VMTN Blog

Martin MacLeod at Blade Watch has some great observations on virtualization from the data center floor. Check out his whole VMware category. On Sunday's post, he talks about how virtualization can affect even something simple like asset tracking. At VMworld, chargeback was a hot topic. Link: Blade Watch » The need to manage my datacenter.

WSNT9007 is a DL380G1 running windows nt 4. ... It has an asset tag 300587, that’s how purchasing track it, but that tag means nothing to the support team to them it’s WSNT9007. Now, the application team require the server be added to our active directory, as part of this the name has to change to WS29007, this is done following the change process, and all the records are changed, someone tells purchasing that the £350 support cost is now for the new name, that asset tag corresponds to new name etc.

The server is virtualized to a vmware session. The physical hardware 300587 is now in fact WS29008, but WS29007 still exists (as a virtual server), the support team know this (as do the infrastructure teams), but now, how do we track all these changes, relate everything? How do I know that WS29007 is now running on the hardware for the old server, and how do i relate this in charge back etc. It sounds simple in a small server estate but scale it up to 45 application teams, 3500 servers and you see the importance of two things due diligence with your datacenter management, and the accuracy of the information you have for your servers.