Specifications

VMware and BEA WebLogic Solutions Deployment Guide
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8. Rollback Development and test images using virtual machine snapshots during problem resolution.
9. Rapid provisioning of additional BEA WebLogic Server instances during peak loads.
3. Change Management
Patching and upgrading existing applications is high on the list of IT challenges facing any BEA customer. IT
departments face two key challenges in change management – testing patches and upgrades for
compatibility with standard corporate hardware, OS and application configurations and efficiently deploying
critical patches and upgrades throughout the enterprise. Traditionally, IT organizations need to procure
hardware (mirroring production) and create test beds mirroring the OS and application configurations of the
production environment. With VMware Infrastructure, customers can clone production or create a set of
virtual machine libraries mirroring production which can then be used to provision the test environment. The
latest patches and upgrades can then be tested against these virtual machines running BEA WebLogic
applications, while eliminating the need for dedicated hardware to perform these tests. These patches can
then be rolled into production with minimal interruption to end users. In case of problems, the virtual
machines can be instantly rolled back using snapshots.
Key Benefits:
1. Faster change management with fewer system resource requirements.
2. Patches can be tested on multiple configurations (OS, BEA WebLogic Server versions etc)
concurrently while hosted on the same physical system.
3. Instant rollback of BEA WebLogic Server virtual machines using snapshots (during problem
resolution).
4. Add/Upgrade BEA WebLogic applications independent of other BEA WebLogic components in
production.
5. Create a library of standard production configurations to perform change management testing and
deployment.
6. Dynamically migrate BEA WebLogic Server virtual machine instances to other systems while
performing maintenance or changes on the current physical system without disruption to end users.
4. Data Center Optimization: Distributed Resource Management
A VMware Infrastructure environment provides additional management capabilities that help optimize the
infrastructure resources used by BEA WebLogic and non-BEA WebLogic applications in an enterprise data
center. BEA WebLogic Server clustering is able to balance the loads between BEA WebLogic Server
instances within a BEA WebLogic cluster while VMware Infrastructure solutions address resource
management across the entire data center infrastructure and across multiple BEA WebLogic Server
clusters. VMware Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS) dynamically allocates and balances computing
capacity across a collection of hardware resources aggregated into logical resource pools. VMware DRS
continuously monitors utilization across resource pools and intelligently allocates available resources among
the virtual machines based on pre-defined rules that reflect business needs and changing priorities. When a
BEA WebLogic Server virtual machine experiences an increased load, VMware DRS automatically allocates
additional resources by redistributing virtual machines among the physical servers. VMware DRS optimizes
IT environments to align resources with business goals while ensuring flexibility and efficient utilization of
hardware resources.
Key Benefits:
1. Dynamically migrate development and test BEA WebLogic applications requiring additional
capacity to the physical server with the optimal resource capacity.
2. Define resource pools, policies and priorities for different developer, test and production BEA
WebLogic Server environments to efficiently manage resource allocation.
3. Allocate processor and memory resources to virtual machines running on the same physical
servers and prioritize access to those resources across virtual machines.
4. Optimize BEA WebLogic Server deployment across a virtualized enterprise data center by
providing reserved resource pools with pre-defined minimum and maximum resource requirements.
5. Resource Pools can be used to control resources available for BEA WebLogic and non-BEA
WebLogic application environments.
6. Guaranteed IT autonomy and service levels to applications and business organizations.