Virtual Machine Ware Project - Research Proposal Example

? Virtual machineware project Number: Lecturer: VIRTUAL MACHINE WARE PROJECT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Most organizations in the Information and process industry are quickly adopting ways of improving efficiency, availing IT resources and its applications with ease has been realized through virtualization of servers. This allows sharing of one physical server with many others and in a way provides the imagination that each client has its own linked server. Many operations like web hosting and e-mail management among others. Visualization is undoubtedly embraced as a way of minimizing costs through ISP clients sharing web hosting expenses which reduces the costs considerably by more than 70%. The ability of the virtual server to keep resources separate is a strong element. Feasibility studies done shows that there is a tremendous advantage with virtualization. Costs, space, resource and skills requirements, company acceptance and cost to benefit appraisals indicate a necessity to move to this technology of cloud computing with single servers. This project intends to begin by eliminating the old one with one server, one application and replace with a multiple virtual computers. This will free IT administrators from spending time on server management instead of engaging in innovations. In addition the project will see a successful transformation of client server operations from uni-servers to multiple servers. The project will require budgetary allocation of computer hardware’s and OS, IT and logistical support staff and space. The project is expected to have all the servers consolidated into one which ultimately aid in data recovery during disasters, save energy and costs. The functions of staff shall be diversified with reduced server functions. The project is also expected to run multiple operating systems, create virtual PC environments, perform and run enterprise applications, built up enterprise desktop management and control. In additional, the virtual systems should be able to construct business continuity by improving disaster recovery solutions and bringing forth excellent availability throughout the data zones. The project is anticipated to be carried out in 3 weeks with the work broken down in logical sequencing maximizing the staff specific skills and ability to work as a team to realize the objectives of the project. All the project stake holders will be communicated to through appropriate and suitable communication channels. Besides, work will be measured through work done against the planned tasks, while costs will be monitored with those budgeted for. These aspects will form the basis for monitoring and evaluating the results against planned outcomes and expectations of the key stakeholders. Case I:Westminster College- A server virtualization project success story Westminster College is a classic case of based server consolidation initiative. This project allowed for disposal of aged servers that were still hosting web applications and were therefore in the process to re-engineering. The idea of new servers purchase was not conceivable hence rethinking of virtualization was imperative. The project manager had great task of assembling resources, doing feasibility studies and fact finding mission of cost benefit analysis of the Westminster college virtualization project. The phase out project greatly intertwined support services with different processes like portal application thus exceeding the time planned for project completion. The project manager had to ensure timely completion of the project. However, intertwined processes delayed actual completion of the exercise. The success of the project was in its work breakdown, the project manager had a strong desire to transform deliverables without upsetting the budget. The project considerably reduced electrical costs and did not have to reroute all the existing services. To ensure that the project met specifications, phase one roll out formed a basis for configuring other applications. The Westminster College provides a lessons, learning activity to be used in future project of similar nature. The successful activity serves to evaluate the project goals and achievement. The project manager was on tract by measuring initial project plan, the budget estimates, time schedules, the conformance of deliverables to specifications and client satisfaction (Westminster College). The client was contented with the ability of the project manager to engage and actively involve employees in the virtual server installation exercise, local storage. With a vision and mission to accomplish, the project manager had a sense of direction in believing that everything is to be virtualized whenever possible. Owing to the initial success realized, enabled a renewed energy to expand virtualization to include everything that they could in a big way. To realize this robustness, SAN-backed ESX servers were used with high level of precision and accuracy. The project manager was pleased to observe 28 running virtual machines on three hosts. Power consumption has been reduced significantly and spends about 10% of computing power only which by far is a milestone. The memory portion utilizes 30% of the RAM capacity which is much lower and can still be reduced by closely monitoring the provisions of individual virtual machines. To ensure smooth coordination of activities, the project had significant potentials on; Task breakdown: The work breakdown structure into phases enabled convenient virtualization of phases of work. Preliminary plans: Initial engagements did not execute any available methods hence the need to re-deploy more servers to support current workloads hence room for growth.. Quality feasibility: Competent budgetary and reduction of electrical costs complemented good record delivery of quality work. Risk management: Unmitigated performance has potential risks to sensitive installations. The non performance of systems after the current system phase out is detrimental to the operations of the college. The project manager had to ensure performance before moving to the next phase. Two periods brought out problems of vCenter that greatly affected data collection. The capability of Dell RAM RAID turned on and helped to guard the host in case of RAM problem. Teamwork: The aspect of employee participation in the exercise motivates and inculcates sense of ownership of the server installation exercise. It was not forced down their throats. Time management: Reasonable time for the project allowed successful delivery of phase one virtual installations. Change management: allowed for migration from single server exchange 2007 to the virtual multi server exchange 2010 environment. Besides, SharePoint used for public facing website consisting of database server and MOSS server will likely be integrated into SharePoint 2010. Case II: Newcastle College Recognized the need for virtualization when the noted that many attributes of the college were obsolete necessitating a major overhaul. They used over 800,000 pounds for IT infrastructure change which became rather fast and easy to manage and administrate. The college had already done feasibility studies and found out that it provides a flexible, resilient and centralized administration. The IT would now spend more time on delivery of great projects and increase on their productivity. Besides, IT issues are solved more quickly. The team was able to ensure savings and green advantages of environmental management. They furnished old machines and thus saved a lot that could have been used in procurement of new computers. Security of systems and data improved significantly PCs. Security patches and upgrades could be carried out easily without much interference or disruptions. Newcastle College merited on: Improved reliable, secure and fast remote accessibility for its staff Allowed reliable, disaster recovery and business continuity for the colleges desktops. The staff was flexible and reduced on their facilitation costs. Ultimately the project managed the following outcomes. Improvement of business flexibility through centralized desktop management Reduction of calls to IT helpdesk Improvement of remote working capacities Reduced spending on hardware Increased IT availability, security and disaster recovery. Rationale and Systems Analysis for VMware Project VMware virtualization is adaptive and flexible solutions that is able to meet customer needs satisfactorily. It captures conventional basics of systems and comprises: Integration sets-the VMware project constitutes hierarchical classes of physical components, entities, or elements. Compatible and complementary components- the constitution of the system model should be compatible with each other form, fitness, and use. System components comprises hardware and system, facilities, system support, routine replacements, procurements, parts availability, learning, resource needs, process data, extrinsic system, and other features aiding mission implementation. Explicit defined and peripheral capabilities- each component ought to function to meet some greater goals and objectives with non repetitive roles. In effect, redundant systems do need repetition of functions transcendent on many system components. In addition, systems like networks may comprise similar components. The contribution of elements in the whole systems should be clearly defined. Each system should be positioned for operational and performance audit through analysis, design, development, random tests, verification and validation. Synergy function- the need of combining the set of components is to increase the capacities of parts perceived functions which may not be attained if the systems are to function solely. Value addition process: the issues in effect of costs of operations, use, compliance, access and efficiency require that individual systems tasks and operation add value to its own inputs and enable outputs that give rise to the entire systems goals and objectives. Operational needs accomplishment: with each system having a defined roles and use to the users, its existence remains a great measure in cost benefit analysis. Compared to fulfilling needs of the operations or goals and objectives. Defined operational environment: refers to the need to prescribe a bounded system operational environment if there is desire for high economic benefits and sustainability. Defined outcomes: the system users, clients have a great expectation that the systems give good outcomes. The behaviors observed, its products and services ought to be output facing, can be quantified, measured and has room for verification. Chance of success: meeting defined outcomes requires a level of risk or uncertainty. The level of achievement is influenced by variety of reasons e.g. longevity, sustainability, accessibility, reliability and serviceability. For a working degree of a system, some agreements have to be met; a) Individual comprehension b) Program team agreement c) Consensus among system developers and administrators e.t.c. d) Customer contractual agreement. Security and compliance are imperative as physical security is transcended from the edge to endpoints. Physical networking features as well as standards and principles are adhered to. Virtualization has greater storage capability which enables high-performance access to storage resources on shared mode. This confidently epitomizes efficiency. Ultimately good performance of applications is attained by in-depth comprehension of best practices in virtual infrastructure optimization. This involves underscoring the decisions arrived at during designing of the virtualization project. The objectivity of this project was informed by the need to reduce costs especially on electricity consumption. Primarily the technological benefit is accelerating IT service delivery, increasing efficiency of operations and ultimately ensuring compliance and risk reduction. Through cost reduction, energy efficiency goes up, and less hardware is required with server consolidation. Business continuity management is crucial when the project is able to hold onto data recovery solutions effectively. This delivers ensures high availability in the entire datacenter with VMware site recovery manager. High performance SLAs is obviously enabled by virtual enterprise applications like Exchange, SharePoint, SQL server, Oracle and SAP. Virtualization is invincible in the current technological dispensation, as it guarantees market share and good profitability. System methodology Development of information systems requires analysis of; Prototypes, System Development Life Cycle (SLDC) and Data Structured-Oriented Design. SLDC is commonly used and therefore becomes our focus. It is a linear cycle and a coherent outline of steps used in information system development. A Toulmin model is sufficient argumentative- based model in this provides a basis for structuring the design rational in the form of arguments. The options that informed choice of this model is: There is sufficient claim that virtualization is a favorable alternative to cloud computing and high efficiency systems. Data has been obtained to infer reduction of energy and time costs. Good grounds to believe that there is a relationship between virtualization, performance efficiency and cost. Many successful projects are already enjoying the benefits of virtualization. Organization models support best practices Risks are given a consideration. Developing a high level representation of the virtualization systems requires in-depth analysis. The goal of system analysis is to identify the location of the problem with an attempt to troubleshoot and fix. The procedures constitute breaking down the system into different pieces to enable situation analysis, project goals analysis, and breakdown of what needs to be created. This should be followed by an attempt to engage users so as to define needs that require definition. The rationale used is what is desired and can be used efficiently. On the extent of formality, formal representation is used as it is easily interpreted and understood by computers. This can be broken down into the chart as it demonstrates how the deliverables will be fulfilled. In addition case modeling will be useful in: The system will engage all users in the virtual environment. The system will execute and facilitative data storage, processing and computations at relatively high speeds. The systems users are able to interact with a tailor made systems to the bounds of options and programs offered. Nevertheless, virtual systems are in a position to communicate with remote servers even with power outages as it will operate on gas generators. Suitable for innovations and control via a single server mode. The users will be able to mirror the main server and share data while submitting other tasks. Project feasibility: The emergence of computer applied information systems entails a systems analysis phase which yields the data model for creating databases. Several approaches have been brought forth regarding systems analysis. It comprises: Determination of economic project viability, social dimensions, technology requirements and organizational suitability. This is done through fact finding missions, geared to evaluate the requirements of the end-users. The tools of data collection are interviews, questionnaires and direct observations. By measuring how the end will find the system useful in both hardware and software and in what the system will do. Phases of systems analysis are: Definition of scope Analysis of requirements Problem identification and analysis Logical design Analysis of decisions. The use cases is common system tools for expression and identification of system functional requirements. Each use case engenders a business scenario into which the system gives a specific response and resulted from the object-oriented analysis. It is widely used in other fields for the same functions as stated earlier. Objective Models; Trace causes Project Goals and Objectives Virtualization project significantly needs a strategy, execution plan and set of well established goals and objectives. Major reason for such initiative, is in embracing an entirely new business model, best suited to enable a business attain great goals. The questions likely asked are: Is the company trying to cut on IT maintenance costs? Does the company intend to streamline its overall business process? Does business continuity constitute the major scope of action? These goals have to be known before setting out to perform data store virtually. This entails the crucial part of defining the project, through enlisting project goals and objectives. As there is no definite way to describe goals, outlining them is crucial like; To provide the company staff and linked users with a round clock access to all virtual mode applications and work related data even at remote locations having internet connections. Provide the company staff and users with higher PC uptime and sustained performance. Provide for synchronous installations of applications when users are still engaged with their PCs Promote a steady and adequate feel of company desktops. Reduce frequency of hardware failures and replacements, hence lowering company costs. Enable data recovery through use of central backup system Allow users to gain access to variety of operating systems Gain full utility of centralized storage space. Enable superior integration of current and future Microsoft products Provide for the execution of archival and e-discovery systems The business benefit: the business will reduce costs, run high performing systems and increase efficiency in work outputs. Project goals: the virtualization project is dubbed to ensure the company reduces costs especially of electricity, create large data storage spaces, enable business continuity management and ensure high performance and machine uptime. System center Virtual machine ware (VMware) facilitates end-to-end capacity to plan, delegate, man and optimize the virtual space. Objective statements: Objective representation Asset consolidation and high asset utility: under ordinary circumstances, the physical PC capacity is utilized to only 5-15%, while those running as virtual machines can move up to or more considering their workload requirements. Consolidating computers is the key concern of most entities who are embracing virtualization technology. Through consolidation, organizations and companies can increase asset utility and lower replacement, cost of maintenance and running costs. Therefore, 60% the project is scheduled to reduce costs by 50%, increase storage memory by 120GB each computer and increase efficiency by 20% from the operating efficiency. It also intends to prevail upon conditions of power outages that have witnessed loss of data, communication and decreased output. Reduce power, space and cooling expenses: quite a number of data centers have strong desire to operate under full capability on space, power and cooling of systems. Presence of one physical computer hosting many virtual machines enables many data centre operations to be efficient while using multiple applications on smaller number of physical machines. This lowers operational costs significantly. Quick response to client business needs: procuring and purchasing of new computers is a costly and energy sapping process, it’s indeed a lengthy process. Alternatively, IT administrators would easily allow provisioning of new virtual machines and greatly develop them into teams and business units as required. This scenario can also be streamlined by using virtual machine self-service portal. Through this, VMW administrator allocate self-service end users and allow them controlled access to specific machines, templates among others using the web-based techniques. Ultimately, tests and development users can easily provision new virtual machines, considering the control measures put up by the systems administrator via such self serving rules. Capability of business continuity and quick data recovery: virtualization projects are known to reduce scheduled and unplanned downtime, alongside the capability to recover the whole computer with its data and operating state intact. Under this, the following can be understood. Complete system recovery: any computer failure does not pose challenges of data recovery, data files and folders can easily be recovered. However, it may need reinstalling and reconfiguring the OS and applications which may need some time. Since most system failure arises from hardware failure, failure of systems volumes or incompatible updates, VMware machines can be check pointed at regular intervals. Disaster recovery: most locations experiencing disasters needs identical hardware as those of primary sites which poses a challenge in recreating a system that resembles the primary site. VMware eases recreation. High level availability: this is for hardware maintenance, OS and application updates. Updates can be made monthly, and leases on hardware run for 3 years without replacement. Using VMware on virtual environment management lowers the impact of outages by relocating machines to other hosts. Development and test environments; using a number of developers and testers or host web- based applications having a development or test environment. This is done through; Sandbox testing: over a short period, new components are tested using new computers with variety of configurations, different processors, OS, updates and versions. It gives the ability on demand to provision virtual machines faster and increase responsiveness to development and test users with VMM self-service portal. Creation of checkpoints allows a roll back on the whole system including the operating state and data. New codes are able to be tested and revert to the initial configuration. Pre-production staging: this allows for replica maintenance of production systems, corporate web sites, and intra or internet applications. There is a prior check in the test environment before it’s moved to production. Being safe and effective, maintaining and setting up is costly. With equal number of computers in tests areas, doubles hardware and operation costs. Virtual machines thus lower the numbers of physical tests and recreate a whole multi-tier environment with a single computer. This is useful on three-tier applications comprising of more complex network topologies. In The nut shell, relocating a computer from test environments to production is much quicker by eliminating hardware reliance. In the nutshell, the server virtualization project will ideally ask the following in objective formulation. Expected benefits of the project Expected deliverables of the project Project scope definition criteria The area that the project should comprehend. Virtualization project Deliverables: the project team is scheduled to provide computers, space, human resources and stake holder progress reports. Each individual project phase ought to have its own deliverables. The list of such deliverables requires to be communicated to the client or sponsor and its acceptance by the client is vital. The table below will provide for better understanding of five deliverables as will be explained later. No Project phase Deliverable 1 Scope definition Listing of servers 2 Data collection Inventory and workload data for analysis 3 Design phase IT artifact representing the server mode 4 Implementation phase Virtual server 5 Test phase Document on test procedures and results Deliverable 1: Server Listing It requires precise selection mode and a more data reliability methods which to apply. Data is usually inadequate at the beginning and quite unreliable, therefore virtualization project scope needs to be defined and listed according to: Client server virtualization Inventory data e.g. model, processor core number Inventory data accessibility, validity of security credentials, and correspondence Workload data accessibility Compliance of servers with virtualization feasibility criteria The phase involving scope definition has a list of servers being the main deliverables. This will be included in the project scope with a reason as to why some others servers were not listed. This is obtained by selecting from a complex list of certain criteria. This will include performing: Technological platform: specific types of servers may be used e.g. Intel servers only, redefinition of backup systems, revision of storage systems, and definition of SW management and listing of virtual network layer constraints. Age: servers not exceeding certain age say 2 years be used Location: specifies servers at a specific location to be used e.g. using datacenter B servers Organization ownership: specifies that servers which are owned by certain organizations are used. Management: specifies that only servers managed by IT functions and not other parties be used. Operating system platform: specifies that only MSDOS or UNIX programs are to be used. Virtualization feasibility: provides that only servers that are compatible with VMware and those of Vsphere may be included Application category: provides that all the servers should be brought for instance those hosting database management system Performance requirements: provides a case of servers with Input-Output utility does not go beyond the threshold be included. Deliverable 2: Inventory and Workload Data Collection Data collection is important element that should be embraced by all IT experts. Data collection goes alongside accurate presentation, analysis and interpretation. Workload data for example requires high sampling frequency for errors to be minimized. The data collection sufficient for a server virtualization project needs Inventory data collection- model, memory capacity, and processor number and models Workload collection: utility of processor and its memory Uniquely, any data collected does not have to suit a convention of server design. There are instances where inventory data may constitute altered values like serial numbers of server models. Workload data similarly may contain flaws arising from server shutdown or situational network connectivity problems. Therefore performance data obtained from servers with different configurations makes comparison difficult only if data is brought to normal. It is difficult to compare data utilization of processors with varieties with respect to type and number unless good estimate is given to sever performance. In addition, project analysis phase is tricky if servers under consideration have multiple servers with corresponding multiple data points. Deliverable 3: IT Artifact representing Design Mode It explore two areas; role of optimization theory in virtual server design. It would be easier to find virtual server design through guesswork but indeed difficult to find the cheapest alternative. Finding the optimal solution is a considerable brain cracking phenomena. With a background of SAP projects it is easy to come up with similar server virtualization projects from a computational point of view. Overestimation of system needs is a common error which adds costs to more than 30%. In this instance, it is more costly and risky since the problem is more complex. Optimal responses take into account the server model to be used, number of servers required and the distribution of virtual machines after virtualization. Lack of concise mathematical model of virtual server requires application of a rigorous approach. There are checklists to be used to include all factors. Methodological approach will ensure performance critical steps in the correct order. Methods and checklists are founded on experience to which reviews and improvements are made. Reading from social perspective, in existence are sciences requiring no quantitative approach like case studies which are rigorous, gives in-depth insights and does not need quantification. IT professionals ought to follow serious and in-depth case studies. Deliverable 4: Document on Test Procedures and Results Very precise and all inclusive tests are very important and thus recommended. Tests require comprehensive and accurate plans. The areas of focus are: Server performance with considerable I/O rate Management of Virtual servers Policies on Virtual machine runtime Deliverable 5: Virtual Server With all prior arrangements made precisely, the risk of problems at implementation are minimized, though situations in the IT have the potential to deteriorate in spite of earlier efforts. There ought to be a fall-back of using the non-virtualized OS in place of the virtualized OS. These can happen at the implementation phase. With the existence of VMs, it can be complex since single VMs may not be problematic compared to multiple VMs on the same server which inhibits acceptable response time. Interaction testing and VM mobility testing could be difficult so deployment should be slowed down, by deployed the virtual machines one by one or batch wise. Besides, monitoring is important to prevent any unpredictable issues arising. Conclusion Server virtualization project yields incredible financial and intangible results. The objectives are more than can be realized as cost saving becomes a clear goal. Some objectives may be more conspicuous than others. The IT professionals have a duty to design servers that will always realize the best trade off in the light of competing needs. It is not in doubt that the project will be celebrated at the go live date. Virtualization Project User’s Manual How to create customized virtual application What entails virtualization: the section gives a detailed virtualization for new users and not the works of any architecture. Virtualization allows you to differentiate an application in its own sphere so as not to interfere with existing users or alter the working operating system. Demerits of a conventional installation environment Common windows application relies on shared components e.g. registry or Windows files which are easily accessible. Installation authors combine modules of component installation if application references are shared. Merits of virtualization applications Since virtual applications operate in virtual spaces, individual applications have own configurations which can operate alongside other applications with no interference at all. Without installations on local machine, performance, use and availability to localized services are guaranteed. Virtualization helps to standardize applications like files, objects, and registry settings to lone environment instead of user desktop machine. This lowers the application resource reliance. Application compatibility is assured when non interference is enabled. Information regarding interface of Microsoft App-V assistant: Use of virtualization Tabs How to use the Other places, More Options, Help Links. Transcending the virtualization assistant How to open the installation designer How to show or conceal virtualization assistants How to create Microsoft App-V applications Microsoft App-V applications Overview Elements of Microsoft App-V applications More on Microsoft App-V applications assistants How to use Microsoft App-V applications in producing App-V application Package details and deployment File management Isolation options settings Amending shortcuts Amending registry settings Running dynamic suites App-V tests for application Building assistant references for Microsoft App-V applications Pages Dialog boxes Error and warning conversions Pre- or post conversion of application features VMware Timelines A time line in this project is important in visualizing changes or events happening over a period of definition to the go live date. VMWARE PROJECT Project schedule Stake Holder Consultations IT Professional Consultations Draft reports Tests June 2012 Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan 2013 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Kick Off Meeting Cost Benefit References James, M. (2008). Virtualization 100 Success Secrets 100 Most Asked Questions on Server and Desktop Virtualization, Thinapp Software, SAN, Windows and Vista Applications. Lulu.com. Menken, I. (2008). Virtualization Architecture, Adoption and Monetization of Virtualization Projects Using Best Practice Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement Processes. Lulu.com. Muller, A., Wilson, S., & Happe, D. (2005). Virtualization With VMware ESX Server. Syngress. Shields, G. (2009). The Shortcut Guide to Virtualization and Service Automation. Realtimepublishers.com. Read More