Virtualization technology management skills needed to staff the current data centers in general have almost the same skills, but hardware and server management compared to those skilled in the management of the physical server virtual machine created even more important.
IT consulting firm Enterprise Management Associates, virtualization technology analyst Andi Mann warned that universities and major college did not catch up with the pace of data center virtualization. Computer science graduates do not have enough skills to deal with virtualization technology based on the rapid growth. Mann EMA consultants and customers to raise a question: "Virtualization technology is appropriate you?" Mann think they should be used for data center virtualization before, so ask yourself.
"Application virtualization technology is also missing a lot of elements ... ... and is now able to manage well does not have many tools for virtual environments." He said in an interview this way. Management of virtualization technologies and skills needed to present the data center staff in general have almost the same skills. Including system configuration, capacity planning, patch management and load management. "And in real life than in the virtual environment, these skills become more important. Virtual world still lack a lot of factors." He said.
After the company began using the virtual machine, one of the most common problem is the proliferation of virtual machines, virtual machine, the number of fast increasing. Set up a new hardware server needs to have placed location, installed in rack space, purchase orders need to go through the approval process, equipment required to deliver acceptance, also need to spend some time to configure. However, for virtual machines is much simpler. However, the proliferation of virtual machines is not their own. "People uncensored virtual machine on the set," Mann said. If the senior administrator does not need to create a virtual machine to make provisions to meet the conditions, then other sectors will force the junior IT staff to create a virtual machine.
IT teams usually rely on a senior member of the team to train junior level team members, such as how to configure a new hardware server. But also to help team members to achieve the requirements of what can set up another server consensus. "But in the application of virtualization technologies, we do not have such a mentor." Mann said.
Most IT managers have been involved in virtualization technology, but they do not explicitly create a virtual machine standards. Mann proposed provision of the relevant "document approval process." Mann is based on the results of a survey made these comments, from 150 enterprises of different sizes CIO and IT manager at the end of 2006 participated in the survey, and one of the 35 interviewed in 2007.
Although most of the data center has some way to use the virtualization technology, but the majority (74%) also did not use the data center virtualization is "not sure they already have to use virtualization technology skills needed . "Even in those who already use virtualization in the data center," there are more than half of the data center said they lacked the necessary skills. "he said.
In this case, the early users must self-training. Supporters of virtualization technology and the pioneer users should be more communication and understanding of their experience; participation held in November last year, like VMware User Group Conference; take part in the discussion forum for frequently asked questions. Mann also suggested that IT staff should not put all the energy is concentrated in reining in spending, in fact, in the event of better management of virtual machine before, it is difficult to truly achieve the cost-saving purposes. Instead, IT staff should spend more time understanding the data center virtualization technology to bring flexibility, load management, disaster recovery benefits. Mann said that the use of virtualization technologies may reduce costs, but do not hold high expectations for this.