What you need to know about server virtualization
Server virtualization has become a real “gamechanger” for data centers and for the people that manage and administer it. It has offered efficiency in an era where it is desperately required. Unfortunately, there are very few businesses that are 100% virtualized. For the businesses that have managed to virtualize most of the servers that they use in their companies, are they taking full advantage of every benefit that virtualization has to offer?
Whether you know about virtualization and you are using it daily or you are new to the concept, you should be aware of all the benefits and you do not become stalled-out before realizing all these benefits (for your sake and your company’s sake). Each benefit provides you with a way to make your company and your life more efficient while lowering the costs linked to computing.
If we had to put them into a list, here is our top 10 benefits linked to server virtualization:
#1 Server consolidation
By collapsing your “physical” servers into “virtual” servers and lowering the physical server numbers that you have your business will experience dramatic savings when it comes to cooling and power costs. In addition, you will reduce your datacenter footprint and this often includes UPS costs, diesel-generator costs, floor space, rack space, and network-switch costs.
#2 Prevent server sprawl
Before the introduction of server virtualization, the admins had to over-provision servers in order to make sure user demands were met. Server virtualization does away with over-provisioning allowing you to size each virtual machine perfectly.
#3 Do a lot more with less
With an economy that is lagging, admins and IT departments now have to do a lot more using less. Server virtualization has made admins more agile and efficient, which allows us to do a lot more using less, and allows us to look like a superhero when it comes to the IT department.
#4 Save on costs
Your company will not only save on cooling and power costs of servers, and the physical server-hardware, that was once consolidated, but you can also save time that was once used to administer the physical servers. The end-users become more productive due to lowered downtime along with much more.
#5 Moving running virtual machines
One of the most powerful features linked to server virtualization has to do with the capacity to move running virtual machines from 1 host to the next without any downtime. VMware’s vMotion easily does this on your behalf and this is a feature that makes the other features such as DRS (distributed resource scheduler) and DPM (distributed power management) possible.
#6 Elevate uptime
The features like storage vMotion, vMotion, VMHA (Vmware high availability), all contribute to virtualized servers being able to run very quickly when compared to the servers that once operated on physical-hardware.
#7 Image-based restore and backup
When you are able to restore and backup entire virtual-machines, it becomes possible to back up the VMs far quicker and put these back when needed. In addition, image-level backups also make the activity of disaster-recovery much easier. In addition to this, only the changed blocks have to be backed-up while these backups can be completed at any time due to “snapshot” technology.
#8 Virtual labs
When you are able to create virtual labs (a group of VMs on a virtual network that is private), you are able to test vSphere, Active Directory, Exchange, and more. In the past, this was once cost-prohibitive when it came to the physical servers.
#9 Simplified disaster recovery
Because virtual machines are hardware-independent (which means they do not tie up to a physical server), it becomes possible to restore an image-based backup on all types of hardware that are able to run vSphere. To add to that, software features such as SRM (site recovery manager) automate failover and testing if any disasters strike.
#10 Allows you to move to the cloud
When you virtualize your servers and you make them portable, you can now move these to most cloud-hosting companies such as Intergrid when you feel comfortable to do so.
Make sure you think about these benefits and use these advantages to provide your company with the jumpstart that it needs. Also, keep in mind that there are different types of virtualization. These include desktop, I/O storage, application, and more.
