science

Virtual machine lifecycle management

Virtual machine lifecycle management is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Virtual machine lifecycle management rather than just read about it. In short: Virtual machine lifecycle management is the class of management that looks at the life cycle of a virtual machine from the viewpoint of the application vs one focused on roles within an organization. A number of major software vendors, including Microsoft and Novell, have begun to release software products aiming at simplifying the administration of larger virtual machine deployments.

Key takeaways

Virtual machine lifecycle management belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Virtual machine lifecycle management to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Virtual machine lifecycle management from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Virtual machine lifecycle management is the class of management that looks at the life cycle of a virtual machine from the viewpoint of the application vs one focused on roles within an organization. A number of major software vendors, including Microsoft and Novell, have begun to release software products aiming at simplifying the administration of larger virtual machine deployments.

Environmental characteristics Virtualized environments are fundamentally different from physical environments in architecture and capabilities. The flexibility they provide is derived from three fundamental characteristics:

Time: Over time, the topology of the environment changes with machines coming online and others going offline. Motion: Unlike physical servers, virtual machines easily relocate around the data-center. Transparency: With no physical presence, virtual machines cannot be seen, identified, touched or often, missed.

Effects These characteristics come together to define all the benefits of virtualization, from cost-savings to disaster recovery. However, they also change the nature of management of the infrastructure itself. The emerging space of Virtual Machine Lifecycle Management is the result of the time, motion and transparency qualities of virtual environments. This need cuts across software development and operations, encompassing all segments of the ITIL framework:

Service Strategy – As virtualization extends from a transparent back-end alternative to a full infrastructure offering within the organization, Virtual Machine Lifecycle Management provides the granular controls to enable wholly new delivery models, from short-term provisioning to outsourced virtual machine hosting. Service Design – When designing the virtual infrastructure services, administrators consider both the structure of the individual virtual machine given to the customer as well as the interactions between all of the virtual machines in the environment, as they come online, move, and expire Service Transition – Virtual Machine Lifecycle Management augments the traditional set of requirements built into delivering an infrastructure component to the business. Best practices and specific tools can be used to create the right controls within each virtual machine, ensuring the behavior of all the machines is in line with the design. Service Operation – Once operational, virtual environments are extraordinarily dynamic, by design. Above and beyond the complexity of a traditional operating environment, management needs can be minimized with strong controls set in the transition phase and ongoing monitoring and alerting specifically designed to address the unique characteristics of the virtual infrastructure. Continual Service Improvement – As virtual environments mature and grow, internal customers and management will be keen to understand the savings and benefits of the paradigm, security groups will increasingly audit the infrastructure, and new chargeback methods will emerge to account for the new model. Virtual Machine Lifecycle Management tools, with their innate understanding of the environment and its transient and mobile nature, will deliver the metrics needed to demonstrate success to all the constituents.

References

External links What does it take to manage virtual servers? By Denise Dubie, Network World, 11/01/07

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Virtual machine lifecycle management

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Virtual machine lifecycle management claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Virtual machine lifecycle management before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Virtual machine lifecycle management ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Virtual machine lifecycle management

In research: Virtual machine lifecycle management appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Virtual machine lifecycle management in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Virtual machine lifecycle management is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Virtualization, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Virtual machine lifecycle management outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Virtual machine lifecycle management” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Virtual machine lifecycle management in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Virtual machine lifecycle management means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Virtual machine lifecycle management out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Virtual machine lifecycle management in simple terms?

Why does Virtual machine lifecycle management matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Virtual machine lifecycle management?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Virtual machine lifecycle management.