Vkernel Optimization Pack 1.4

Moving some workloads into virtual environments can offer the promise of more efficient and effective operations. It can also present the image that these workloads can execute in in an efficient, effective way.  The promise virtual environments offer, however, may not be realized if there is insufficient expertise available to tune each and every virtual server, or virtual client for that matter, to the task at hand.  Often default settings are used that create a virtual environment that has too little or too much of a number of critical resources including processor power, memory, storage, network bandwidth or the like.

Sifting through all of the available settings can be an almost insurmountable problem for some IT organizations. Vkernel has long offered technology that can allow people to look at what is happening and make needed improvements. The recent announcement of Vkernel's Optimization Pack 1.4 shows that the company has been learning from its customers and has taken positive steps to offer solutions.

Here's what Vkernel has to say about Optimization Pack 1.4

Different than VKernel Capacity Analyzer which focuses on VM performance, VKernel Optimization Pack is designed to reclaim over alloated resources to reduce hardware costs.  Optimization Pack integrates with VMware vCenter, ESX or vSphere and:

• Inventories your entire virtual infrastructure
• Provides comprehensive reporting to manage VM sprawl
• Uncovers abandoned snapshots
• Automatically baselines capacity utilization levels

It then makes recommendations to:

• Fit more VMs on exisiting server and storage resources without compromising performance, and
• Delete Zombies, abandoned VMs, templates, and snapshots that are consuming valuable storage resources
• Reclaim and repurpose 15% to 30% of existing capacity
• Reduce new server and storage purchase by 1/2

Snapshot analysis

Many suppliers promise the sun and the stars but, in the end, only deliver the moon. The promises Vkernel is making appear almost too good to be true.

Having spoken with several users of Vkernel's products in the past, I would tend to believe that the company is delivering on their promises. When I've had the opportunity to speak with Vkernel customers, they have largely been happy and appear to believe that Vkernel's products have lived up to their expectations.  So, I would suspect that this product will also do what is promised.

If your organization has found that virtual environments have not lived up to its expectations, it might be good to take advantage of the 30 day trial by downloading the software and giving it a spin.