-- Blind Spot #1: Virtualization does not equal agility. While server
virtualization does indeed provide significant mobility benefits, the
industry often overlooks the fact that virtualization is at the software
level only. Virtualization vendors fail to mention the administrative
tasks that are needed to manage the underlying physical infrastructure as
well as virtual machines. Egenera points out that data centers require
solutions to "orchestrate" infrastructure and provide IT with a single,
holistic view for managing both the physical and virtual components within
the data center.
-- Blind Spot #2: Virtualization does not equal simplification. There is
certainly simplification resulting from the reduction in physical servers
as well as the ability to create new virtual servers. However,
virtualization ultimately creates more virtual objects requiring lifecycle
management, more security to layer-on, and more moving parts to account
for. Egenera highlights that simplification is achieved only through
unified infrastructure management, bridging both physical and virtual
resources.
-- Blind Spot #3: Not all High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery
(DR) is solved by VM (Virtual Machine) technology. One of the main reasons
for adopting virtualization are the HA and the DR options. Should a virtual
machine fail, then another can quickly pick up the workload. However, there
is an implicit assumption in the industry that 100% of HA and DR
environments are virtualized. For this assumption to be correct, all
applications must be virtualized including identical VM stand-by recovery
resources. Additionally, the recovery equipment must be pre-provisioned
with VM software, and pre-configured identically to the primary servers.
Egenera's research shows that unified HA/DR, at the hardware/network level,
is a more effective and cost-efficient approach. This enables mixed
environments of physical and virtual payloads to be protected, simply and
easily.
-- Blind Spot #4: Provisioning is assumed only for software. There has
been significant progress in the recent past toward advanced configuration
control and provisioning of images to servers. But, in a virtualized
environment, every change drives an equal and associated change in the
physical infrastructure such as I/O, network and storage connectivity.
Egenera's position is that automated provisioning (and ongoing dynamic re-
provisioning) of bare metal compute, I/O, network and storage must
complement software provisioning.
-- Blind Spot #5: Not everything is, or will, be virtual. There are many
mission-critical, scale-out, performance- and/or license-constrained
applications that will always remain on physical servers. This results in
a preponderance of segregated-environment management systems. Egenera
cautions IT Operations that there will always be a mix of physical and
virtual resources. Therefore, a core requirement of managing today's data
centers is a technology-agnostic approach to simplifying and unifying
physical and virtual environments.
Egenera argues that if each of these blind spots are recognized and
appropriately addressed through a unified and holistic approach to data
center management, IT departments can make great strides in responding to
rapidly changing business requirements, and flexibly deliver business
technology within an environment that is future-ready.
For years, Egenera has helped hundreds of customers worldwide address these
blind spots. These organizations have discovered that PAN Manager®
software provides the "infrastructure orchestration" required to manage
their mixed physical and virtualized environments to deliver dynamically
managed, always-available physical infrastructure that allows companies to
simplify and often automate administrative tasks for a more reliable,
cost-efficient data center environment.
About Egenera, Inc.
Egenera makes every data center a reliable dynamic data center, quickly and
easily. The company's integrated enterprise data center solutions,
powerful PAN Manager® software and professional services are trusted
globally to deliver proven value through agility, reliability and
availability. Egenera solutions and services guarantee wire-once, always
on, physical and virtual management across the data center with measurable
savings. Headquartered in Marlboro, Mass., Egenera has offices worldwide.
For more information visit http://www.egenera.com, call 508-858-2600 or
send email to info@egenera.com.
Egenera and Egenera stylized logos are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Egenera, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other
company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective holders. The information in this document is subject to change
without notice.
Contact Information: Press Contacts: Ann Cole Gutenberg PR 646 775 6315 acole@gutenbergpr.com