Hadrian James, technology manager for the firm, said that IT leaders must initially weigh up whether a move to virtualisation would actually benefit their organisation, as the technology can cause some applications like SQL and Exchange to run slower than usual, or fail.
"Also, if your virtual server goes down you have lost lots of boxes rather than just one," he added.
He recommended firms to baseline test the performance of their apps to ensure that those running on a virtualised server run at the same performance levels as those on dedicated servers.
"IT should be looking to minimise the risk involved [in adopting virtualisation]," said James. "Therefore they should make one change at a time and do measurements before and after."
James also argued that companies need to take care when configuring their virtual servers' host machine, because if it is misconfigured it could overload and bring down all the apps sitting on it.
"There is one more machine to monitor in virtual environments," he added. " You need to monitor each virtual machine but also the external host machine – so there's an extra layer of complexity,"
Firms told to beware of virtualisation
By
Phil Muncaster
on Aug 11, 2008 8:15AM
Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.
Partner Content
Channel faces AI-fuelled risk as partners lag on data resilience, Dicker Data summit told
Tech Buying Budgets for SMBs on the Rise
Tech Data: Driving partner success in a digital-first economy
_(11).jpg&h=142&w=230&c=1&s=1)
The Compliance Dilemma for Technology Partners: Risk, Revenue, and Reputation
Promoted Content
From Insight to Opportunity: How SMB Service Demand is Shaping the Next Growth Wave for Partners
.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
_(8).jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
