What is Virtualization?
When most people think of the concept of virtualization, they think of server virtualization which is the partitioning of one physical server into multiple virtual servers. These virtual machines can reside on a “Hypervisor” that sits between the operating system and the hardware to control the usage of resources.
Along with Server Virtualization, there are other key virtualization concepts that play a big part in building a virtual datacenter. These other concepts are defined as:
Network Virtualization – This is a process of combining hardware and software resources and presenting a single virtual network entity. With this virtual network you can split available bandwidth into channels that can be assigned to hardware resources. This concept of network virtualization is intended to improve productivity and efficiency.
Desktop Virtualization (VDI) – Desktop virtualization is the process of running a users Client Operating system on a virtual infrastructure within the data center. This allows a user to access their applications from anywhere using either remote access or thin client technology.
Storage Virtualization – Storage virtualization is the concept of configuring physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what would appear to be a single storage device. All of this can be managed from a single console. Storage virtualization is key in eliminating the complexity of managing a storage environment and allows a storage administrator to more easily, backup, archive, and recover data.
Why Consider Virtualization?
Faster Disaster Recovery – Decrease the time to recover from a disaster by building a virtualization environment that can be powered on at any location with a few hours.
Increase Hardware Utilization by 80 Percent – Reduce the footprint in your datacenter by virtualizing multiple servers on shared hardware. (Example: Move 30 operating systems sitting on physical servers onto 2 physical servers.)
Resources on Demand – Give virtual servers more memory, storage capacity, and virtual CPU’s on demand through a single console.
Decrease Hardware Maintenance Cost – By utilizing fewer servers to maintain your datacenter, you cut down maintenance cost.
Decrease Operating Support Cost – Decrease IT support cost by limiting the amount of servers to support and maintain.
Increase productivity and efficiency -Make changes to your production environment with the ability to revert back to the previous changes with a click of a button by using snapshots, manage all virtual servers from a single console, and perform maintenance on physical servers by using virtual “motion” technology. This allows you to virtual motion a Virtual server from 1 physical box to another without interruption.
High Availability – Using virtualization software, virtual servers will automatically power back on a different physical server in the event of a hardware failure.
Fault Tolerance – Enable technology to run a mirrored running copies of a virtual server so that “ZERO” downtime is incurred in the event of a hardware failure.
