Server Consolidation, Disaster Recovery with Virtual Machines

Whether you’ve just begun the selection process to purchase a migration solution for your server consolidation project, or are unsatisfied with your current migration solution, here is a checklist of questions to ask vendors when evaluating an enterprise-caliber workload migration solution.

Does the migration solution readily enable testing? Can a newly-created virtual workload be tested while the original workload is still running in production?

How does the solution handle the synchronization of source workload changes that have occurred while the workload was being migrated or tested in the virtual environment?

What assurances do you have that the solution will minimize data loss during the synchronization process?

How does the solution handle a dropped network connection or a low-latency network? When the network is restored, can the solution recover and pick up a migration without affecting the production workload?

How automated is the process? What manual steps need to be done post-migration?

How much configuration flexibility does the solution provide? Are you able to re-configure the new virtual hardware, set external OS parameters and control application startup?

How easy is it to locate the answer to your specific issue? Is enterprise 24x7 support available to handle any issue at any time? Does the solution vendor provide an on-line knowledge base of up-to-date technical support information?

Does the solution include planning capabilities to ensure an optimal server consolidation project based on concrete data, workload profiling and assessment? How automated is the end-to-end consolidation process from planning to execution?

After the initial consolidation effort is complete, does the solution enable ongoing monitoring and rebalancing of workloads between physical and virtual hosts to keep the data center running at optimal levels and avoid virtual infrastructure sprawl?

How field-hardened is the underlying technology? How many large-scale customer projects have been trusted to the product?

Solutions PlateSpin data center automation solutions optimize the use of server resources across the enterprise. Our virtualization solutions include physical-to-virtual (P2V) server consolidation, disaster recovery, server optimization and test lab automation.
Server Consolidation Eight Steps The Playbook Consolidation Value Pack	The Playbook The Consolidator’s Playbook The consolidator understands the importance of robust, enterprise-ready migration tools and rigorous testing to ensure that workloads will run properly in the virtual environment from day one. He or she would never trust the success of the enterprise’s consolidation initiative to a migration tool that could introduce unnecessary downtime or risk. Take a Page from the Consolidator’s Playbook Whether you’ve just begun the selection process to purchase a migration solution for your server consolidation project, or are unsatisfied with your current migration solution, here is a checklist of questions to ask vendors when evaluating an enterprise-caliber workload migration solution. Does the migration solution readily enable testing? Can a newly-created virtual workload be tested while the original workload is still running in production? How does the solution handle the synchronization of source workload changes that have occurred while the workload was being migrated or tested in the virtual environment? What assurances do you have that the solution will minimize data loss during the synchronization process? How does the solution handle a dropped network connection or a low-latency network? When the network is restored, can the solution recover and pick up a migration without affecting the production workload? How automated is the process? What manual steps need to be done post-migration? How much configuration flexibility does the solution provide? Are you able to re-configure the new virtual hardware, set external OS parameters and control application startup? How easy is it to locate the answer to your specific issue? Is enterprise 24x7 support available to handle any issue at any time? Does the solution vendor provide an on-line knowledge base of up-to-date technical support information? Does the solution include planning capabilities to ensure an optimal server consolidation project based on concrete data, workload profiling and assessment? How automated is the end-to-end consolidation process from planning to execution? After the initial consolidation effort is complete, does the solution enable ongoing monitoring and rebalancing of workloads between physical and virtual hosts to keep the data center running at optimal levels and avoid virtual infrastructure sprawl? How field-hardened is the underlying technology? How many large-scale customer projects have been trusted to the product?