Those of you who have followed us for at least the last couple of years have observed our entry into the virtualization performance space. As we pioneered technology such as PerfectDisk's patent-pending Virtual Awareness for vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance tuning, we've talked directly to hundred of enterprise and small business users. We've received lots of feedback on both the technology as well as the business side -- licensing and pricing.
In ComputerWorld today, Elisabeth Horwitt has a piece on Virtualization and software pricing: Very tricky. Elisabeth raises several interesting points, including:
Virtualization can provide significant TCO savings for server and desktop hardware, and in desktop software and security administration. But saving on software license costs through virtualization is problematic. For one thing, vendors can't seem to agree on a model that works for both them and their customers, says Amy Konary, a research director at IDC.
Many enterprise software vendors still charge per hardware box, which means customers can save by consolidating applications on a single server that has multiple CPUs. However, a growing number of vendors, such as Oracle, charge per CPU, says Altimeter Group partner Ray Wang.
For a time, we had internal disagreements as well. And we've modified our pricing since moved into the virtualization space. But as we continued to talk to organizations, we finally came to a pricing model that we are very comfortable with, as are the businesses and government agencies that are customers of PerfectDisk's virtualization performance products. This pricing model has been with us now for several months. Companies that have been with us for years know we try to be their partner in the performance management aspect of their business. And because cost savings are a key motivator for moving to virtualization, we didn't want to be an obstacle to that goal. So we charge by the hardware box, which, as analyst Ray Wang notes, means customers can save money.
Many factors come into play as organizations move to virtualization, or look to maximize its benefits once they have moved. Virtualization performance is a key aspect of the process. After all, the potential cost savings don't mean a lot if performance degrades. As IT delves into the environment, it usually learns that all the problems associated with the Windows environment at the physical level haven't gone away. In fact, they may have multiplied because of the very nature of the host/guest relationship and interaction. Since they are so entwined, if the relationship between host and guest do not account for each other, virtualizaton performance suffers, with the resulting negative impact across the board.
Despite the obstacles and potential pitfalls, virtualization can, in most cases, provide numerous benefits. One of those is cost. We look to help organizations maximize the benefits with improved performance, without the downside of screwing the customer on the pricing side.
Virtualization performance via vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag -- you can get premier performance without paying a premium price.
Microsoft TechNet is a Microsoft program and resource for technical information, news, and events for IT professionals. Along with a website, it produces a monthly subscription magazine titled
TechNet Magazine.
In the June 2010 edition of the magazine, Greg Steen gives an overview of PerfectDisk 11 Server in his article
Toolbox: New Products for IT Professionals. One thing Steen covers that is sometimes overlooked by IT personnel and also some reviewers, is that PerfectDisk "is both RAID- and SAN-compatible and is certified to run on your Windows server OSes. PerfectDisk 11 is also aware of and can work with SQL Server and Exchange Systems to ensure that those disk arrays stay in good shape."
Green also points out that PerfectDisk 11 can help with virtualization performance with its integrated tools to help vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance, as well as provide SQL Server performance improvements, Exchange defrag, reporting and even its ability to find and delete duplicate files.
PerfectDisk 11 Server in the June 2010
TechNet Magazine --
here.
Writing over at the Information Week Storage blog, Storage Switzerland's George Crump last week laid out an interesting analogy with a post titled Storage Checkers vs. Chess. Crump sets up his premise with this:
Checkers is a two dimensional game where all the pieces have the same ability. Its about covering space. Chess is a complex three dimensional game where all the pieces have different capabilities and there is one common target: the enemy’s king. In storage some features begin to look like checkers because they have become so commonplace, but when you dig deeper you find that the capabilities of these features between vendors vary greatly.
Crump writes about snapshot technology, thin provisioning, deduplication, auto-tiering, compression and replication as basic capabilities that can be vastly different on further review.
George's post really struck a chord here, because we often have conversations with consumers and IT administrators who had always thought a defragger is a defragger is a defragger when you defrag Windows. It's just not the case. Sure, anyone can put together a checklist and give themselves as many checks as they desire. Free space consolidation? Sure, they say, we do that. Large drive support? Yup. Improve virtualization performance with virtualization defrag? Of course.
But upon further review, which can include actual testing of the defrag products and review of user forums that discuss slow PC tips and the like, one can learn a lot more. Like which product does the most complete free space consolidation. Which is the best defrag tool for large drives, without charging extra for the privilege. And which has specific defrag solutions to improve vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance. To name just a few check list features.
Crump concludes, "when considering your storage options make sure you are playing chess, not checkers."
The same advice should go for considering the best defrag tool.
Based on the testing we did with VMware's Scott Drummond, we recently published a new white paper,
The Perfomance Impact of Windows Guests Defragmentation and Free Space Consolidation on VMware ESX. The paper details the results of testing done to determine the effectiveness of defragmenting virtual servers.
The results, from testing done on a VMware ESX Cluster, indicate that defragmentation and free space consolidation of Windows server guests have a positive effect on the performance of both the Windows server guests and the host. While the testing was done on an ESX cluster, due to the nature of the NTFS file system, one could conclude that there would be similar impact across all virtualization performance, including vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance.
The white paper details various real statistics and numbers that we found in our testing. Of course, it is our testing only. We highly encourage IT administrators to do their own testing of defrag's effect on virtualization performance. But we are confident similar conclusions will be reached.
You can see the entire white paper
here.
Related Post:
Virtualization performance --Windows guest defragmentation
With the PerfectDisk 11 client solutions now rolled out, the next phase is on for our virtualization performance solutions:
- PerfectDisk 11 vSphere Bundle
- PerfectDisk 11 Hyper-V Bundle
- PerfectDisk 11 VMware Workstation Bundle.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we had the largest beta test ever for PerfectDisk 11, and had great feedback. For our vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag solutions, we had significant feedback that gave us reason to take some very big usability enhancements. The final phase of the PerfectDisk 11 beta test for these products begins this week.
Stay tuned to this space and Twitter for updates.
A couple of weeks ago I looked at part of Computerworld's
Forecast 2010 Special Report. Today I'll look at another part of the report --
Supersized Servers and the message that "virtualization will hit a hot streak in 2010, and enterprises will order more systems fully loaded with maximum processing power, memory and I/O capabilities." In question after question in Computerworld's study, virtualization, and particularly server virtualization, came up big:
- #1 of Top 5 technologies most likely to be the target of spending increases in 2010: Servers
- #1 of Top 5 project priorities for 2010: Server upgrades, virtualization
- #1 of Top 5 most promising new technologies for respondents' industries or organizations: virtualization
- #1 of Top 5 technology areas for beta testing: virtualization.
While 2009 saw cutbacks or budgets on hold, 2010 is forecast to see an increase. Almost 65% of IT professionals polled indicated their organizations are likely to virtualize more servers this year. And the servers are going to be beefy, bigger and more powerful to handle more virtualization servers.
As organizations look to virtualizatoin to handle more, they also need to look at virtualization performance. And one key aspect of virtualization performance is defragmentation, including Hyper-V defrag and vSphere defrag. As important as we feel defrag has always been and continues to be for physical servers, it's as least as much with virtualization, as organization look to improve vSphere performance and Hyper-V performance. If all that power in those new servers is not allocated properly, much of it will be wasted. Only with a technology such as PerfectDisk's Virtual Awareness can the power of a busy virtual server be fully harnessed. Without virtual awareness, even the biggest and most powerful servers can waste a lot of resources, spinning its wheels, so to speak. Virtual awareness ensures perfect communication between the host and all its guests.
Maximize virtualization performance with enterprise defragmentation -- with virtualization smarts.
The entire Computerworld article, by Robert L. Mitchell, is
here.
I won't add to the barrage of articles, posts and more reviewing 2009 that list the the top stories of the year. But I did want to touch on 2009, from our perspective, as a supplier of a disk defragmentation tool that has evolved and continues to evolve with the times.
2009 brought the reality of a deep recession and tough times for many technology companies; there was Windows 7, Chrome, Bing, more mobile action. But 2 big areas that also stood out, and which helped us grow this year, was the increased movement towards virtualization and big growth on the storage front. Virtualization has been taking hold for awhile now of course, but the tough economic environment has accelerated its growth. For many companies, the potential savings realized from virtualization are too hard to ignore. And that's why our vSphere defrag and Hyper-V defrag solutions are resonating with users. Virtualization defrag with virtual awareness such as that provided by PerfectDisk allows organizations to maximize their investments in virtualization and help realize its benefits. Without proper management and resource control, virtualization efforts can fall short.
Storage was another big segment in 2009, with people and companies buying increased amounts of storage and different types of storage, including SSDs, as prices plummeted. Data requirements continue to expand, with new applications and lots of video driving demand. And cloud-based storage was another key driver.
These were the biggest factors (there were others) behind the growth of defragmentation utilities this year, even in a down economy. Individuals and companies looked for savings, and the result was an investment in infrastructure and certain types of software. Virtualization defrag and vSphere defrag to better manage the virtualization movement. Efficient hard drive defragmentation to control the storage explosion.
All wrapped up in the PerfectDisk family of defragmentation utilities.
There are a few questions that often come up with regards to the PerfectDisk virtualization defrag solutions in the vSphere/ESX environments, versus the standard PerfectDisk server defrag.
1. What does PerfectDisk 10 for vSphere offer that PerfectDisk 10 Server does not?
Or in other words, what's the difference between performing a Windows Server 2008 defrag (or earlier server versions) and a virtualization defrag? There are various differences but the following two key points summarize the major points:
A. The vSphere-specific product offers an exclusive, patent-pending feature called "Virtualization Awareness" that allows file system optimization to take place without the contention for resources that normally takes place with automatic background defragmentation. This ensures that optimizations run dynamically without supervision or intervention, while never negatively impacting performance. It also offers integration features for VMware's vCenter and support for vMotion.
B. Licensing for the vSphere product is offered per physical host with volume pricing. This means unlimited Client/Guest licenses are provided once the physical host is licensed. This also means no consideration as to the number of Guests or even the number of CPUs needs to be taken. In the example of a vSphere environment with 10 instances of ESX Server 3.5/4.0 running, that would equate to 10 licenses of "PerfectDisk10 vSphere."
2. Does the vSphere product perform defragmentation on the ESX layer / VMFS? Does it install on the ESX Hosts or just the Guests?
No. VMFS does not support external file system optimization. Installation does not take place on the physical ESX host, a small agent is instead installed on each Windows based Guest.
3. Is any modification of the vSphere environment required in order to use PerfectDisk 10 vSphere?
No. The use of PerfectDisk10 vSphere does not require any modification to your existing configuration.
Smarter. Simpler. Priced for today's world.
The PerfectDisk 10 Enterprise Console has been updated to Build 127. This latest build provides enhanced support with a VIM plug-in to VMware vSphere Client 4.0 plus a few bug fixes.
The vSphere plug-in allows users to access the PerfectDisk 10 Enterprise Console directly from within the vSphere Client, providing a single point of management for their vSphere-based Windows guests. Using the PerfectDisk Enterprise Console plug-in, users can easily deploy, configure and schedule PerfectDisk, allowing for enhanced disk space management in vSphere environments, for vSphere defrag.
You can “Check For Updates” under Help in the PerfectDisk console, or wait for Autoupdate.
Get news like this earlier — follow PerfectDisk on Twitter.
In a report by editor-at-large Charles Babcock, Information Week recently reported on IBM's plans to bring the virtual machines of multiple vendors under one management umbrella called IBM VMControl. The new VMControl is due out in December, and no, it won't include any defragmenting PC or server defrag software. But, from a single management console, it addresses a new data center reality - VM sprawl (as opposed to the old physical server sprawl).
So it is with the approach we are taking with PerfectDisk as we move beyond hard drive defragmentation to the new virtual world. We've certainly learned a lot and continue to learn since we started moving in this direction. We've built up our virtualization expertise and continue to do so, both internally and through alliances and partnerships outside Raxco.
On the data center side, PerfectDisk has evolved from its initial ESX offering to more comprehensive solutions for the new vSphere 4 as well as Microsoft's Hyper-V environment. This is in addition to our disk defragmentation tool for VMware Workstation and VMware Server. Now, through the PerfectDisk 10 Enterprise Console, this more heterogeneous environment can be managed and controlled, and there will be additional capabilities added with PerfectDisk 11.
In his article, Babcock reports numbers in the 60% - 80% range for IBM customers using multiple hypervisors. The trend is clear for this still-evolving world of virtualization, and it carries over to virtualization defrag as well. The data center is moving well beyond a simple server defrag. Physical and virtual servers need to be addressed, as do guests and hosts, and all from multiple vendors. With our patent-pending Virtual Awareness technology, we're working hard to build on the foundation we've started, and move forward with our customers, as their virtualization partner.
To help manage the sprawl.
With VMware's recent release of VMware Workstation 7, support is immediately available for PerfectDisk 10 VMware Workstation customers. 7 introduces many enhancements, including installing and running VMware vSphere 4 and VMware ESXi in a virtual machine.
VMware calls VMware Workstation "the gold standard in desktop virtualization." So it makes sense for those that want disk defragmenter software to work seamlessly with VMware products, they look to the gold standard in virtualization defrag.
PerfectDisk 10 VMware Workstation incorporates and automates the disk space-saving “Shrink” and re-indexing found in VMware Workstation, enhancing their effectiveness. It defragments Windows guests and moves all the free space to the end of the disk, allowing the Shrink utility to maximize the amount of valuable disk space it can recover.
The defragment program for automatic defragmentation, re-indexing and shrinking of VMware Workstation - it's only here.
With our recent announcement of support for vSphere 4, PerfectDisk now provides unparralled support for vSphere defrag. VMware has received a great deal of interest with this cloud operating system, as its battle with Microsoft's Hyper-V, Citrix' XenServer and others shows no sign of abating, but only intensifying. While auto defrag is a key element of any solution for a virtualization defrag tool, any defragmenter program that fails to address the unique complexities of a virtual environment will come up short.
Because vSphere 4 is able to manage large pools of virtualization computing infrastructure, including hardware and software, its overall performance is critical to organizations implementing it. This is one area where a defragmenter program can help. And with its ability to defrag seamlessly in a vSphere environment, providing the patent-pending Virtual Awareness defragmentation that eliminates resource contention and ensures efficient use of resource, PerfectDisk 10 vSphere ESX delivers.
Time to defrag VMware environments like you mean it...with true integration.
Continuing PerfectDisk’s pioneering role in defragmentation for virtual environments, I was happy to announce support for VMware vSphere 4 in the latest PerfectDisk 10 build. We’ve established a great relationship with VMware over the past few years, and as part of this we continue to evolve our support for VMware offerings. Whichever side of the ESX/Hyper-V — or others — debate you come down on, we know defragmentation of these environments is an important piece of getting these systems running at peak performance and efficiency, making the best use of resources while eliminating resource contention.
Upon release, VMware dubbed its vSphere 4 as the industry’s first operating system for building the internal cloud, enabling the delivery of efficient, flexible and reliable IT as a service, and bringing cloud computing to enterprises in an evolutionary way. As the leader in virtualization defrag, it’s a natural for PerfectDisk to lead the way in support for vSphere 4 and vSphere defrag.
Head to the clouds, and remember to defrag -- virtual defrag.
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