Business and IT leaders are faced with the challenges of delivering cost-effective and secure IT infrastructure that must nimbly adapt to the business. These business operations and the applications often run around the clock. Server virtualization is entering the mainstream of business computing precisely because it can help in today’s IT world of feverish change and decreasing budgets.
Virtualization was introduced in the 1960s on mainframe hardware but only recently has emerged to address the vast quantities of highly underutilized x86 servers. These servers are seemingly everywhere—from data centers to hall closets, and they typically house just one application. Virtualization helps solve this costly epidemic of excess capacity by turning one server into ten or twenty by separating the server’s operating system and applications from the underlying physical hardware. This decoupling is possible for desktops and servers and applies to various application in networks and storage. Virtual infrastructure refers to the decoupling of a system and its services. Hardware is managed separately from the operating system and applications as a single pool of processing, storage and networking power, which can be dynamically allocated to various software services. In a virtual infrastructure, users see resources as if they were dedicated to them and the administrator manages and optimizes resources globally across the enterprise.
Cost savings often the first benefit of Virtulaization. Simply put, virtualization allows users to get much more value out of physical computing resources. Consolidating x86 servers drive up utilization rates from the usual 5-15% to 70-80%. Virtualization takes advantage of the significant oversupply of hardware that is sitting idle. Consolidation also has a trickle-down effect to other hardware and operational cost savings. For e.g., consolidation reduces power, cooling and real estate costs and requires fewer networking switches and cables. Cost savings from virtualization can be significant.
Even with more utilized physical resources, virtual infrastructure can respond much faster to the business. Virtual machines, which are captured in hardware-independent software files, are inherently more flexible. The results are compelling: new server provisioning and change requests measured in minutes and dynamic workload migration between physical servers with no end user impact are just two examples. The result is increasing flexibility for IT and higher service levels for the business.
Virtualization is here today and its impact on data centers and desktops is profound, says Raghu Raghuram. For more information on the benefit of Virtulaization please go to: http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20081006/technology02.shtml
Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Virtualization Strategies
This post was written by admin on October 3, 2008
