Optimizing Virtualization and Cloud Environments with Facts and Transparency.

Session Date & Time: Day 3, March 25, 11:30am EST (8.30AM West Coast) (1hr)
Keywords: Datacenters, Virtualization, IT asset management, Virtualized environments.
Authors: Amit Golan, BDNA Corporation.
Abstract: Cloud computing has no doubt been a boon for handling sudden surges in Web site traffic, but the cloud is only as good as the reliability of the underlying datacenter(s). Datacenters are the true backbone of internal (private) and external clouds. Given the proliferation of cloud computing, datacenter performance and reliability, and therefore that of the cloud, becomes critical. One of the fundamental technologies utilized by cloud computing is resource sharing, achieved through virtualization. Inefficient resource sharing is often an Achilles heel impacting datacenter performance, but the lack of visibility into virtualized environments makes such inefficiencies all too common. Today, many systems administration teams rely on manually collected information, stored in spreadsheets and other unstructured data files, to augment the very limited data available through the built-in reporting capabilities of the virtualized systems.

In this session, attendees will learn how manually collected information can be obtained and easily managed with an IT virtual asset inventory management system. This method not only quickly and accurately discovers the virtual machines deployed in environments, and what runs within them, but Ido will highlight and provide real-life examples on how to enrich that discovered information with meta data. Attendees will walk away with ways to greatly simplify the task of managing virtualized environments and increasing their reliability.