virtualized so no need to purchase controllers
   2. Hardware upgrades are on software level (memory, processor, or any controller)
   3. No need to physically install hardware
4. Safer, faster backups and restore
   1. Ability to take live snapshots while OS is running
   2. You can schedule snapshots of OS
   3. Less time to recover the whole OS
5. Reduced IT overhead.
6. Simplified IT Management from a remote location (from anywhere in the world using an Internet connection).
7. Ability to use Thin Clients (low-cost centrally managed computers devoid of diskette drives, CD players and expansion slots, and which require no hardware maintenance).
8. Ability to use existing computers for remote desktop connection to virtual machines located on the main server.
9. Faster server/client connection speed through a virtual switch.

There are three major types of virtualization:

1. Server Virtualization

   This type is where most of the attention is focused right now in the world of virtualization and is where most companies begin an implementation of this technology. That’s not very shocking in light of the fact that server sprawl has become a very large and legitimate problem in enterprises throughout the world. Where a company is simply running out of room in which to place all of their servers, this type of virtualization would of course get viewed with strong interest.

   Because each server typically serves one function (i.e., mail server, file server, Internet server, enterprise resource planning server, etc.), with each server using only a fraction of its true processing power, server virtualization breaks through the “one application, one server” barrier and facilitates the consolidation of numerous servers into one physical server. This equates to (a) less physical servers required, and (b) 70 to 80 percent or higher utilization of existing hardware as opposed to the previous 10 to 15 percent.

   Server virtualization lets one server do the job of multiple servers by sharing the resources of a single server across multiple environments. The software lets a company host multiple operating systems and multiple applications locally and in remote locations, freeing users from physical and geographical limitations.

   How are the servers moved over?

   Most, if not all, virtualization solutions offer a migration tool to take an existing physical server and make a virtual hard drive image of that server to the driver stack. Then that server will boot up and run as a virtual server. There is no need to rebuild servers or manually reconfigure them as a virtual server.

   Without a doubt, the greatest advantage of server virtualization is cost. In addition to energy savings and lower capital expenses due to more efficient use of hardware resources, you get high availability of resources, better management, and improved disaster-recovery processes with a virtual infrastructure. You save on physical space, reduce power consumption and the need for as much cooling, and are able to rapidly deploy a new application without ordering new hardware.

   There are three different methods that can be employed under the server virtualization category but I’m not going to get into them right now because I’m trying very hard to be as simple about this as I can possibly be. Whichever method is used, the goal of server consolidation is the same.

2. Client (or Desktop) Virtualization

   This type of virtualization technology has to do with a client (a workstation desktop or laptop pc – an end user machine). These can be very difficult for a systems administrator to manage. Whereas any machine in the company’s data center has very strict procedures regarding what gets loaded on them and when they get updated with new software releases, it is often a quite different scene when it comes to the end-user machine. Even if there are supposed to be procedures followed for the above actions on an end-user machine, those procedures are often not followed or paid much heed. A CD or DVD slot makes it easy for non-approved software to be installed that can create problems on that machine. Quite aside from that, end-user machines are more susceptible to malware in numerous ways – via e-mail viruses, unwitting spyware downloads, etc. Last but not least, most end-user machines run on Microsoft Windows which is well known for attracting attacks from hackers and cybercriminals.

   IT has to not only deal with all those problems but also attend to the normal problems inherent in client machines: keeping approved software up-to-date, patching the OS, keeping virus definitions current, et al.

   All of these factors make an IT guy’s job quite challenging. So client virtualization, with the hope of easier client machine management and security, attracts the interest of IT.

   Because there is no single solution for end-user computing, there is more than one method or model that can be employed:

   1. Remote (Server-Hosted) Desktop Virtualization

      In this model, the operating environment is hosted on a server in the data center and accessed by the end user across a network.

   2. Local (Client-Hosted) Desktop Virtualization

      In this model, the operating environment runs locally on the user’s physical pc hardware and involves multiple flavors of client-side virtualization techniques that can monitor and protect the execution of the end user system.

   3. Application Virtualization

      This is a method of providing a specific application to an end user that is virtualized from the desktop OS and which is not installed in a traditional manner. An application can be installed and/or executed locally within a container that controls how it interacts with other system and application components. Or an application can be isolated in its own virtualized “sandbox” to prevent interaction with other system and application components. Or applications can be streamed across a network. Or applications can be delivered across the network to a web browser with most processing executed on a centralized web server. This latter method will support almost any user, with no installation requirement, on almost any platform, in any location, but it only supports a limited set of applications.

3. Storage Virtualization

   Storage virtualization is a concept in System Administration, referring to the abstraction (separation) of logical storage (virtualized partitions of stored data) from physical storage (storage devices that hold, spin, read and write magnetic or optical disks such as CD, DVD, or even a hard disk drive, etc.). This separation allows the Systems Admin increased flexibility in how they manage storage for end users.

   Virtualization of storage helps achieve location independence by abstracting the physical location of the data. The virtualization system presents to the user a logical space for data storage and itself handles the process of mapping it to the actual physical location.

   There are three basic approaches to data storage:

   1. Direct-Attached Storage (DAS)

      This is the traditional method used in data storage where hard drives are attached to a physical server. Because this method is easy to use but hard to manage, virtualization technology is causing organization to have a second thought with regard to its viability.

   2. Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

      This is a machine that resides on your network and provides data storage to other machines. It can be thought of as the first step toward storage virtualization. This approach provides a single source of data, facilitating data backup. By collecting your data in one place, it also avoids the problem of multiple servers needing to access data located on another server.

   3. Storage Area Network (SAN)

      This ultra-sophisticated approach deploys specialized hardware and software to transform mere disk drives into a data storage solution that transfers data on its own high-performance network.

      Companies shift over to a SAN when they recognize that corporate data is a key resource that must be available 24/7 and needs to be conveniently managed. The price tag for this approach is very high indeed.

   ]]> http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/2010/04/the-different-types-of-virtualization/feed/ 0 http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/2010/04/the-four-factors-driving-virtualization/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-four-factors-driving-virtualization http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/2010/04/the-four-factors-driving-virtualization/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:12:21 +0000 chlajared http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/?p=46 With a management consulting background, I have seen so many fads sweep through business communities both here in the US and abroad that I can be as skeptical as the next person when it comes to the latest and greatest thing grabbing so much attention. I approached virtualization with a squinted eye, did a lot of homework, and came to the conclusion that, although virtualization is not right for everyone, it has substantial merit and is far beyond being the latest gimmick. This particular technological breakthrough has received global endorsements from the true movers and shakers in the IT world who certainly do not agree on everything – HP, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, EMC, not to mention major analyst firms. What are the factors that are driving virtualization to the forefront?
   1. Hardware underutilization

      As discussed in the first article, The Fundamental Concept of Virtualization, processing power has been approximately doubling every 18 months and there are no signs of this changing any time soon. In fact, I predict that 25 years from now, the realities of processing power will seem science fictional when compared to our current processing power. I remember the first computer I bought in 1990. The reality of processing power today was science fiction in 1990. There isn’t any CPU from 1990 that could crunch through any application on my computer today. Currently, we can run software without tapping into very much CPU usage.

      We are now utilizing only a fraction of a processor’s full capacity (Microsoft estimates this fraction to be 10 to 15 percent). This means that computing power is being wasted, especially in data centers, where 85 to 90 percent of the servers go unused. Despite this waste, the servers continue to require power and air conditioning. That translates into a waste of corporate funds.

      This problem is compounded by the fact that in traditional computing, IT has been limited to “one application, one server” causing the purchase of additional machines for additional applications while the machines that already exist continue to be underutilized.

      Virtualization technology has broken through the “one application, one server” barrier and made it possible to consolidate multiple applications onto one machine. This is a sound and cost-effective solution to the problem.

   2. Server sprawl causing data centers to run out of space

      A whole heck of a lot of servers have been purchased and put to use since 1990. In fact, it has dramatically escalated since 2000. Why? There has been an explosion of data requiring new ways to store all that data. Per the book, Virtualization for Dummies written by Bernard Golden, MBA (an excellent book and I highly recommend it), “In 2003 the world’s computer users created and stored 5 exabytes (each exabyte is 1 million terabytes) of new data. A recent study by the Enterprise Strategy Group predicted that governments and corporations will store over 25 exabytes of data by the year 2010.” Let me break that down even further: 1 exabyte = 1 million terabytes; 1 terabyte = 1,024 gigabytes; 1 gigabyte = 1,024 megabytes; 1 megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes; 1 byte = 8 bits = 1 keystroke.

      The Internet has certainly contributed to the problem. In September 2009 there were 1,733,993,741 worldwide Internet users. This represents a 380.3% growth between 2000 and 2009. Today more than 25% of the population of our planet use the Internet. And it is going to further expand.

      Virtualization technology is a sound and cost-effective solution to this problem. It makes it possible to host multiple guest systems on a single physical server and saves money for a company by not having to secure as much real estate or as many machines in order to store all their information. It is a HUGE benefit.

   3. Significantly rising energy costs

      The cost of electrical power to run a business has dramatically increased over the years. A company’s IT infrastructure greatly contributes to that number. When you think of the electricity required to power a computer in each workstation, multiple servers, appliances and peripherals, plus air conditioning to keep those servers cooled down, compounded by the number of servers required to satisfy the “one application, one server” rule, it is relatively elementary math to see the impact of that infrastructure on a company’s energy bill.

      Virtualization technology offers a sound and cost-effective solution to this problem. Heck, Pacific Gas & Electric has even introduced a virtualization rebate program.

   4. The rising costs in administering IT systems

      Even one computer requires someone to look after it, even if it is just the user. A computer doesn’t just take care of itself. It has to be started, sometimes restarted, made secure, defragmented, optimized, cleaned, etc. In a network of computers someone is going to be forced to wear an additional hat called IT Administrator and handle what can be handled with very limited technical expertise and call an expert when expert handling is required. A tiny company usually operates at a break-and-fix level with fingers crossed in hopes of not having to spend anything to simply keep all those machines running. But if that tiny company wants to survive for a period of years, it must expand. And expansion requires an expansion of that patchwork quilt called an IT infrastructure. At some point a single-hatted IT Administrator must be hired, then another and another.

      System administration is a labor intensive job. I once consulted the US office of a software company operating from Spain. Their US office had a total of 90 employees with 4 of those dedicated to system administration. That consisted of monitoring hardware status, replacing defective hardware components, installing OS and application software, installing software patches, updating software applications, monitoring critical server resources such as memory and disk use, and backing up server data to other storage mediums for security and redundancy purposes.

      System administrators do not come for a song either. The four IT people working in that US office cost the company around $250,000 per year. So at a certain point of expansion, the cost for all this administration becomes significant.

      And while virtualization technology will never eliminate the need for system administration, it can be effective in lowering its cost by reducing the amount of system admin work necessary for hardware. One would still need system admin work for the guest OSes in a virtualized environment. This translates into less IT personnel required while at the same time making an improvement in the system administration overall.

   ]]> http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/2010/04/the-four-factors-driving-virtualization/feed/ 0 http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/2010/04/the-fundamental-concept-of-virtualization/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-fundamental-concept-of-virtualization http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/2010/04/the-fundamental-concept-of-virtualization/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 08:11:37 +0000 chlajared http://losangelescomputerhelp.com/?p=44 Since virtualization is at the forefront of technological advances and because every mover and shaker in the industry (IBM, Microsoft, Dell, etc. plus industry analysts) have solidly endorsed it, you should have some fundamental concept of what this is all about. It is the future of computing coming right at you.

   So here goes.

   Let’s start by talking about something that I’m sure everyone is familiar with – remote control devices. If you are like me, you have some kind of entertainment center. Mine consists of a television, a cable box, a receiver, a DVD player, a Blu-ray player, a DVD recorder, and a CD player. That adds up to 7 pieces of equipment. Each piece of equipment arrived with its own remote control device. This means that I have 7 remote control devices lying on my coffee table, usually in some state of disarray.

   Each remote control device is set to the same frequency as the machine it controls. Each device and its corresponding machine speak the same language. And that is why my television remote has no effect on my Blu-ray player or CD player or cable box.

   Each remote control device and corresponding machine is a piece of hardware. What makes them work are programmed instructions – software.

   So someone came along and figured out how to simplify all this. A universal remote was created that can duplicate or replicate the frequency and language used in each of your remote control devices so that one remote control device is all that is needed to make all your machines work. In other words, within that one universal device is a virtual television remote control device, a virtual cable box remote control device, a virtual receiver remote control device, a virtual DVD remote control device, a virtual Blu-ray remote control device, a virtual DVD recorder remote control device, and a virtual CD player remote control device.

   What are the advantages of this? Well, the first and most obvious advantage is that I can now take all those remotes that have been occupying coffee table real estate and put them in a drawer somewhere. I only need the universal remote. Another advantage is that I now don’t have to keep a case of batteries in the closet to power all those devices. That saves me some money as I only have to power the universal device. Eventually the amount of money saved will pay for what I spent on the universal device.

   In general, virtual means the quality of affecting something without actually being that something. It has come to mean, in modern times, “being in essence or effect but not in fact.” In the above example, each of the remote control devices appeared to be in the universal controller without actually physically being there. Thus, they were virtualized. They were there in essence but not in fact and each virtual device could create the same effect as the real device.

   Okay. That is a bedrock concept of what it means to virtualize something. Now let’s move it over to the field of computers and networks.

   Virtualization and Computers

   As a home user, you have a single workstation that, aside from your desk, chair and surrounding work space, consists of hardware (a tower containing a motherboard, a CPU, one or more hard drives, RAM, a power supply, cooling system, etc.; a monitor; a mouse; CD/DVD player; and usually a dedicated printer) plus software (the programming code or instructions that have been installed on the hard drive). All this is made to work by ONE operating system or OS (Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Linux, etc.). The OS runs the computer and provides you with an interface with which to issue commands to the computer system. Computer technology, as we have known it, required one OS per computer. And, depending on the equipment you use with this workstation, it uses a certain volume of electricity.

   One thing is certain, no matter what you use your home computer for, you are only tapping into a very small fraction of what your CPU is capable of (presuming of course that your CPU isn’t some ancient dinosaur). Processing power has been approximately doubling every 18 months. Just think how many times it has doubled in the last 20 years: start with 100 million instructions per second (MIPS) and you’ll see that in the second 18-month period it would reach 200, in the third 18-month period, 400, in the fourth 18-month period, 800, etc. This gets to be very stratospheric very quickly.

   How many MIPS are you currently using? Fact: Your hardware is underutilized.

   Now, let’s move from your home workstation and look at the scene in a business of 20 workstations all connected to servers and shared printers. Like your home workstation, each workstation in the business has its own computer tower, monitor and mouse. Each of these arrangements consumes a certain amount of electricity and that very definitely has an impact on the electric bill that arrives each month.

   Add to these 20 workstations, three servers: (1) a mail server, (2) an applications server, and (3) a file server. Each server runs on one OS and provides services to the workstations. And add further a security appliance, a network switch, a router, and a NAS (network-attached storage) for back-ups for the ever-increasing volume of data off the servers and workstations. This would look something like this:

   

   At 50 workstations you might add another 2-3 servers. At 100 workstations you might add another 3 on top of the 2-3 you added at 50. Further, as the company’s IT infrastructure expands (as the company grows), it becomes necessary at a certain point to hire an IT person and then another and another, etc. So you see the IT overhead increasing in terms of (a) buying more hardware and software, (b) adding IT personnel, and (c) higher energy consumption. And the hardware underutilization also grows.

   In a tiny company where the IT infrastructure is static (unchanging), virtualization would not be needed. But a company is not a static entity. It grows or it shrinks and efforts to keep it static usually bring about some degree of contraction. So even if you currently don’t need to use this tool, it’s important to have a fundamental understanding of it for the day when you might need to employ it.

   Here’s how virtualization works:

   Remember the example of the 7 remote control devices being virtualized into the one universal controller? Well, virtualization technology is comprised of specially written software code that does the same thing for servers, desktop computers, applications, storage devices and other appliances. I don’t want to get into the technical details of how this is done because this article is just about the fundamental concept of virtualization. Suffice it to say, 7 physical servers could be consolidated (virtualized) into ONE physical server (one HOST server instead of 7). In the same way applications can be migrated from their normal residence – a desktop – to a virtualized environment on the virtual server. This means that eventually the desktop can be replaced with what is called a “thin client.” A thin client (sometimes also called a lean or slim client) is a device that can be attached to the back of a monitor and which communicates with the virtual server to open whatever application has been selected by the user. The thin client fulfills the traditional role of the desktop. Thin clients are usually much less expensive than a desktop computer. Further, appliances like network-attached storages, security appliances, and a very large host of other appliances can be virtualized onto a server. I’m hoping that you are starting to get the idea.

   Here’s an illustration of a virtual network:

   

   As you can see in the above illustration the physical mail server, applications server and file server have been consolidated (virtualized) into one physical machine – the virtual server. The processing power of the virtual server will be more efficiently harnessed. The workstations have been retired and replaced with thin clients and there’s a lot less iron in this company. There’s also less energy consumption. And there can now be a better utilization of IT personnel who can now focus more time and attention to the core business processes of the enterprise.

   There’s much, much more that can be written and that has been written about virtualization and I’ll be writing some additional articles on this subject for this website. But I feel that the first thing anyone needs is a very fundamental concept and understanding of virtualization and I trust that you have that now.

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