Turning Waste into Resource in Your Test Lab: A Conversation with Scalent CEO Ben Linder
In an interview with Ben Liner, CEO and Co-Founder of Scalent Systems, this month we'll explore some of the traditional challenges that Test and Development labs face and how Scalent V/OE (Virtual Operating Environment) can help you build an automated, virtual test lab environment.
Alana Achterkirchen: Let's start off with a basic question. Tell us about the fundamental challenges that Test and Development labs face?
Ben Linder: Talking with our customers every day, there's some interesting facts that we observe. One thing is the preponderance of servers, the sprawl of servers, in the enterprise. An interesting factoid is that for every single production machine there are typically four other servers in the enterprise that are there in support of that machine.
So for every machine in production, there's usually one in development, there's usually one in test and QA, there's usually one pre-production, and there's another one in disaster recovery. So a very simple application can drag behind it tens if not hundreds of servers, and that's a huge challenge for our customers.
It's widely known that test and development processes are inefficient with regard to the number of systems. Once engineers set up a test cluster, they don't ever want to tear it down. As a result, you wind up with more and more test rigs being set up and they just never go away. Some of our customers have tens of thousands of servers in test and development. The old way of doing things is too inefficient: you'd install and configure everything directly onto each server, everything onto the local hard disk of the server. You'd install and configure all the network topologies and switches, and all of the access to storage. Once it's all done, nobody ever wants to take it down even if that application is only tested once every six months.
These underlying inefficiencies and the requirement of dedicated systems which are incredibly underutlized - sometimes less than 1% - is a huge contributor to waste in the enterprise and sprawl of servers. That's the issue that Scalent is set out to solve with creating higher efficiencies in test and development environments.
AA: Let's drill deeper into this problem. How would Test & Development labs benefit from infrastructure virtualization technologies?
BL: It's very simple: when you use systems, you use them, and when you're done, you can release them back into a shared pool. It's the concept of turning test and development labs from captive, static resources that sit around doing nothing most of the time to shared pools of infrastructure that can be effective used by whatever groups need them. So when a test is underway, machines are being used. When testing stops for an application, those machines can be returned to a pool of machines that can then be made available on a shared basis to any other application group.
The net result is that virtualization technology allows consolidation of test and development labs so you need fewer servers, it allows rapid reuse of the existing servers so you get higher utilization, and it lowers the overall cost and increases the overall reliability of test and development processes.
AA: How does Scalent specifically address Test and Development lab automation?
BL: We're able to come in and install our software in a shared test and development infrastructure, and create a pool of resources that are available to any group within the enterprise.
The beauty of this is that servers aren't statically assigned to application groups. Instead, servers are reserved by application groups. They're repurposed and provisioned by the Scalent Virtual Operating Environment into whatever role they need to be for that period of time. So, an application group might request 10 servers for 2 weeks and Scalent automatically provisions those as well as the network and storage connectivity for those servers. When the development group is done, they release those resources back into the pool.
The Scalent Virtual Operating Environment automates the assignment of resources, the provisioning of resources, and then the release of resources back into the shared pool. The result is a much more efficient, reliable, and timely implementation of the test processes.
AA: Thanks Ben, and thanks everyone for joining us. If you're interested in learning more about how you can create a highly efficient test lab environment, give us a shout. The direct phone number to our corporate headquarters is (650) 424-1222.
Alana Achterkirchen, Director of Marketing, February 2008
Alana Achterkirchen: Let's start off with a basic question. Tell us about the fundamental challenges that Test and Development labs face?
Ben Linder: Talking with our customers every day, there's some interesting facts that we observe. One thing is the preponderance of servers, the sprawl of servers, in the enterprise. An interesting factoid is that for every single production machine there are typically four other servers in the enterprise that are there in support of that machine.
So for every machine in production, there's usually one in development, there's usually one in test and QA, there's usually one pre-production, and there's another one in disaster recovery. So a very simple application can drag behind it tens if not hundreds of servers, and that's a huge challenge for our customers.
It's widely known that test and development processes are inefficient with regard to the number of systems. Once engineers set up a test cluster, they don't ever want to tear it down. As a result, you wind up with more and more test rigs being set up and they just never go away. Some of our customers have tens of thousands of servers in test and development. The old way of doing things is too inefficient: you'd install and configure everything directly onto each server, everything onto the local hard disk of the server. You'd install and configure all the network topologies and switches, and all of the access to storage. Once it's all done, nobody ever wants to take it down even if that application is only tested once every six months.
These underlying inefficiencies and the requirement of dedicated systems which are incredibly underutlized - sometimes less than 1% - is a huge contributor to waste in the enterprise and sprawl of servers. That's the issue that Scalent is set out to solve with creating higher efficiencies in test and development environments.
AA: Let's drill deeper into this problem. How would Test & Development labs benefit from infrastructure virtualization technologies?
BL: It's very simple: when you use systems, you use them, and when you're done, you can release them back into a shared pool. It's the concept of turning test and development labs from captive, static resources that sit around doing nothing most of the time to shared pools of infrastructure that can be effective used by whatever groups need them. So when a test is underway, machines are being used. When testing stops for an application, those machines can be returned to a pool of machines that can then be made available on a shared basis to any other application group.
The net result is that virtualization technology allows consolidation of test and development labs so you need fewer servers, it allows rapid reuse of the existing servers so you get higher utilization, and it lowers the overall cost and increases the overall reliability of test and development processes.
AA: How does Scalent specifically address Test and Development lab automation?
BL: We're able to come in and install our software in a shared test and development infrastructure, and create a pool of resources that are available to any group within the enterprise.
The beauty of this is that servers aren't statically assigned to application groups. Instead, servers are reserved by application groups. They're repurposed and provisioned by the Scalent Virtual Operating Environment into whatever role they need to be for that period of time. So, an application group might request 10 servers for 2 weeks and Scalent automatically provisions those as well as the network and storage connectivity for those servers. When the development group is done, they release those resources back into the pool.
The Scalent Virtual Operating Environment automates the assignment of resources, the provisioning of resources, and then the release of resources back into the shared pool. The result is a much more efficient, reliable, and timely implementation of the test processes.
AA: Thanks Ben, and thanks everyone for joining us. If you're interested in learning more about how you can create a highly efficient test lab environment, give us a shout. The direct phone number to our corporate headquarters is (650) 424-1222.
Alana Achterkirchen, Director of Marketing, February 2008
Labels: test development lab automation scalent infrastructure virtualization
posted by Alana Achterkirchen at 4:01 PM
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