Virtualisation technologies have maturing for a long time but it is only in the last couple of years that the technology has become a efficient, scalable solution for many IT applications.

What is Virtualisation?

Like Cloud Computing, there are many interpretations of virtualisation; it can be used to provide a wide-range of solutions for an organisation. The key concept of virtualisation is that it moves operating systems and applications from running on a hardware platform to a software platform allowing a single physical server to host multiple virtual machines.

Virtualisation

There are a number of deployment scenarios where virtualisation can provide an alternative solution to traditional IT methodology. The following are the main deployment solutions afforded by virtualisation technologies, click on the link to view further details on the solution capabilities:

Server Consolidation Virtualisation allows organisations and IT departments to reduce the number of physical servers deployed on the network by consolidating existing servers to a virtual environment. Traditionally a server has been procured for a specific role, i.e. a dedicated file and print server, application server SQL server etc., and the server resources specified to match the current requirement plus the anticipated growth in data usage. Whilst this is a sensible approach it does mean that even the most tightly specified server will only be running at a fraction of its full processing capacity; unused space on hard drives, spare memory capacity and unused processing cores.
The use of a virtual host allows a far greater percentage of the resources of the physical server to be used providing a higher return on investment. Depending on your budget, and performance requirements, the virtual servers can either use the physical server’s local storage or networked storage such as an iSCSI or fibre-based SAN. In most cases, physical servers can be migrated relatively painlessly to the new host server by using a P2V (physical to virtual) process. - Virtualisation allows a number of physical servers to be consolidated onto a single server, thus reducing an organisation’s spend on hardware provision. An organisation can also use virtualisation to create their own private cloud environment.

Virtual Desktop Virtualisation can also be applied to the "desktop" allowing an organisation’s staff to use a virtual desktop running on a back-end server. This model provides some options for savings as follows: it enables the use of thin client devices, or low-end PC systems, for user access it allows endpoint security protection to be applied per server rather than per desktop Administration, support and management costs are reduced as it is only the host server that needs to be kept up to date with patches, updates etc. rather than a number of desktop systems. Whilst virtual desktop computing can provide cost savings as summarised above, the back-end server infrastructure needs to be powerful enough to meet the processing demands of running numerous virtual desktop sessions. Depending on the number of concurrent remote desktop users, it is prudent to establish a server ‘farm’ to enable load balancing across the virtual desktop host systems. - Virtualisation allows the provision of a high-end virtual desktop to a low cost physical client PC. Cost savings can be achieved by the central management and deployment of applications, the lower cost of end-point computers and a reduced support and administrative overhead.

Private Cloud "Virtualisation" and the "Cloud" are two of the buzzwords currently used to describe the latest trends in computing. As with virtualisation, the cloud has many definitions but ultimately represents a delivery method that has been evolving over many years. Virtualisation allows an organisation to establish its own private cloud, hosted internally or externally. For the purposes of this summary we are defining the cloud as a series of physical and virtual systems that provide the ability to deliver storage and applications on demand.
Private clouds also benefit from the use of high availability and load balancing services provided by centralised SAN storage and virtualisation management software. A private cloud also provides rapid provisioning of servers and storage to meet the demands of data-hungry organisations. – Virtualisation technologies allow the deployment of high availability server hosting solutions to provide an organisation with their own private cloud.

Disaster Recovery Typically, organisations that have established a disaster recovery facility, either by establishing second premises or by subscribing to a continuity services provider such as SunGard, HP, ICM or IBM, will wholly or partially replicate their live server environment. Virtualisation allows an organisation to reduce the cost of establishing this second datacentre by allowing the consolidation of many physical servers to a single host server as virtual machines.
Emerging backup technologies are also allowing a whole server to be imaged and backed up to tape, or other media, and restored straight on to a recovery host server. - Virtualisation allows an organisation to replicate their live environment at the recovery site but consolidates the physical servers onto virtual platforms reducing the on-site hardware requirement.

Legacy Computing Many organisations can find themselves in a position where they have an application on a server that is either running out of resources, suffering hardware issues or requires replacement but are unable to move the application due to compatibility issues, a lack of knowledge or high costs. Virtualisation allows the physical server to be migrated to a host server as a virtual machine; a couple of scenarios are outline below:
Company A is running their bespoke database-driven application on a server that is running out of disk space and additional disks cannot be added. A new physical server is acquired and a P2V migration of the existing server is started. As part of the migration process the size of the disk partitions can be amended and the virtual machine is configured with double the disk capacity. Once migrated the existing server is switched off and the virtual machine switched on, and as the virtual machine has the same IP address and unique SID no further configuration is required.
Company B has a single small business server that holds all their company data but the server hardware is becoming increasingly unreliable and can not be economically repaired. A new server is acquired and a straight P2V migration is performed. Once completed the old server is removed from the network and the virtual server started up and with no further configuration required, users are able to use their client PCs to connect to the server resources oblivious to the migration process. - Virtualisation allows the migration of hardware platforms to the virtual environment minimising the effort required in prolonging life-expired hardware platforms running core applications.

IT Development Aid Virtualisation technologies to aid IT development has been around for many years and allows a virtual network to be established on a single physical server; a well-specified laptop is capable of running at least 3 servers and a test PC in a virtual environment (albeit with limited performance). By using the snapshot functionality of virtualisation platforms, developers and IT managers can easily rollback to the original configuration of their test environment at the end of a test upgrade, update or system change.
IT departments faced with a major upgrade or migration project, for example migrating from the Exchange 2003 email platform to Exchange 2010 can emulate their live environment on a virtual server and complete a ‘virtual’ migration to test the upgrade procedures, identify issues and confirm the final steps for the live process.
A virtual equivalent of the live environment also allows application developers to test APIs into the virtual equivalent of live production servers to ensure that any planned changes or updates do not adversely affect the integrity of the data or systems. - Virtualisation allows the creation of virtual networks and environments so developers can test how their application will scale across a network and IT managers can plan and test system migrations in secure isolation.

How Can We Help?

IT.ally are partners with the three main virtualisation technology houses, VMware, Citrix and Microsoft, and have an established track record in deploying virtualisation solutions to meet an organisation’s particular requirements. Please use the feedback form, or call us, to find out how virtualisation can bring benefits to your business.