Regardless of the size of your virtualization project you will probably ask two of the most common questions before you even start:
- What product(s) & version(s) should I use?
- How much should I plan to spend?
The simplest answer of course is “it depends”. I’ve seen implementations range from a thousand bucks to over several million. Ideally, your virtualization project needs & goals should drive your product selection. The bells & whistles you chose will determine your spending.
10 Basic questions that will help you determine product & cost:
- Will your Virtual Infrastructure (VI) host production Virtual Machines (VM)?
- What servers do you already have that can be used as hosts (32bit, 64bit, Mem, Disk, Network)?
- Do you have a need for High Availability (HA)?
- Do you have the need to manage SLA’s on your VMs?
- What will a typical VM in your VI look like (OS, Disk, Mem, Network, CPU)?
- What other IT resources do you have that can be used (SAN, NAS, Switches, etc…)?
- What level of comfort does your existing staff have with the various IT resources?
- Do you have existing hardware/software support agreements with Vendors you could leverage?
- What tools do you already own that are “virtualization aware” and what new tools will you need?
- How many VM’s do you plan to scale to?
Please, please, please, don’t make the mistake of implementing features that you don’t need and over-engineering just because the product lets you do so.
If you plan it right your product & cost, questions will be answered with no unpleasant surprises.
