Expert Reference Series of White Papers

14 Common
Virtualization Mistakes
– And How To Avoid
Them

1-800-COURSESwww.globalknowledge.com
14 Common Virtualization Mistakes –
And How To Avoid Them
Author

Introduction
Once you have surmounted the toughest task - getting a “yes” from all the people involved to start slowly mi-
grating your physical server environments to virtual environment - you need to know the common mistakes that
are made by most people going from a physical to virtual environment. This white paper will help you with the
basics and common issues that you will find.

Mistake #1: Thinking that the job is done after the servers are virtualized
The first and the biggest mistake folks make is that they don’t realize that the first task is that you are virtual-
izing servers, virtualizing network components like Network Interface Cards (NIC), virtualizing switches, virtual-
izing storage, and much more. This might seem too much but remember, now you need to coordinate folks from
different departments and communicate. Communication is the key. You need to communicate your intentions to
the Network folks so your virtual switches can communicate with physical switches, for example. I would need
to talk to physical switch administrators to tell them if my host (device hosting Virtual Machines - ESXi for my
VMware environment) is plugged in the port that is enabled or not. Should the port be configured as a trunk on
the physical switch side or not? There are so many things that could go wrong, so communication is the key.

Mistake #2: Counting on cost savings before they are actually realized
People assume that it will save them a lot of money when they go to a virtual environment. Well, I’m not saying
it’s not true; it could save you money by consolidating multiple underutilized servers into fewer servers that
host multiple virtual machines (VM) and give you more use of the high-end processing power today. Plus, fewer
servers means you have lower space requirements. It also means less heat generated, which lowers cooling
requirements. Remember you can’t just pick some cheap high-power servers. Many of the virtualization products
have a hardware compatibility list (HCL) that tells you the approved hardware for the appropriate virtualization
products. For example, VMware has compatibility list available on their website for various hardware compo-
nents at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php. Maybe it would be better to go through
the budget needs to get the approved hardware so you don’t run into any issues or unexpected crashes. We
are very familiar with such crashes in Microsoft boxes as BSD (Blue Screen of Death). In VMware its called PSD
(Purple Screen of Death). I have very few colleagues who have run into PSD, which could be attributed to not
using the hardware on the approved HCL of these vendors.

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Mistake #3: Not getting proper training before installing and configuring your
virtualization environment
So, now you have the coolest, meanest, and most expensive hardware that is approved by your management
and is on the HCL. You can’t wait to get started, but let me ask you: How many people in your department are
trained to install, configure, and manage your virtualization environment? Many products might be easy to
install, maybe a few Next buttons on some wizard, but at the end, you have to configure it fully optimized for
your environment. The more people you have trained, the better it would be. Remember every aspect of virtual-
ization. If you will be using some kind of SAN environment, you might need training in that, too, in addition to
VMware’s various virtualization classes or from any other vendors like storage.

Mistake #4: Poor load planning

Have you looked at the load on your current servers? Do you know what the CPU and memory utilizations are
currently? You will probably notice that today the servers are so fast that we don’t really need those super-fast
servers all the time. Maybe you do need them for your specific requirements, like your databases, but what
about all those file and print servers? Maybe you are at 2-5 % utilization most of the time. What if you could run
VMware’s ESXi host, hosting multiple servers in a Virtual environment? I can definitely get more utilization out
of these expensive servers this way. Note that the load on these servers is often not properly planned and could
cause issues for your network. “How many virtual Servers to run on these expensive VMware ESXi hosts?” is a
good question to think about while planning for virtualization. I might consolidate a few File and Print Servers
on one big powerful host running ESXi.

Mistake #5: Assuming virtualized servers take care of themselves

In the past you had physical servers, and people took care of their own servers. Who will take ownership of
these virtual servers now? Who looks at the logs on the host and on the VMs. Remember to look at both the
logs of the ESXi and that of the VMs. Talking about logs, you should have a procedure for when to look at the
logs. I hope its every 12 or 24 hours. When I ask that question, the answer I sometimes get is that some people
only look at the logs when there is a problem. It might be too late at that point. Appoint someone to look at the
logs regularly.

Mistake #6: Failing to record log time entries

Do you know when the entries in the logs happened? Do you have a centralized time synchronization mecha-
nism? I hope you have some kind of Network Time Protocol (NTP) implementation, or you rely on the NTP
from some reliable source in your organization, or on the internet. Remember that NTP, meaning correct timing
implementation, would also be important if you have logs that are being saved. You would definitely like to
know what happened and also when it happened. Correct time is going to be very important for troubleshoot-
ing purposes in case of failures.

Mistake #7: Falling for all the bells and whistles

Some virtualization products allow you to go to the Internet on the host. To me, this is an absolutely “no”
because if you are on the Internet and downloading possible bad applications, it could cause the host to crash
and bringing every VM on it down with it. The more restricted host I have the better. I want to strip down every
unnecessary service and hardware from the host and from the VMs, so I would also look at the VMs I have. Do

Copyright ©2011 Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved. 3

you need all the hardware that is available by default? For example, do I have any need for the floppy drive in
my VM running some server product? The answer is probably “no” unless you are using some application that
wants to have a floppy image for license purposes.

Mistake #8: Failing to have a backup plan

Let’s say that something happens, and your host or VM crashes. What are your plans then? What kind of work
was the VM doing? Can you afford to live without this VM? Most probably, the answer is no. So, do you have
another machine that will take over in case the primary machine fails? This would imply that there was a ma-
chine ready to go in case of a failure. Maybe you just have the VM in a shared storage, and you have some kind
of fault tolerance mechanism that will kick in and another host will revive that dead VM by restarting it on a
different host. Consider the downtime involved; if you have a standby machine, it will kick in within moments of
when the original VM goes down. But with fault tolerance, the VM will have to be restarted on a different host.
There is the delay involved in restarting the machine.

Mistake #9: Improper storage allocation

A common issue that folks run into is committing a certain amount of disk storage for the VMs but never really
filling up the virtual drive. If you don’t have a need for it, maybe you shouldn’t have pre-allocated that storage.
For example, VMware’s virtualization product allows you to allocate the storage on demand. This is called the
thin provisioning mechanism. For example, if you specify a hard drive size for your VM to be 500 GB but only
have 50 GB of content, then it will only consume 50 GB storage space and will grow to 500 GB as needed. Thin
provisioning is provided to you by the VMware product and is one of the commonly ignored features, but it
could save you when it comes to storage and storage related cost. Remember to be careful not to over-commit
some storage drive. What would happen if all your VMs started growing and get near the maximum space al-
located to them? Do you have enough space available for all of them?

Mistake #10: Poorly planned host management solution

How are you managing your ESXi hosts from VMware? How are you managing your VMs on these ESXi hosts?
If you only have one or two hosts, then maybe you can connect directly to your ESXi host to mange them, but
what if you have many ESXi hosts? If that’s the case, then you need some kind of a central management solu-
tion. In case of VMware, you have the vCenter implementation. This will definitely make managing your ESXi
hosts easier as well as many other features that are covered in a VMware’s Install, Configure, and Manage class.

Mistake #11: Lack of a plan for managing the virtual environment

Since we are talking about management, who will be managing the virtual environment? Is it going to be the
Windows team, or your router team, or your security team, or who knows? Since the VMware product and other
similar virtualization vendors are touching almost every single thing, such as networking with switches, security
implementation, and storage, maybe there could be disagreements on whose territory is it. I would have a sepa-
rate group within my Active Directory domain for VMware admins, and it is separate from the Windows Adminis-
trators group to avoid any confusion. This way, Windows Admin group can manage Windows and another group
(vSphere Admins) can administer vSphere related components for the Virtual Machines.

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Mistake #12: Failure to update VMware tools
Many students who install Windows machines in the VM right away realize certain things don’t feel right. For
example, maybe they don’t have good control of the mouse movement, the video driver might not be what they
want, and networking drivers might not be optimized. VMware’s virtualization products give you the VMware
tools that make a lot of these problems go away. Maybe you should update these VMware tools if there is an
update available, and maybe you should also update the VMware tools after you have moved the machine from
one ESXi host to another.

Mistake #13: Forgetting to run antivirus products

I hope you are still running antivirus products for your VMs. Treat them as if they were regular physical servers.
What are your backup strategies for these VMs? Again, remember that this is your server and do whatever you
would do it if it were a physical server.

Mistake #14: Incorrect software licensing

Never forget that when you implement the servers in a virtual environment, you still might have licensing
considerations. Find out from the manufacturer of the Server software about their licensing and support needs if
their product is installed in a Virtual environment. Remember, treat it like it were any other servers.

Summary
There are so many things we can talk about as common and simple “gotchas” or possible issues. I want to make
sure that you don’t run into them. There are many classes that provide the details behind these concepts; I hope
to see you there. Good luck

Learn More
Learn more about how you can improve productivity, enhance efficiency, and sharpen your competitive edge.
Check out the following Global Knowledge courses:
VMware vSphere: Fast Track [V4.1]
VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [V4.1]

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About the Author
Dheeraj (Raj) Tolani has been working with Global Knowledge as a contract instructor teaching various courses,
including authorized VMware training. He has been in the industry for over 18 years working with various tech-
nologies, including Cisco, Banyan Vines, Microsoft, Novell, and VMware. Dheeraj has worked as a consultant for
various medical, financial, legal, government, and publishing companies. He runs a consulting company based in
New York City providing IP integration solutions (www.rajtolani.com).

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