Virtualization management steppingstones

Little by little, management tool vendors are getting better at providing the ability to manage the virtual server infrastructure. HP, for example, has renewed efforts to develop software for managing VMware hypervisor technology. In partnership with VMware, it will tackle management and automation software for performance, configuration and availability management of VMware servers. (HP already handles basic VMware management.) And start-ups such as ManageIQare focusing on capabilities such as virtual server configuration management. Truly, these efforts are good. But they still fall short of the ultimate management need – meaning, the ability to provide end-to-end management of the entire virtual infrastructure, not just the server piece of it. As Cameron Haight, research vice president at Gartner, says in a recent story on the challenges of virtualization management, “It’s important to look at virtualization in a holistic fashion [because] poor design in one IT silo can impact the overall performance. It’s important to have management visibility across these technology components to help us rapidly diagnose potential performance and availability problems.” Read “Virtual goo” for more expert insight on how to handle the challenge of managing and optimizing the virtual infrastructure.