When I first started hearing about virtualization in the computer industry, it seemed about as tangible as the multi-headed monsters of Greek mythology. Fortunately I’m surrounded by talented young technical staff who aren’t afraid of diving into new technologies head first. Like many things, once I made a small leap in thinking, the technology wasn’t as daunting as it appeared.
Although server virtualization is typically marketed as an “enterprise solution”, I have come to see value for businesses of any size. Before I dig into the value, I guess I’d better see if I can help all of you make that same leap in thinking.
Traditionally computer and network server operating systems each require dedicated hardware to run on. In large enterprises there are often many servers each running a single purpose application. This approach presents many challenges, but I will only discuss two that are mitigated by virtualization here. The first issue is that each of these servers are typically running at less than 10% of their potential computing power, yet still draw almost as much electrical power, generate almost as much heat, and occupy exactly as much space as a server that is 100% utilized. The second issue focuses on the Microsoft Windows operating system. Windows based servers are prolific in businesses. Probably the biggest drawback to Windows from a reliability perspective is a tendency to crash for seemingly unknown reasons. Microsoft has collected data on many crashes and has determined that approximately 70% of crashes can be directly attributed to 3rd party driver issues.
Virtualization could simply be defined as allowing a single physical server, or "host", to run multiple independent server operating systems at the same time. This allows the combined utilization of the virtual servers, or "guests", to more optimally utilize the available resources of the physical hardware. This approach saves power, cooling costs and physical space.
Another benefit of virtualization is that the virtualization software presents a common set of computing resources (ie: CPU, RAM, video card, etc) to the virtual server regardless of the physical differences of server hardware. This means that virtualized servers run a common set of drivers instead of the 3rd party drivers that cause 70% of server crashes, essentially eliminating that risk. In addition, because of the use of a common driver set, a virtual server can be moved to any supported server without the need to rebuild operating systems or load new drivers.
Microsoft and VMware both offer free versions of their virtualization platforms that can help provide any business with more secure and stable computing environments.
Recent Comments