Transform your Business with Virtualization

admin | Nov 01, 2009 | Comments 0

Virtualization dramatically improves the efficiency and availability of resources and applications in your organization. Internal resources are underutilized under the old “one server, one application” model and IT admins spend too much time managing servers rather than innovating. An automated datacenter, built on a virtualization platform, lets you

Run multiple operating systems on a single computer including Windows, Linux and more.
Reduce capital costs by increasing energy efficiency and requiring less hardware and increasing your server to admin ratio.
Ensure your enterprise applications perform with the highest availability and performance.
Build up business continuity through improved disaster recovery solutions and deliver high availability throughout the datacenter.
Improve enterprise desktop management & control with faster deployment of desktops and fewer support calls due to application conflicts.

However, with any move to virtualization, it is important to remember the rest of the network, as virtualization usually means migration to blade servers and increased density.

In a virtualized blade environment, each cabinet “virtually” becomes a mini-data center that needs to have its own power, cooling, and management plan.

Applications that run on top of your virtualized environment can add or take away the benefits received through virtualization. Improperly architected solutions can drain server memory, absorb I/O, and escalate management requirements.

When planning, expect virtualization to expand in the data center. Virtual I/O is the logical next step beyond shared storage and shared processors. Virtualization requires a lot of connectivity. In fact, six to eight Ethernet connections per server are common, plus two Fibre Channel connections. The total costs, including switches and cabling, can be expensive.

However, I/O virtualization can cut that cost in half. With up to 64 connections to each server, this allows plenty of expansion capability for future requirements.

Also, storage requirements typically increase in a virtualized environment, as does the cost of management. Backup and recovery solutions that provide global deduplication across VMs can help address this, as can solutions that centralize the process.

For more information, check some of these useful links…

http://www.vmware.com/technology/virtualization.html

http://www.xsigo.com/

http://www.netapp.com/us/solutions/infrastructure/virtualization/server/