Data Center Systems Management

How can I enable automated VM resource provisioning?

As with many other facets of virtualization, VM resource allocation is becoming automated. Find out what tools you can use for automated provisioning.ATE

A look inside the DevOps movement

The DevOps movement broke traditional silos to create the future of IT. Here are some fundamentals to help you stay on top in this agile field.guide

Opscode Chef

Chef is an open-source systems management and cloud infrastructure automation framework created by Opscode. Devops can use Chef to deploy and manage servers and applications in-house and in the cloud.Definition

Beyond Chef and Puppet: Ten essential DevOps tools

DevOps requires a hefty toolbox for managing code builds; IT pros identified 10 DevOps tools -- beyond Chef and Puppet -- that are hot right now.News | 26 Apr 2013

Q&A: How Facebook uses Chef configuration management tools

How Facebook manages hundreds of thousands of servers and multiple code releases per day using DevOps and Chef tool for configuration management.News | 26 Apr 2013

Expert resources for maintaining scalable data centers

Download these expert resources from the Modern Infrastructure Decisions Summit in New York City.Magazine

Download expert resources from Modern Infrastructure Decisions

Download these expert resources from Modern Infrastructure Decisions, which took place April 11th in Times Square.Magazine

Download the expert presentations from Modern Infrastructure Decisions

Download the expert session presentations from Modern Infrastructure Decisions in New York City on April 11th.Magazine

Q&A roundup: Advice from data center administration experts

Getting good data center administration advice can be tough, so we've compiled some recent Q&A discussions with experts from the field.Tip

Examining vendor offerings in converged infrastructure market

IT departments looking to make their lives easier are looking to the converged infrastructure market for the simplicity these platforms can deliver.Feature

Open source monitoring software ready for final release

The Assimilation Monitoring Project nears final release of an open source monitoring tool engineered to tackle IT's 'dirty little secret.'News | 18 Apr 2013

Some adjustments may be necessary to get around remote KVM limitations

The technology behind remote KVM is solid, but there are still issues to consider when using it in your data center.Answer

Hardware support for KVM over Ethernet may require daughter card

The functionality for KVM over Ethernet usually resides in a microcontroller on the server motherboard or in some cases may require a daughter card.Answer

How KVM over IP makes remote systems management easier

Remote systems management using KVM over IP is helping businesses avoid the costs associated with travel while improving support response times.Answer

Zabbix

Zabbix is an open-source tool designed to monitor networks, servers, appliances and other hardware through a Linux-based server, which communicates to the native agents that are available for many operating systems, including Linux, UNIX and Windows.Definition

Using Zabbix with embedded devices via SNMP monitoring

Some devices you want to monitor with Zabbix cannot have software installed. For these appliances, SNMP monitoring may be the right choice.Tip

How to choose the right server performance monitoring tools

Advance planning and careful due diligence can help a business select the best server performance monitoring tools for its unique needs.Tip

Setting up a Zabbix monitoring environment

Systems administrators who need to monitor nodes can use the open source monitoring tool Zabbix to gauge the network's health.Tip

Core parking helps drive down energy costs

Core parking can save significantly on server energy use, but sys admins need to decide when to use it, since system performance will take a hit.Tip

Tips for improving server reliability and available memory

New memory modules and system capabilities can increase available memory and reliability on mission-critical servers.Tip

Battle over the future of desktops raging in the data center

Microsoft's OS business is under pressure from Apple and mobile platforms, so data center staff must also adapt to the changing future of desktops.Column

Big data analytics software for intelligence community goes commercial

IT shops that need to analyze huge volumes of data can look to a newly available big data analytics tool that was previously reserved for the intelligence community.News | 29 Mar 2013

Desktop market matures but VDI challenges remain

Tools enable companies to reduce support costs, boost security and lower energy consumption, but more is needed to overcome VDI challenges.Tip

Tips for improving Active Directory performance on servers

Striking the right balance of memory and disk performance can help optimize Active Directory performance.Tip

Q&A: New Dell Software group to offer data center management tools

Dell plans software products surrounding data center management, "big data," business intelligence, security and data protection by 2014.News | 13 Dec 2012

Software-defined networking could drastically change today's network infrastructure

There's plenty of talk in IT circles about using SDN to change network infrastructures—and catch up with servers and storage. As the hype for SDN spins up, what can you actually accomplish today?Feature

Exploring application delivery and networking in 'Modern Infrastructure'

Get a look inside the November issue of Modern Infrastructure with this introduction from editor-in-chief Alex Barrett.Column

Software-defined networking could drastically change today’s network infrastructure

Exploring application delivery and networking in 'Modern Infrastructure'

Application availability: Using the right tools

Beyond Chef and Puppet: Ten essential DevOps tools

DevOps requires a hefty toolbox for managing code builds; IT pros identified 10 DevOps tools -- beyond Chef and Puppet -- that are hot right now.News | 26 Apr 2013

Q&A: How Facebook uses Chef configuration management tools

How Facebook manages hundreds of thousands of servers and multiple code releases per day using DevOps and Chef tool for configuration management.News | 26 Apr 2013

Developing an effective change management process requires tenacity

Companies seeking an easy way to manage and monitor changes in their environment have a variety of tools to choose from to assist IT shops.Feature

Coming up with a new configuration and change management plan

That old configuration and change management plan was unwieldy and out of reach, but the need for having one hasn't gone away.Feature

Coming up with a new configuration and change management plan

Developing an effective change management process requires tenacity

Opscode files down steep learning curve with Chef 11

Opscode's Chef 11 beckons to enterprises with better scalability and new usability features for systems management automation.News | 05 Feb 2013

Q&A: New Dell Software group to offer data center management tools

Dell plans software products surrounding data center management, "big data," business intelligence, security and data protection by 2014.News | 13 Dec 2012

HP unveils cloud-based IT service management product Service Anywhere

HP's Service Anywhere joins several other cloud-based ITSM offerings, but questions about total cost of ownership could hamper potential sales.News | 22 Oct 2012

BMC expands DevOps portfolio with release automation buy

BMC has made another DevOps play with the acquisition of VaraLogix, a closed-source provider of application release automation software.News | 08 Aug 2012

Cross-cutting concerns may be the next big step for IT

The term "cross-cutting concerns" has been around for a long time in the computing world, and it may be on its way back into IT infrastructure.Opinion

How an OpenFlow deployment affects data center hardware, software

An OpenFlow deployment requires switches and a controller that conform to the OpenFlow protocol, but interoperability is not guaranteed.Answer

Many switch, router vendors have hand in OpenFlow specification

Developed by OpenFlow.org in 2011, the member-supported OpenFlow specification could significantly affect future data center networking procedures.Answer

How does the OpenFlow protocol ease traffic in the data center network?

The OpenFlow protocol helps push packets more efficiently as an increasing number of workloads try to fit through network pipes.Answer

Data center performance monitoring: Servers and beyond

As an increasing number of workloads get virtualized and moved to cloud environments, application performance becomes a perennial concern. As a result, performance monitoring, virtual workload optimization and capacity planning move front and center as critical data center tasks. In this chapter on performance monitoring, we explore how IT managers can evaluate their workloads for spikes and dips in performance, plan for future performance needs, and make adjustments that have little to no impact on users.E-Chapter

Tuning performance and capacity management

As data centers virtualize a greater number of resources and scale for more workloads, two tasks become critical to ensure application performance: performance monitoring and capacity planning. Whether these servers are physical or virtual, performance monitoring is crucial to ensure that hardware can handle the workload, and capacity planning tools and techniques enable you to plan for peak loads and adjust for predicted changes in demand. In this series on monitoring and capacity planning, we explore the tools and best practices available to optimize a data center/private cloud environment and forestall performance issues.E-Book

Five data center upgrade strategies to modernize your facility

These five data center upgrade strategies can revitalize older data centers and stave off expensive construction projects.Tip

The basics of selecting server memory

Understanding modern memory helps IT professionals make the best choices for selecting a server memory configuration and upgrades.Tip

A deeper look at memory ranks, channels and types

Looking for new server memory? Learning about memory ranks, channels and types is a good step to making the right choice.Tip

A variety of options make data center expansion difficult

Data center performance monitoring: Servers and beyond

As an increasing number of workloads get virtualized and moved to cloud environments, application performance becomes a perennial concern. As a result, performance monitoring, virtual workload optimization and capacity planning move front and center as critical data center tasks. In this chapter on performance monitoring, we explore how IT managers can evaluate their workloads for spikes and dips in performance, plan for future performance needs, and make adjustments that have little to no impact on users.E-Chapter

Tuning performance and capacity management

As data centers virtualize a greater number of resources and scale for more workloads, two tasks become critical to ensure application performance: performance monitoring and capacity planning. Whether these servers are physical or virtual, performance monitoring is crucial to ensure that hardware can handle the workload, and capacity planning tools and techniques enable you to plan for peak loads and adjust for predicted changes in demand. In this series on monitoring and capacity planning, we explore the tools and best practices available to optimize a data center/private cloud environment and forestall performance issues.E-Book

Three ways to boost server efficiency and avoid hypervisor contention

If your hypervisor isn't performing at its best, ask yourself these three questions to see if you should pay more attention to server efficiency.Feature

Ways to improve local storage performance on virtual servers

If your enterprise has virtual machines and data storage handled on separate servers, there are a few ways to optimize storage performance.Tip

Open source helps vendors wedge into server virtualization market

Citrix, Red Hat and Oracle are among the companies that rely on open source to get a foot in the server virtualization door.Tip

Virtualization management tools improve but still fall short

The current virtualization management tools still lack capabilities that customers require -- a familiar theme with data center management products.Tip

Optimizing local hard drive configuration for use with virtual servers

Proper hard disk configuration for virtual servers requires attentive server provisioning, optimization and ongoing management.Tip

Use Windows NIC teaming to stay connected

Sysadmins can boost throughput and achieve network resiliency through Windows Server 2012's native feature of NIC teaming.Tip

Optimal BIOS settings for server virtualization

The ideal mix of performance and reliability starts with learning which server BIOS settings you should configure for a virtualized system.Tip

software-defined data center (SDDC)

A software-defined data center (SDDC) is a data storage facility in which all elements of the infrastructure -- networking, storage, CPU and security – are virtualized and delivered as a service. Deployment, provisioning, configuration and operation of the entire infrastructure is abstracted from hardware and implemented through software.Definition

Puppet Labs offers bare-metal provisioning to enterprises via EMC

Puppet Labs surprises some IT pros with a new EMC partnership that open-sources automated bare-metal provisioning for servers.News | 23 May 2012

SearchDataCenter.com Advisory Board

Each month we ask the SearchDataCenter Advisory Board to weigh in on a new question about today's important topics and trends in the data center.Advisory Board Q&A

Data center tutorials

SearchDataCenter.com’s tutorials provide data center and IT professionals with valuable information for developing a strategic data center plan. Discover data center system management resources and learn best practices for data center design and facilities.Tutorial

IBM takes another stab with low-priced PowerLinux systems

IBM’s new low-priced Power servers compete with x86 for Linux workloads and may help IBM gain “big data” market share.News | 25 Apr 2012

How to find the right systems management tool for the job

Point tools or management frameworks? Set realistic goals and criteria before choosing a systems management tool.Tip

Squeeze out maximum virtualization performance

Get your virtual deployment done right by following the tips from our experts.Feature

Using hardware resources to maximize virtualization performance

In this guide, we’ll address some of those challenges and offer a collection of expert tips to help you improve virtualization performance and overcome some of the biggest virtualization-related hurdles IT professionals encounter.Guide

Ensuring virtual machine security

Focus on both the host server environment and the virtualization layer for the best virtual machine security strategy.Tip

Virtual Data Center eZine

The Virtual Data Center E-zine explores the biggest issues for virtual environments, including virtualizing major applications such as databases and email, weighing storage architectures or mapping a VMware strategy based on business needs.Promo

Trends in data center management and server technology

In this Q&A, an expert helps us analyze our State of the Data Center special report to identify and explain key developments in data center management and server technology.Q&A

State of the Data Center: 2011

Special Report

Keeping virtual machines secure

Discover considerations and best practices for securing your virtual environment and get a sneak peak at what will be covered at VMworld 2011.E-zine

Considerations for V2V and V2P workload migrations

Although there are few situations in which V2V or V2P migrations are necessary, administrators needing to make these moves must be prepared to handle unique challenges.Tip