1. Applications of Virtualization & Automation
Gary Kidney
Director of Academic & Research Computing
Rice University
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2. The Context Private Small (5,243 students) but growing
Research University
Houston

3. The Situation

4. Gartner Group Says:
“In IT, virtualization will be the most significant trend through the next four years.”
Gartner Group. (28 Mar 08). Special report: Virtualization. Available at:

5. 3 Kinds of Virtualization
Server or Machine
Application
User
Experience

6. 1. Server or Machine Virtualization

7. 1. Server or Machine Virtualization
118 virtual servers on 37 physical servers.
Average of 3.19 virtual servers per box.
Running VMware Server, migrating to ESXi.

8. 2. Application Virtualization

9. 2. Application Virtualization
Virtualized services on high performance computing with Red Hat Linux Advanced Platform and Zen
Login & authentication services
Application failover
Global storage
Guest operating system (coming soon).
Virtualized Web spaces for students and clubs
Enterprise storage
Apache
Plone
Web.rice.edu, wikis, & blogs (coming soon)

10. 3. User Experience Virtualization

11. 3. User Experience Virtualization
Applications running in high performance computing condo
Altiris Endpoint Virtualization Service
Divide & conquer
Ease of administration
Adding those last minute requests as virtual apps
Looking at thin-client/blade-server architectures
North Carolina State Virtual Computer Lab
Vendor presentations from HP and Dell

12. Virtualization Benefits
Reduces the quantity of physical servers needed.
Saves on power and cooling.
Reduces the costs of service, support, & (hopefully soon) software licensing.
Enables quick, automated deployment.
Provides economy of scale in system administration .

13. Automation
“The IT worker was so busy reengineering and automating everyone else to prepare for the digital revolution, now … IT practices have some catching up to do.”
Ramsay Millar as quoted in Reilley, D. (23 Oct 08). Closing the gap. Dr. Dobb’s Portal. Available at:

14. 1. IT Accounts

15. 2. Some IT Services Network Info Email Aliases Password Changes
Printing
Charges
Storage
Used
Spam
Settings

16. 3. IT Alerts and Metrics

17. Future Automation New tools: Web.rice.edu Wikis Blogs
Turn-key virtual servers
Automation and integration of thin-client/blade-server architectures

18. Lessons Learned
Increase the priority of IT’s internal automation projects
Virtualization and automation merge into the Cloud
Our efforts helped make the campus “greener”
Virtualization and automation have both integration and management issues that must be addressed
Software licensing is not easy in the virtualization world.

19. Questions
Contact: Gary Kidney –