Beating "Virtual Sprawl"

Virtual Sprawl -- Rapid server virtualization has set the stage for a new malady known as 'virtual sprawl.' Here's what Wall Street firms are doing about it.

Penny Crosman. Wall Street & Technology. New York: Sep 2008. Vol. 26, Iss. 9; pg. 20. Accessed Via Proquest Telecommunications Database.

With the increasing amount of virtualization IT being implemented in the financial services industry, Wall-Street firms are encountering a new managerial problem labeled “virtual sprawl”. According to Crosman who writes for Wall Street & Technology, Virtual Sprawl refers “To the condition in which IT managers and, in some cases, even end users have been installing virtual machines all over the organization, creating a chaotic mess that is hard to manage.” Virtual sprawl came about as a response to “server sprawl”, a condition in which an organization has too many physical servers in use.
Virtual sprawl has proven to be problematic as many applications are not getting the server, storage and memory that is necessary to run efficiently. Virtual sprawl makes it difficult for companies to keep track of all of their systems and many times forces companies to buy more software than they really need. Additionally, virtual sprawl has also increased costs in maintenance fees as it is becoming more difficult to troubleshoot machines which move around and run multiple operating systems. Virtual sprawl is particularly problematic in the financial services industry. Functions such as algorithmic trading, financial modeling and simulation software are suffering in wall-street firms due to a lack of connectivity and communication between applications. While it is important to insure that each application has the proper memory and communication necessary to be used with other devices, the article mentions that the process is often overlooked and can be very difficult to manage on a large scale.
Part of the solution to virtual sprawl has been the development of IT mapping software which provides a “visual map” of every function of virtual applications to insure that devices are set up correctly and communicate properly with one another. Unfortunately, IT mapping software has limitations, as it does not track performance of the devices, just how they interconnect with one another. The solution to this problem has been the very recent development of configuration monitoring tools, which take data from virtual machine performance software (VMWare) and queries that information in order to develop a complete view of the virtual environment and allow IT experts and specialists to configure applications as needed. Once this type of software is implemented, it allows managers to be able to monitor and configure virtual environments on one physical machine cutting costs and creating efficiency.
Finally, the article discusses how virtual environments are still superior to physical machines as it saves energy and dramatically reduces costs. This type of technology also allows companies like Wachovia to improve their “green-initiatives” while increased performance at the same time.
This article primarily focused on the development of software to combat the virtualization problem. While I mentioned configuration-monitoring tools, other forms of software are also being discussed and researched. For instance software tools for IT discovery, configuration management, provisioning, dispatching of servers, and inventory management are all listed as methods for solving this issue. While these ideas are beginning to be researched, configuration monitoring tools seem to provide the most efficient interface to interlink virtual IT systems because it allows adjustments to every system to be made from one physical machine.
I personally believe that despite the problems with virtualization, the movement towards a decrease in both paper and machine trails will continue to be demanded in the competitive financial services industry. In an environment where the accurate processing and calculating of large amounts of data means everything, systems must be virtualized in order to compete. However, I agree with the article that virtualization is not an excuse for just setting up virtual systems in a hodgepodge fashion. Instead, it is vital that the network fundamentals of virtual systems are mapped out and tracked consistently in order to prevent any future IT meltdowns. Fortunately, the development of applications like the ones discussed in this article are allowing IT managers to prevent such problems.