Virtualization

I think I have just about got the hang of virtualization. Not completely, mind you, but enough to be useful (or dangerous).



I'm implementing VMWare Server for a few things in my environment. I don't have the need (or the budget) for ESX Server, but I can definitely see why and where it would be useful. Combine virtual servers with the power of clustering and you have nearly the perfect solution to 100÷ up time. That is, of course, assuming your physical site doesn't go down. You do have a backup location, right?

What I haven't gotten a handle on yet, mostly due to lack of time, is storage virtualization. I don't really get how storage could be much more "virtualized" than the LUNs I use on my SAN. I'll read about them first chance I get, or one of you could enlighten me, then I'll post on it. Either way.



I have heard of "virtual tape libraries", which appear to be nothing except disk arrays which pretend to be tape drives to the underlying system. I guess if you already had an extensive system in place for dealing with a tape library, it would be handy. Me, I would just edit a few shell scripts.
and be done with it.









Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T