At this juncture in
discussing server infrastructure designs, it is time to take a step back and see the forest for the trees.
Virtual Consolidation, is not a design at all, but a shim that has allowed
Server Sprawl to live on, aptly called VM Sprawl. This is not to say virtualization was a bad idea, it was a brilliant idea, but for a more fundamental reason - it has decoupled applications from hardware. Or more specifically, business software - which is inherently malleable - has been decoupled from hardware - which is inherently rigid. This is vital because business processes - which are also malleable - are tightly coupled with and dependent on business applications, and by transitivity they are also now decoupled from hardware - more on this in future post.
In virtualized environments applications are no longer deployed directly onto physical servers, but to virtual servers. In this paradigm the role of server infrastructure is to provide a unified execution platform for virtual machines. Applications running in virtual machines are still of the utmost importance to operations as a whole, but are now strictly in the realm of application deployment. Prior to virtualization, application deployment and server infrastructure were inseperable.
This separation by itself doesn't solve anything, but it does set the stage for a paradigm shift.
In virtualized environments applications are no longer deployed directly onto physical servers, but to virtual servers. In this paradigm the role of server infrastructure is to provide a unified execution platform for virtual machines. Applications running in virtual machines are still of the utmost importance to operations as a whole, but are now strictly in the realm of application deployment. Prior to virtualization, application deployment and server infrastructure were inseperable.
This separation by itself doesn't solve anything, but it does set the stage for a paradigm shift.
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