10 Ways to Cure Your Virtualization Ills

'Tis the season to fix your virtual environment and there's no better way to start that process than with a "to do" list. And, you know you need one. So, here's your list for those dog days of summer, when you want to heat things up even more. You won't solve all ten of these items in a day or in a week. It's an ongoing process but you need to get started now, so here, here's your license and your permission to fix what's broken and put yourself in a better strategic position to expand and grow.

1. Virtual Host Updates - You need to update your virtual host systems on a regular basis. What's regular? You need to check quarterly on the high side and monthly on the normal side. Remember that using Distributed Resource Scheduling, when you put a virtual host system in Maintenance mode, its VMs scatter like rats on a sinking ship, so you can perform these updates during normal business hours.

2. Firmware Updates - Yes, you need to keep firmware up to date on physical servers, blades and enclosures. Some of these are critical so don't slack on them. Quarterly to twice yearly should be sufficient to keep new hardware features and fixes coming your way. The easiest way to maintain these updates is to place yourself on vendor mailing lists for them. Every vendor worth its salt has lists that you can join to keep you abreast of critical updates.

3. Operating System Updates - Yes, the dreaded OS patching rears its ugly head again. This necessary evil can drive you to the brink of homicide. There are new patches, security updates, service packs and updates of some kind landing in my email on an almost daily basis. In larger environments, it's advisable to have a separate team to manage patching. Depending on the severity level of the patch, this could be a weekly exercise. Monthly is probably the correct frequency for most patching needs.

4. VMware Tools Upgrade - Do you see that exclamation mark in the system tray on top of your VMware Tools icon? That means you need to update the tools package. It requires a reboot on Windows operating systems so plan accordingly. The update doesn't takes a few minutes per system to perform but it's worth it for the enhanced drivers and new hardware. This update needs to be performed when updates become available.

5. Virtual Machine Hardware Upgrade - This one is a pain but necessary for better performance. When you update from an earlier version of VMware to vSphere, you'll have to do this. There's no easy way to do it either. It's a lengthy process that requires multiple reboots and network reconfiguration on your VMs. If you're running vSphere 4.x, check your virtual machine's hardware by selecting a VM in VCenter and look at the Hardware version on the Summary tab. If it reads 4, you need to update. If it is 7, you're cool.

6. Remove Orphaned VMDKs - This is one of those pesky housekeeping items that you absolutely must do. Disk files sometimes stay behind, when you delete VMs from inventory. And, once you've deleted a system from inventory, there's no reason to keep any of its associated files around just burning up valuable space. Checking for orphaned VMs on a quarterly basis is sufficient to keep your LUNs clutter free. How do you check for orphaned disk files, you ask? I use a PowerShell script that I found somewhere and modified to fit my environment. The script scans your environment for orphaned VMDK files and provides you a report on its scan. No files are deleted during the scan. You have to do that manually and it's recommended that you double check the findings and remove the orphans after you've made that verification.

7. Adjust vCPUs - As I discussed in, The Late Great Virtual CPU Debate, you should inventory your VMs for multiple vCPU usage and do some serious pruning. Generally speaking, you should configure VMs with single vCPUs. Multiple vCPUs are for special cases and specific workloads.

8. Adjust Virtual Memory - You should take an inventory of your VMs, how much memory you've allocated to each one and adjust accordingly. You won't necessarily adjust them downward but you probably will adjust a lot of them in the downward direction. Memory overcommitment is a big problem in virtual environments but it's also a very popular thing to do. A wiser solution is to use performance data to determine what your VM's memory needs are an adjust to best performance that doesn't waste resources. Why allocate 4GB of memory for a test web server, when one or two is plenty?

9. Change Operating Systems - This recommendation won't make a lot of people happy but it's a good practice. But, why would it make such a difference? If you run a lot of Windows servers in your environment, you're also burning a lot of resources (Memory, for one) that could be used for other workloads.

For example, Windows 2008 R2 requires a minimum of 512MB RAM (OK, try running on that) but realistically needs at least 2GB of RAM out of the box for just the OS. Add an additional two to four GB for each standard workload. Add more for more intense workloads.

If you switch your workloads to Linux, you'll find that you'll use from one-eighth to one-half the memory per VM. Plus, if you use Ubuntu Linux, you won't have to deal with the extreme licensing fees from Microsoft. Better performance, fewer consumed resources and no licensing fees. No brainer?

10. Add Capacity - If you're growing your virtual infrastructure, add capacity. Don't wait until you're experiencing outages, the DRS dance or growth stoppage. Add capacity now and expand into it. You have to stay at least one step ahead of your growth expectations by adding capacity before you need it. Add additional memory to your hosts, add CPUs or upgrade your CPUs and add disk space to resolve performance bottlenecks or growth slowdowns. Hearing the words, "We're out of capacity," is an unacceptable excuse.