Understanding the effects of virtualization software

Virtualization software such as VMware is designed to be transparent to the software that they host and not impose special requirements. However, Meridian systems deployed on virtual machines might have issues related to performance and communication with peripheral devices, other hardware components, networking, and security.

Regarding performance, running Meridian in a virtual environment is likely to result in increased CPU utilization or other hardware resource consumption. Because of this increase, total system workload capacity might be reduced and Meridian response times might increase. Considering this and assuming that the virtual machine is configured per Meridian requirements, BlueCielo supports deployments of all Meridian products, unless otherwise noted, on VMware. However, in a virtual environment, BlueCielo might not be able to resolve issues related to system performance or issues that BlueCielo suspects are related to communication with peripheral devices and other hardware components such as network cards and disk controllers.

If BlueCielo suspects a particular issue is specific to virtualization technologies (such as performance or communication with peripheral and hardware components), BlueCielo might require that the customer reproduce the issue in a non-virtual configuration before BlueCielo Technical Support will assist in troubleshooting these issues. Due to the nature of virtualization technologies, BlueCielo cannot guarantee resolutions to issues that are caused because a deployment is virtualized. If virtualization technology is used in combination with our software, we require that this be mentioned when contacting support for assistance.

Additionally, it is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that other associated third-party software is supported to run in the specified virtualized environment such as application servers, databases, and operating systems by the original vendor of that software. Because virtual environments use more computer resources than non-virtual environments, BlueCielo strongly recommends you gather baseline performance statistics from both types of environments and compare the results with a BlueCielo Solutions Partner or BlueCielo Technical Support before making any decisions about virtualized environments.

For the latest information about BlueCielo support for virtualization software, see the Supported Software document for this release of Meridian.