ITS Virtual Machine Hosting
administration, consulting and ongoing support.
Q&A
Use Cases
Some general uses for our services, examples.
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General Questions
Issues around virtualization technology.
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Service
Questions about our service specifically.
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Questions About Our Service
What happens when something goes wrong?
Any issue involving the physical infrastructure - storage, servers, network - is our responsibility, as is any issue involving the VMware software and operating environment. We have 24x7 support contracts with our vendors and monitoring in place for all critical systems.
Any issue internal to a virtual machine - software, security, configuration, etc. - is the responsibility of the customer's IT staff. While we do provide an hourly Systems Administration consulting service, it is not an emergency service. It is supplementary to the customer's own IT staff and should not be relied upon outside of University regular business hours.
Is this service trying to compete with my IT department?
No. We recognize that there are many reasons why a group or department may need a server or want to try virtualization but can't meet that need immediately. We are happy to talk to other administrators, IT Managers and groups about implementing their own VM infrastructure. We also believe that there are many groups and individuals who have hosting needs that would be better met by a central service. Our services are intended to complement existing infrastructure not compete with it.
What are the base specs of your virtual servers?
Our VMs are configured with one virtual processor, 1GB of RAM and 50GB of very fast disk space. We install and support Red Hat Linux Enterprise and Windows Server. If you have other requirements or requests, we're always open to discussion and to hear your concerns.
What operating systems can you host?
We support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Windows Server. We would love to offer Mac OS X Server, and as soon as Apple opens the licensing to include virtualization on non-Apple hardware we most likely will. If you wish to administer and support your own VM, you can view the VMware Guest OS Compatibility Chart on the ESX 3.5 column. The list includes NetWare, Solaris 10 x86, Ubuntu and others.
Why aren't you selling processor time/disk space/etc.?
Our goal is to make deploying servers simpler for non-IT people, so we package our service in terms anyone can grasp. We believe our pricing and additional services make this model attractive for our target customer base. If you would like to discuss other models or volume pricing options, we are always willing to listen.
What if I decide to stop using your service?
We can copy your server image to the media of your choice, and you're free to deploy it elsewhere. Depending on where you go, you will need to change network settings. If you have an SSL certificate, it's yours and goes with the VM.
Why VMware? Why not a free/open product?
We have looked at Xen and Sun's Zones among others. VMware provides the most robust, enterprise level tools and utilities we've found. They're also a subsidiary of EMC, which makes support much easier. We prefer Open software when it's the best choice or the scales are even, but we also purchase a product when it's the best tool for the job.
Contact Us if you have questions.