More professional virtualization with genie computing services

Cloud computing may be the future of enterprise IT, but the present is, without a doubt, virtualization. "You must learn to walk before you try to run," says Lior Mizrahi, Chief Technology Officer at Genie Computing Services "Virtualization is a necessary step in any direction the industry will develop and especially if the cloud will really fulfill the hopes placed in it. Virtualization means that the applied solutions run on any hardware platform which is available to take on the additional load (of course, within certain limitations of the architecture). It is impossible to go to the cloud without reaching such a situation, which allows the tasks to be moved from place to place without rebuilding the configuration and making complicated settings and adjustments , the virtualization process is complete or close to completion. But there is still a lot to do in the medium-sized companies sector, and this is where genie's activities are concentrated. We want to bring virtualization at its best to mid-size companies and organizations.

Solving a school that got into trouble
It turns out that virtualization is a field of specialization that requires more than installing a disk and clicking Next. And even more challenging is the fact that the specialization is not limited to controlling the virtualization software itself, whether it is the popular VMware or the Hyper-V that has been included in Windows servers since 2008. Or good for the customer - the professionals know that the challenges are actually scattered in the application software that should migrate to a new environment without trauma.

I will give you an example that will clarify this point: a business client who needed a special virtual solution, a software that not many people know about in Israel, to run the production system, planned the transition to a virtual environment for the last weekend before the start of the season. To the inexperienced contractor who won the tender, the case seemed to invite a "school solution" and he did not prepare for unnecessary complications. The team arrived at the site on Friday morning and by evening it had already become clear to everyone that it was a catastrophe. The critical application did not work, even though the migration process itself went without any problem." "The customer is understandably under pressure, on Sunday morning the operator must work, otherwise the damages will accumulate at the rate of hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. The installers tried to restore the situation to normal, but it turned out that something "went wrong" along the way and it is impossible to restore the configuration without receiving new codes from the American company, which left for a long weekend and is generally unwilling to send the codes without its representative coming to check the real reason for the unusual request.

The plant manager, faced with a bleak forecast of at least a week of downtime, turned to the genie for a second opinion. We arrived, checked and it turned out that the contractor did indeed work according to the book and the problem must be outside the book. Digital detective work that lasted long hours deep into the night pointed to the culprit: the software in question is "locked" on a certain hard disk and the key is the identification number burned into the physical drive's hardware. The virtualization process, which involves severing the physical connection between an application and specific hardware, "removed the key from the lock". Although the virtualization process was done without errors, in the broader sense of business continuity, a serious error of ignorance and lack of awareness was made here."

Do not enter a minefield with your eyes closed
Once the cause was found, it was not difficult to re-establish the system in the old configuration and start restoring the virtualization project on a clean slate. This time the client understood the danger involved in handing over the project to virtualization enthusiasts and agreed that genie's professionals would go to work. "The client was surprised when I told him that we would need two weeks to study the work environment in depth," Lior Mizrahi recounts the end of the affair. "But the bitter experience has already taught him to trust those who are not willing to enter a minefield with their eyes closed.

A quick transition in the Gesch company brings positive results
"The execution of the virtualization project at Geash in a short time yielded two very positive results. One was the transfer of the entire computerized system in a relatively short time to a super advanced system and the other was saving money and optimizing work time," says Mike Panitzer, from Tiger Geash Lighting Products Ltd. For one of the programs that are supposed to migrate to the virtualization world, we found several pitfalls of the mentioned type. It should not surprise anyone that software designed to work in one environment will stutter in the new environment. that will be created when moving to another environment. Sometimes there is even a real difficulty in moving an application from an Intel platform to a platform based on AMD processors, even though it is formally the "same architecture" and they are supposed to be compatible without any reservations!".

In the second round, the virtualization was conducted using a different method, developed by Genie experts and proven in dozens of similar projects. "We set up a virtual testing and testing environment, separate from the production setup and tested each application separately," recalls Lior Mizrahi. "Each application that has been analyzed and converted at the code level is sent to the test environment to discover possible mines and to make sure that we do not put a healthy head in a sick bed again. As expected, this phase lasts two weeks and the customer is required to be patient and work in the old, non-virtual environment in the meantime. But when the tests and adjustments were completed, The transition was made from now on. As the pilots say, there was no need to wait for the "Shehl" ambulance to be on standby. One moment they were working on the new system, without anyone noticing The transition. And of course without the owner having a stroke because of a critical collapse. Does this mean that our people understand better how to press the NEXT button? They just know better how to prepare the ground for virtualization."

The medium-sized organizations fall through the cracks
Similar stories can be heard in many mid-size companies that set out for the goal of virtualization and discovered that the shortest line goes through a professional integrator. "Entanglements of the type demonstrated in the above story are typical for projects in this sector," says Lior Mizrahi. "The medium-sized companies and organizations fall through the cracks. On the one hand, they do not have an internal team of IT experts who know how to prepare the systems for a safe migration, as is the case in most enterprise organizations, and on the other hand, the systems can be quite complex and special, in contrast to the standard simplicity of IT in small companies. We find that Genie's professional services are especially needed in organizations that operate between 50 and 500 endpoints and between 5-50 servers. For them, the need to move to a virtual configuration is a no-brainer, it goes without saying, but the execution requires a lot of brains."

These organizations migrate to a virtual environment to achieve several intertwined goals. "Better utilization of the hardware is the main drive," says Lior Mizrahi. "When, thanks to successful virtualization, I can replace 20 or 30 servers with just two or three.

When the storage requirements are solved without buying more and more disks - some of which will not be used for more than a few percent of the nominal capacity - the customer saves a lot of money. It also reduces the cost of software licenses, ongoing maintenance expenses and power consumption and the price of real estate. Without a doubt, a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculation will show that virtualization is the best IT investment."

Additional values of the virtualization
But in addition to direct financial gain, smart virtualization will achieve several other important business goals, Survival and business continuity: A properly designed virtual system has no critical points of failure. Ensuring business continuity is an integral part of the virtualization goal and in many cases the main goal. To succeed in it, you need to understand exactly how the business works and at what point adding "redundancy" can prevent a point failure from turning into a total disaster.

Ability to grow gradually without interruptions:
This feature, called Scalability, ensures that the virtualization project will not be an introduction to an endless series of upgrades and changes. When you load all the tasks on a small number of physical servers in order to make better use of the hardware investment, you run the risk that future growth will bring the virtual system to its knees. You need to know how to calculate the future needs for several years ahead ("We guarantee to guarantee capabilities for 5 years in the future", says Lior) and understand how they will find a solution in the solution installed today. "This cannot be a simple extrapolation of past experience," says Lior, "because we must expect that in the future the approach to IT will be different in a number of essential points. And we need to understand where business systems are developing before trying to analyze the meaning in terms of the infrastructure and platforms."

Flexibility and business agility (Agility):
Even if you know where technology is going - and not many can prove their ability - the business future is an enigma even for the most experienced business people. Traditional companies are clearing the arena for new ones and others are relearning the steps of the competitive dance. Apple has reinvented itself as a smartphone maker, AT&T has become a mobile phone company and IBM is finding its new purpose in professional services. Any manager who wants to ensure long-term survival for his company.

A successful upgrade allows you to sleep peacefully at night
"We were looking for a system that could serve us for the next 5 years and that would allow us to grow smoothly with the development of the organization, a high level of performance and simple maintenance," says Tamar Shalem, a manager of Legin. "Genie Business Computing Services provided us with a comprehensive solution for the infrastructure upgrade project, including an array upgrade The storage, upgrading the Exchange server and implementing backup systems in a cloud service. The transition was smooth and was not felt at all by the users, performance increased significantly and the number of network failures decreased greatly. The successful project allows me to sleep peacefully at night."

It is necessary to think about the technology infrastructures that will enable the rapid assimilation of changes, lightning reactions to the moves of the competitors, adaptation to liquid global market conditions and the ability to take advantage of opportunities faster than the competitors. A virtual infrastructure designed with a correct business vision will provide the essential characteristics of flexibility and agility, without which there is no chance of surviving in a world that is changing so quickly.

look at eye level
Another pitfall that lurks for mid-size organizations on the way to virtualization is a lack of companies willing and able to provide the necessary professional backup. "An open secret is that the big and famous integrators don't see these customers from a meter." says Lior
east. "Those who are used to carrying out projects in the millions and dealing with the big dinosaurs in the economy become a dinosaur themselves. A project measured in thousands or tens of thousands of dollars is considered "nucleus" by them. And if they take it on, it is only to provide temporary work for surplus personnel." And on the other hand, the neighborhood computer store, or the regional distributor, who mainly understands how to "move boxes" are not suitable for this. There is a difference between a logistical role in the supply chain and the ability to perform "heart replacement" surgery without anesthetizing the patient! "You can say that this is Genie's specialty. To replace the IT core of mid-size organizations with a virtual core without shutting down the business. When this analysis is done by our experts, the patient can be guaranteed at least 5 years of healthy growth without interruptions for upgrade purposes."