Strategy
Take a closer look at server virtualization
Explore the options and benefits before jumping on this bandwagon
By Scott Murphy
One of the latest technologies to grab the attention of the tech media and industry analysts is server virtualization. There is a tremendous amount of hype about server virtualization and how it is going to reduce everyone’s total cost of ownership (TCO) and how IT departments should and will be virtualizing their entire IT infrastructure. I’m sure everyone remembers when the media predicted that Linux was going to spell the end of Microsoft. From my perspective, I don’t think either is going to happen, but Linux and virtualization are going to play a role in most companies’ IT infrastructure.
The concept behind virtualization is fairly simple. Most IT departments have a range of servers that have a range of operating systems with an even greater range of applications running on them. Many servers were provisioned as single servers due to compatibility and business interruption risks and were significantly underutilized at different points in the day. Virtualization allows servers to run multiple operating systems at the same time and share server hardware resources. Operating systems run segmented as virtual machines through the use of an overall virtualization OS that shares the hardware resources.
In the early days of virtualization, this was fantastic, as infrequently utilized servers for development or testing could be consolidated into one server but still maintain the various specific configurations as they ran in separate virtual environments, referred to as virtual machines. The big advantage was that OS images could be saved, copied, and revised with slight modifications very quickly.
New functionality
Today, many vendors have moved virtualization technology forward to provide advanced administration and management tools that allow administrators to migrate virtual machines from server to server without business interruption, and provide automatic failover of virtual machines from one piece of server hardware to another, and advanced management and analysis of hardware resources for load balancing purposes. These new features and functionality along with the larger number of options from various vendors make virtualization a serious consideration for IT departments.
The next question is, should you virtualize your entire server infrastructure? Not likely, despite the media and analyst predictions. Virtualization can provide some key benefits in the areas of server OS and application portability, potential for reduced energy costs, potential for a higher availability infrastructure and thus reduced business interruption, better utilization of server hardware resources, greater flexibility, and in some cases improved security. These are some very compelling reasons to consider virtualization but they do not apply to every situation. Good candidates for server virtualization are servers with low utilization in production, development, lab, or testing, or where slight variations in OS configuration are needed. Servers with high utilization may still be better using other technologies. For example, a database server cluster which is under steady and growing load may not be a good candidate for virtualization. IT departments need to monitor and log the performance and utilization of their existing server hardware infrastructure to determine which applications would benefit from virtualization. Similarly, if you had just purchased new server hardware for some servers, these might not be good candidates for virtualization until the life of that server hardware was nearing its end.
Review the players
IT departments should start by reviewing and testing a variety of virtualization technologies. These provide different benefits, have different strengths and weaknesses, and support different operating systems. Some of the major players in virtualization are:
Most of these players offer a free version of their virtualization server solution. IT departments should start here and get comfortable with the technology and approaches. These free solutions can be upgraded or migrated to their enterprise solutions, which will include some of the more advanced management utilities and high availability options.
There are also a number of third party utilities that improve the management, performance or migration ability. Some particularly useful tools for migrating OS’s to a virtual environment are from Platespin.
One of the more interesting paths that has started to take shape is using virtualization technologies to deliver preconfigured applications to customers. Microsoft is currently offering downloads of preconfigured trial versions of many of their solutions in their VHD (virtual machine) format. The potential here is for solution providers to deliver preconfigured virtual machine based solutions to clients. The client would add the new application to their virtual server environment and run a few scripts to incorporate it into their environment. This could significantly reduce the costs and calendar time it takes to deploy a new application.
Virtualization is simple in concept but the devil can be in the details. Virtualization technologies should be on your roadmap to consider for the not too distant future. Your IT department should be looking at the options and potential benefits. It is not however, an all or nothing approach. You need to select the applications and functions that would benefit from virtualization.
Scott Murphy is a Consultant and VP – Business Development at Data Perceptions. Scott helps companies select best available technologies to meet their business requirements. In his role as Business Development lead, Scott has helped develop Data Perceptions’ extended team and the collaborative consulting model. Data Perceptions has developed and maintains relationships with over 80 independent consultants and 200 partner firms to allow us to meet a larger range of our clients’ and prospects’ requirements.
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