Unsprawling VMs
VM self-service is good and bad. By self service, people can set up their own VMs. This can be bad. VMs have to be managed, backed up, secured and, when it comes to licensing, paid for (you don't want the software police on your case do ya?).
Self-service is good because a private cloud is supposed to be fluid, which means VMs have to create on an as-needed basis.
And good self-service tools make self-service good by putting controls on when, how and who can create these VMs.
Redmond columnist Greg Shields took a look at these issues, in particular how they are raised with the advent of Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2012 and System Center App Controller. With these two tools, app managers and IT infrastructure folks can work together to deploy VMs and apps with discipline, and make that private cloud run smooth.
Self-service is a great idea, as long as IT is doing the self-servicing.
Posted by Doug Barney on 11/30/2012 at 1:19 PM