by Damian Giannunzio

While a ruler of ancient Greece would be perplexed by a smartphone, he still understands what is required to maintain a prosperous kingdom. King Midas of myth and the modern CIO share a number of fundamental desires: stability, consolidation, and service. These are essential values that transcend time and retain their luster after thousands of years. And whether you’re trying to run a kingdom, small-to-medium business, or enterprise-level company, you are often occupied with acquiring or maintaining them.

Midas prayed for the ability to transmute anything to gold at a touch… but gold is a heavy anchor, as he soon discovered. Implementing a business plan without being fully apprised of a value proposition’s associated costs can be ruinous—golden apples are pretty, but hardly edible. The Midas touch opportunity that is virtualization requires careful review and understanding by a CIO.

Talk of virtualization, private clouds, public clouds, and everything in between has become so commonplace that you’re the unpopular and unprincipled dilettante at the ball if you don’t have an interesting anecdote to share on the topic. While the confusion persists, you’re still looking for the bottom line: Is this the direction that my business needs to move in? The field is still changing and advancing so rapidly that it can be difficult to find your footing on the shifting ground. So where do you begin?

The old way 
Businesses and enterprises alike are plagued with inefficiencies, runaway resource distribution, and escalating costs. The contributing factors are numerous but can be quantified generally by underutilization and inflexibility. While server sprawl and workstation profusion escalate, storage administrators are still aware of the fact that these resources are not at full capacity. Licensing constraints and application purposing dictate the need for resource assignment, leading to a situation in which some servers have to pull triple time while others are barely active. Production floors are saturated with PCs at varying levels of hardware tier and HelpDesk inboxes overflow with upgrade requests or reports of malfunction. Many businesses are still ignoring performance issues such as file fragmentation.

The problem is that this sounds normal. Because we have always dealt with the tight coupling of software and hardware, the solution path has traditionally led towards more distribution. Building out the network reactively has been simple to cost in terms of the production demands of the moment: a drive died, a new server is required, we need X additional workstations, etc. Purchase orders pile up for additional software licensing, IT costs continue to break ever higher glass ceilings, and we convince ourselves that this is growth.

While there have been amazing advances in continuity, server outages due to poor load balancing persist. Tools enabling the automation of these services are typically proprietary, which means hundreds of IT hours annually spent in learning, implementation, and maintenance for potentially hardware-specific tools. The thought of migrating the business to a new architecture can paralyze a server administrator with fear, yet little choice remains when expansion is the only answer.

Solutions exist. Disk fragmentation prevention or correction for direct-attached storage and other utilities can increase system performance for current infrastructures and resolve some of the fundamental issues driving these larger problems. The advent of shared storage gave us an introduction to the massive opportunities available in consolidation. True scalability, though, remains out of reach. We’re still subject to the pitfalls of storage islands and their rising energy costs.

Gold as light as a cloud 
Virtualization actually predates distributed computing. More than 30 years ago, IBM first implemented virtualization in order to logically partition their mainframes into separate ‘virtual machines.’ And the rationale then still holds true today: They virtualized in order to fully leverage their resources.

To understand the principal benefits of virtualization, let’s review the core concept: abstraction and separation of application from hardware. When you tie specific use cases to server or workstation hardware, you tie the survival, investment, and productivity of the use cases to that hardware. It is little wonder, then, that IT purchasing has become so accepted that preapproved budgets in the hundreds of thousands or even millions get rubber stamped with minimal review. The very survival of mission-critical applications currently rests on these hardware expenses.

Introducing an internal virtual infrastructure, or ‘private cloud,’ is the first step toward escaping the current model. Separation of application permits the evaluation of hardware expense as a cost distinct from simply being able to do business, giving companies a choice. At the same time, a virtual administrator can now leverage dynamic control over the resources available to that virtualized application, since it is no longer tied to one set of physical resources.

Virtualization also opens the door to new conventions for performance and IT. Stepping away from the model of ‘one system, one application’ yields new pathways for measuring the advancement and growth of enterprise. Putting a price tag on server or workstation usability, enterprise management, and energy costs gives the purchase decision maker more granular control on proper spending. Long-frazzled system administrators who have spent countless hours tapping pencil to forehead while desperately trying to word their proposals for IT investments are now able to eloquently and effectively communicate the need for innovation because we can see the cost of performance.

‘Public cloud’ offerings are rapidly multiplying as well. These remote virtual services offer the benefits of virtualization with even greater scalability and the reliability of dedicated virtual resources that may exceed by leaps and bounds the infrastructure available at any given price point for private cloud. These encompass every form of virtualization possible, from individual applications and file stores to workstations and servers.

In contemplating a transition to private/public cloud or a hybrid implementation of the two, it’s necessary to quantify what the realized benefits to your business will be. Consolidation and increased life of hardware is not an abstract concept—it’s reduced cost. Improved business continuity expands on previously understood and accepted data security standards. Improved performance means greater service levels, internally and externally. All of these are positioned as the value proposition for virtualization, and rightly so. They also need to be weighed against the costs of new storage requirements, the IT investments associated with implementation, and the new obstacles that virtualization can present. With virtual provisioning over shared storage, an administrator needs to understand and monitor resources with a far keener eye than ever before. More than one resource suffers when bottlenecks occur, and optimizing your new or existing virtual platform must be a paramount concern.

In the case of medium business to large-scale enterprise, virtualization will be the norm in a matter of years. It’s important to get educated now and to begin understanding not only the benefits but also the unique challenges of virtualization. Know when to virtualize based on your existing physical infrastructure and application use, and monitor the benefits as virtualization is instituted. Look before you leap, and get all of the gold your kingdom can handle without the heavy burden.

Damian Giannunzio is the product manager at Diskeeper Corporation (Burbank, CA). www.diskeeper.com.  Reprinted with the permission of WestWorld Productions, Inc. (www.wwpi.com). Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.

Click to view the free webinar.

Enterprise CIOs are in a bind. On one hand, their organizations are being asked to become more agile and lean. On the other hand, they are being asked to reduce operational costs. Is your path to enhanced business agility and operational efficiency in the cloud?

In this highly informative video, VMware, Tier 3 and Equinix provide you insights into:

• Opportunities for creating business agility and reducing operational overhead with Hybrid Cloud
  
• How IT can extend the benefits of their existing VMware virtualized environment by leveraging the application migration benefits of VMware- based Hybrid Cloud solutions
  
• What essential requirements to look for in your Enteprise Grade Hybrid Cloud Service Provider
  
• What fast, secure connectivity solutions and cloud marketplace services to expect from your colo provider

Speakers are:

• Nic O’Donavan – Solutions Architect, VMware
  
• Bryan Thompson – VP of Services, Tier 3
  
• Lou Najdzin – Vertical Development Director, Global Cloud & IT Services, Equinix

Click to view the free webinar.

Burbank, CA, September 14, 2011 – Diskeeper Corporation today announced the appointment of Jerry Baldwin as its new Chief Executive Officer.  Acquiring Mr. Baldwin’s 30-year expertise in the hi-tech industry signals a further expansion of Diskeeper Corporation into the storage performance market where it has maintained a leadership position for decades.

“Diskeeper has a very strong technology portfolio,” said Jerry. “It adds critically needed performance and efficiency improvements to the virtualization and data storage fields and because of this, it is in demand across all the channels – e-tailer, reseller, OEM and distribution. There is an upsurge in Diskeeper product demand at every enterprise level by CIOs desperate to drive cost efficiency down in their IT sectors. 

“We have OEM contracts with two of the largest manufacturers and more have been calling. You have to remember that Diskeeper products are famous for being bullet-proof -- 90% of the Fortune 500, 40 million licenses sold and yet only a handful of tech support calls! That’s unheard of in this business.” 

Jerry Baldwin comes to Diskeeper with a list of accomplishments, many in CXO leadership roles, including taking Fortune 500 companies to their next level. He has helped companies such as BPI/CA, CompUAdd, DEC, EDS and One eCommerce launch new products, build quality channel programs and accelerate sales.

Craig Jensen, Founder and Chairman, said, “We are thrilled to be able to secure someone with the experience and talent of Jerry. As we grow our product family, aggressively build our OEM business and expand our channel and global footprint, we are fortunate to have a leader who has succeeded in each of these areas.”

For more information about Diskeeper and their products, contact Colleen Toumayan by email at ctoumayan@diskeeper.com or by phone at 800-829-6468 ext. 5305.

Often when a product has achieved a market leadership for an extended period of time, complacency can creep into its sense of innovation. Not so with Diskeeper.

Diskeeper® data performance software is the market and technology leader and has been for over a quarter century. In fact, over 90% of all defrag products sold are Diskeeper. It’s on site at more than 90% of all Fortune 1000 companies and over 40 million licenses have been sold. But the product has never stopped being innovated to meet the needs of contemporary business. And Diskeeper 2011 is a new and revolutionary turn of events for any IT manager interested in true efficiency. Why? The answer comes down to a concept: increase efficiency and reduce waste.

Taiichi Ohno, a visionary pioneer in the field of efficiency, defined waste broadly as “any human activity which absorbs resources but creates no value”. This concept, though simple, has had profound repercussions throughout all modern industry. The idea is based on creating a need-driven flow that generates higher effective throughput without the margins of waste typical of industry. Newly released Diskeeper 2011 forwards this spirit of efficiency.

Some legacy habits dictate that defragmentation, (making contiguous files that have been written in pieces and scattered randomly across a disk), be scheduled to occur after hours and without regard to the priority of importance of the files involved. For some, this method is so ingrained that completely obsolete methods of defrag—the freebie built-in for example—have attempted to be used in the corporate environment (which they were never intended for in the first place).

Allowing a system to fragment, is allowing a system to not only absorb resources to do work that has no value, but actually impedes other work from getting done. This is true waste. Worse, attempting to use these antiquated methods will now create human and system resource conflicts and as many IT managers have found they are resource intensive, won’t defrag free space, require administrative time (must be scheduled off production times) and in the end, don’t get the job done anyway.

In contrast, Diskeeper 2011 has evolved the concept of efficiency to maximize system productivity throughput through an entire set of technical innovations:

• Fragmentation prevention through the use of IntelliWrite® technology causes files to be written to disk contiguously up to 85% of the time.
• InvisiTasking® technology ensures zero resource conflicts when defrag is active.
• Instant Defrag™ technology detects and handles immediately the fragmentation of demand-driven files. 
• Efficient Mode handles only what is necessary for optimum efficiency. 

Fragmentation is waste and it is viral, with a long chain of consequences that leads to more work, more frequent system refreshes, and more hours spent for less result. Fragmentation lies at the logical level of every system on every Windows site. Diskeeper 2011 goes beyond defrag and is the only response that actually restores optimum efficiency without costing more. 

For more information about Diskeeper and their products, contact Colleen Toumayan by email at ctoumayan@diskeeper.com or by phone at 800-829-6468 ext. 5305.

In a recent survey conducted by Diskeeper Corporation, IT managers revealed that what really keeps them up at night is a dual problem:  needing more data storage and answering the demands for cost cutting. Virtualization has been the accepted solution and it works, providing a primary barrier to virtualization performance is effectively handled. Since a company operates at the speed of its IT networks, faster I/O performance is constantly mandated. But as the IT stack of technologies build, the ability of the IT manager to maintain efficiency of system resources declines. Files written in pieces to both the host and VMs create massive waste of I/O resources, and “grow-as-needed” disks (a key tool of virtual operations), create “bloated” free space. Virtualization performance  consequently decreases at the I/O throughput level at its deepest point of the platform, the disk.

Manual or fixed schedule solutions cannot produce virtualization performance gains without generating unacceptable losses in time and money or creating an up-again-down-again performance profile.  The ideal components of a true solution are scalability, intelligent control, automatic operation and efficiency (increasing productivity with fewer resources).

One of the keys to solving this issue is to create awareness between the host and the virtual machines running on it. Resources needed to optimize each VM are not coordinated and will cut across virtualization performance. Not optimizing leads to a steady decline in I/O bandwidth and because so many operating systems are converged on physical systems, the results can cause a negative impact throughout the IT environment.

Managing virtualization performance is a commitment to achieving greater efficiency and economy. While some of the issues related to virtual platform performance and compatibilities are broadly known, there have been few real solutions.

Diskeeper Corporation research and development has produced V-locity® 2.0 virtual platform disk optimizer, a product that addresses all these points and generates significant increases in I/O speeds while also increasing overall efficiency.  V-locity is grounded on four functions that separate it from any other would-be solution.

• The ability to coordinate resource usage and ensure V-locity operations are 100% invisible.
  
• The ability to ensure data is written contiguously to the disk the majority of the time while  making the rest contiguous quickly with zero resource conflicts.
  
• Being able to detect virtual disk type and configure itself accordingly.
  
• Being able to compact virtual disk free space bloat on thin and dynamic disks.
  

The combined technologies in V-locity 2.0 are designed to ensure greater compatibilities between related functions and maximum I/O throughput across the entire platform.  Virtual platforms at peak optimization exhibit economies of scale that go far beyond the sum of their parts.  For example, a V-locity 2.0 user, the CTO of a large travel agency in charge of specialty and emerging markets (requires fast and flexible operations), operates a complex environment with over 350 servers.  When his virtual systems were not performing up to expectations, he considered ordering higher performance fiber channel drives at $900 each, with a total cost of over $300,000. With V-locity deployment and a simple reconfiguration, he was able to get better response, consistently, with SATA drives that cost $50-$75 each.

Virtualization performance promises new levels of efficiency and flexibility that will continue to drive down costs for many years.  IT managers who are recognizing the bottlenecks and taking advantage of the technology that resolves the issues will benefit sooner.

For more information about Diskeeper and how their family of products can help you be more productive, contact Colleen Toumayan by phone at 800-829-6468 (ext. 5305) or by email at ctoumayan@diskeeper.com.