RAM | Reseller Advocate Magazine: Issue 64

By Chris Angelini

I'LL BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT THAT I talk about value as if it were going out of style. And even though value is a somewhat amorphous concept, there's something to be said for resellers who learn about and then advocate the hardware most likely to address their customers' needs. Asking questions like, "Is this business expecting significant data storage growth in the next few years?" or "Are there any security vulnerabilities in your network infrastructure that can be addressed at a palatable cost?" help demonstrate your working knowledge of the issues relevant to SMB customers, for one. It also helps show that you are your customer's advocate. Not surprisingly, it's much easier to build the right IT infrastructure for a business owner who trusts your choices rather than one who sees you as a salesperson peddling high-margin hardware. Contributing that extra value is what makes the VAR a true asset, especially to SMBs without large, dedicated IT departments.

As those SMBs grow, their needs evolve to mimic larger enterprises—never mind the massive discrepancy in resources devoted to technology. Many resellers look at diminished margins on hardware sales and lament the channel's waning relevancy. But in reality, there has never been a better time for VARs to step in and play a role in the success of their customers' organizations as they evolve. Although the SMB doesn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a tech migration, the reseller is still in a position to make money on everything from sales to service to ongoing maintenance.

It just so happens that as hardware vendors one-up each other with increasingly attractive differentiators, enhancing small business infrastructures with features borrowed from enterprise technology becomes easier. The real trick, then, becomes taking full advantage of the server hardware you're selling, which isn't always as easy as it sounds.

Getting Cozy with Virtualization

Both AMD and Intel have integrated virtualization technology into their respective business-class processors. Those hardware implementations are designed to reduce the overhead tied to running virtualization entirely in software, improving performance and leaving more available processing cycles for other tasks. And although hardware-assisted virtualization is a value-add, available on nearly every new server or workstation built today, most VARs still aren't exploring its benefits. I recently ran that thought past Doug Bone, vice president of SYNNEX's server group, who agreed.

"We have a program here called SYNNEX Design Services, where resellers come to us with technical issues and solutions that they need to provide to their end customers. Quite frankly we're not seeing a lot of people come to us saying ‘we need to provide a virtualized solution.' So I think that there's still not a lot of mind share among resellers—particularly the resellers not selling to the enterprise—that virtualization is important."

Admittedly, virtualization has its roots in the enterprise, where large businesses still use it as a means of workload management. Consider a data center, loaded with servers in racks, each hammering away on a different application. Depending on who you talk to, those centers might use 20 percent of their available processing cycles, leaving the rest underutilized. Virtualization allows IT administrators to take better advantage of equipment by running multiple virtual machines on one physical server, for example. And while the same usage model applies to SMBs with fewer boxes, there are actually a handful of ways you can put the virtualization technology already enabled on your CPUs to good use.

"In talking to our customers, there are three predominant pain points frequently cited," says Ben Matheson, director of products and solutions at VMware. "Backup and recovery come first—keeping data safe. The second is optimization of asset allocation, an issue SMBs share with the enterprise folks. And third is security. Virtualization has something to offer the VAR addressing any of those three issues."

Let's say you decide to explore the benefits of virtualization on a test system in your own lab. You configure Windows Server 2003 and download VMware's free Server application. On that host platform, you configure one virtual machine running an old copy of Windows NT 4.0, a Linux distribution, and another instance of Server 2003. Each of those virtual machines is hardware independent. Even if you switch out the server's storage controller, which can quite easily destroy a RAID array, the virtual machines remain unaffected.

Project the same scenario into a production environment featuring VMware Infrastructure 3 running directly on hardware, without the need for a host OS. If the physical server suffers a motherboard failure or storage controller problem, recovering from a backup could take days, especially if you're dealing with dissimilar hardware. By adopting the concept of a virtual machine, you decouple the hardware and software. So long as you set your customer up with a backup schedule, recovering from a disaster is as easy as loading the same VM on a different machine.

An even more compelling reason to explore the benefits of virtualization is server consolidation, or getting the most compute power from machines that might otherwise be running underutilized. According to Mike Mersch, North American channel manager for XenSource, server consolidation represents the greatest potential for adding value through virtualization. "That's the sweet spot that XenSource is going after—server consolidation for basic infrastructure apps. You might have your DHCP running on one server; you have a domain controller on another, a Web server, file and print servers, and so on due to the server sprawl we saw in the ‘90s. Now you can use virtualization to handle those tasks on one machine."

If you're an SMB reseller without a background in virtualization, you might be wondering what kind of hardware you'd need in order to field a handful of tasks using just one box. The answer, according to SYNNEX's Doug Bone, lies in the adoption of multi-core processors and extra RAM. While the virtualization software dynamically allocates hardware resources between the virtual machines, it's critical that you build the server with ample horsepower.

Meet Para-Virtualization

There's a stark difference between installing a virtualization application on your whitebox server and actually taking advantage of virtualization-aware processors. Of the virtualization software packages available, only a handful actually utilize Intel Virtualization Technology and AMD Virtualization. Even among those select few, at least two titles disable hardware-assisted virtualization by default, claiming the feature hampers performance. But according to Mike Mersch at XenSource, hardware-assisted virtualization helps propel XenEnterprise rather than holding it back.

"It's important to understand that first-generation virtualization products, which emerged before Intel and AMD added virtualization support to their processors, use emulation to trick hardware into letting unmodified guest operating systems run concurrently. Xen works with virtualization-aware hardware to enable the best possible performance."

XenEnterprise is unique in that it employs para-virtualization—a different approach to virtualization that benefits from a much smaller and more efficient hypervisor, the layer that sits between the server's physical hardware and its virtual machines. Because it was written with hardware acceleration in mind, XenEnterprise shows impressive gains on the latest components.

The 64-bit Question

AMD and Intel both introduced their 64-bit processing technologies before hardware-assisted virtualization ever hit the scene. However, the hardware's reliance on relevant software has minimized the impact of 64-bit processing until recently. Now, Microsoft sells 64-bit versions of its most popular operating systems: Windows, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. Customers more interested in Linux have had several 64-bit distros of that operating system available to them for even longer. And of course, the independent hardware developers have been writing the drivers needed to run under a 64-bit platform. A lack of third-party apps remains the bottleneck in demonstrating the advantages of 64-bit computing to SMBs. Even still, SYNNEX's Doug Bone insists that 64-bit-capable hardware is a must.

"It would be a mistake to buy 32-bit technology today. Our customers have pretty much migrated to 64-bit as a solution, and a big part of that is the freedom in memory addressing. Using 32-bit software means topping out at 4GB of RAM, which is well below what customers combining virtualization and compute-intensive virtual machines really need."

SMBs apprehensive about the necessity of enabling a 64-bit infrastructure should take a look at Microsoft's brand new Exchange Server 2007, an update to software many of them are probably running on their SBS 2003 machines. No longer does Exchange Server support 32-bit environments. The popular email server now requires 64-bit and is one of the highest-profile apps to go that route. I recently asked a Microsoft spokesperson why 32-bit compatibility had been so decisively axed and received the following response:

"Email truly is a ‘mission critical' application in most organizations today, and we heard from our customers that they were pushing the limits with their current messaging solutions. Demands being placed on messaging solutions continue to grow, and by nature 32-bit email servers have that 4GB memory limitation, which restricts their ability to facilitate much scalability. Additionally, customers want to consolidate their servers to manage cost and complexity. 64-bit servers provide the system architecture required to meet both of these needs, while 32-bit does not."

Despite the fact that 64-bit operating systems support 32-bit applications at the same price point on hardware already infused with 64-bit technology, a quick glance at any tier-one product page clearly shows that customers are still buying 32-bit servers by default. Given the prevalence of 64-bit operating systems, the emergence of popular 64-bit-only titles such as Exchange Server, and the ubiquity of compatible hardware, it's surprising that the reseller combining those elements are today's differentiators. Nevertheless, we're in the middle of an inevitable transition to 64-bit processing, so if you haven't made the move, there's no better time than now.

Server Processors Lead the Way

Truly, the latest chips from AMD and Intel include your keys to SMB server success in 2007, from enabling hardware-assisted virtualization inexpensively to facilitating the 64-bit processing that software is starting to require. But the benefits of today's server chips don't end there. SYNNEX's Doug Bone emphasizes that value-added extras such as virtualization work much better with modern micro-architectures.

"The one thing I would add is that it's important to use dual-core technology, at the least. Today, the price difference between dual-core and single-core is minor, and the advantages in terms of scalability are high. You're also getting more technology, which helps you with future-proofing customers. Because the dual-core implementations center on the newest manufacturing processes, servers tend to consume less power for the performance you get. As new technologies evolve, your customer will continue to get the best return on investment by adopting dual- and quad-core chips."

Adopting quad-core chips, enabling 64-bit environments, deploying SAS controller hardware, and configuring remote management are all ways VARs can keep their customers ahead of the game. SMBs shouldn't be required to identify the technologies they need. Rather, resellers have to be the ones to recognize the customer's challenge and put together a solution. "If resellers wait for a customer to raise their hand and say ‘I need a virtualization server,' they're going to miss out on opportunities to deploy infrastructure that includes virtualization technology," says Doug Bone.

Deliberately enable the value integrated by Intel or AMD and you'll maximize those opportunities.