Bootcamp: 1 – Virtualization for the Database Team
09Jan12
In my work evangelizing VMware vFabric Data Director I have found an interesting problem:
- Databases and virtualization are both great technologies.
- DBAs typically don’t know or care much about virtualization. It simply isn’t the way things are done.
- Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Admins typically don’t know or care much about databases. A payload is a payload and a VM is a black box.
However, I understand exactly how it happens. I have been working with big data, databases, data management, and ETL for the last 10 years and I had very little interaction with virtualization or centralized IT. Databases are the crown jewels of the IT infrastructure, and are typically managed completely seperately than the rest of IT.
Now, it is possible to virtualize Oracle and SQL Server, and some companies have had some notable success doing it. However, it takes a great deal of effort and isn’t something I have really seen at scale. The power that enterprise virtualization offers is significantly beyond what can be accomplished by cobbling together a number of virtual machines. However, both databases and virtual infrastructure have a huge amount to gain from working together and people from the database side of the house need to understand virtualization in order to exploit it.
So, I have put together a series on virtualization designed for the database professional. Enjoy!
Next up is a primer on virtual machines.
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