Top-11 virtualization pitfalls

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Title should be renamed

While I commend George Gerchow for a well-written article, I should point out that in fact, this should be titled "Top-11 VMWare virtualization pitfalls." It is clear he is referring to VMWare considerations and not general virtualization considerations. Several of the issues he points out clearly are about VMWare and doesn't reflect the different archictectures of other virtualization solutions which avoid some of the pitfalls he talks about.

I feel it does a disservice to readers because they are led to believe that the solutions for virtualization are centered around VMWare. In fact, in some cases, VMWare itself is the pitfall.

For example, he talks about virtual machines running on top of hosts. Well, not all virtualization solutions require that you run on top of another operating system. In fact, personally, I prefer to avoid such a solution as that does a disservice to the true power of virtualization. I think "host-based" virtualization should be a last option.

I use XENsource Enterprise and this solution truly maximizes the power of the hardware. Using hypervisor paravirtualization technology, you allow each virtual machine to run near-natively side-by-side with a thin layer hypervisor existing between OS'es and hardware.

Why ever would I want to submit to the vulnerability of the host operating system? Worst yet, if I ever need to shut down/do maintenance/etc. to the host operating system, all virtual machines are affected and have to be shut down as well.

Not to mention, your vm's are subject to the capabilities of your host operating system. If you're running vm's on a 32-bit operating system that can only support 4 GB RAM, guess what? Your virtual machines aren't going to be able to do much heavy duty work because it has to share those 4 GB and whatever CPU the host sees. But then again, you may not be able to afford upgrading your OS/hardware and host-based virtualization may be your only option.

I should also point out that XENSource Enterprise is significantly cheaper than VMWare. That can help you determine whether you actually can afford the hardware when you realize the savings that come from using solutions other than VMWare.


These, I consider, are the bigger pitfalls to think about when you want to introduce virtualization to your enterprise. Type of hardware available, willingness to buy hardware to maximize your virtualization capabilities, understanding various virtualization options that exist out there, time it takes to understand and reduce the complexities of virtualization across the enterprise, and most importantly, WHY you want to virtualize? This question alone can have multiple answers and implications.

Posted by: yyuko@...   Posted on: 06/19/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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