The business benefits of Server Virtualisation

What is Virtualisation?

One of the benefits of every modern operating system is the ability to run multiple programs simultaneously. To allow the operating system to control these programs they are each allocated their own virtual environment containing memory and access to the machine’s various resources (disk space, network card, video adapter etc). These program instances operate independent of one another and a code failure in one program should not result in the others failing also. In effect each program is its own ‘virtual machine’.

Taking this concept one step further, it is now possible to run multiple operating systems on the same machine. Each operating system is segmented from the others and performs as if it ‘owned’ the hardware. Within each operating system environment multiple programs can be run as normal.

When applied to servers the concept is called Server Virtualisation and the flexibility it offers IT departments can save significant hardware costs as well as providing business continuity benefits.

How can my business benefit?

A key performance indicator for the senior management of any IT department is system availability. Poor availability loses companies money and frustrates users, customers and business partners.

To avoid being in this position IT departments firstly build in redundancy and secondly avoid over complicating what any core machine is required to perform. It is common to see many 1U or blade servers running an operating system plus one service (for example DNS, Active Directory, MAPI, a single intranet site etc). In the past when hardware and operating system reliability was an issue this provided a low risk approach to service continuity.

With modern machines and operating systems being significantly more reliable, this approach leads to racks full of expensive machines, all consuming power and generating heat that needs to be disposed of. All of these servers also need manpower to manage them. Yet most of these servers will be lucky to ever see 10% processor utilisation!

Would any business employ a workforce knowing they would only ever be utilised up to 10%? The answer’s no, they would find a way of better utilising those resources. Improved resource utilisation is what Server Virtualisation achieves for IT servers.

Cost savings

Every business has a different IT landscape and because of this savings will vary in individual cases. A company with a low number of highly utilised machines may not be able to implement Server Virtualisation, whilst an organisation with a large number of servers with low utilisation would see significant savings.

Looking through the case studies published by VMware, the world’s leading supplier of Server Virtualisation products, organisations see consolidation rates of between 8:1 and 20:1. That’s one server to purchase, configure, house, power, manage and cool rather than 8-20!

In a world where energy prices are rising and consumers want to see businesses become more environmentally friendly, just the power and heat savings may be enough to warrant Server Virtualisation.

Deployment savings

Designing a server infrastructure that can be quickly deployed and remain reactive to the peaks and troughs of user demand is complex. Even with modern server imaging tools, the physical commissioning and teardown of servers and their related services is a highly manual task.

Using Server Virtualisation the physical operating environment of a server is contained within a data file. This data file can be created by installing the OS as normal, by using a pre-configured template or taking a snapshot of the physical server and converting this from physical to virtual(P2V). It matters not that the hardware specification of the physical server is not identical to that of the server it will reside on later.

The virtual server data files can be stored on the network allowing them to be moved between servers, so when a demand peak is expected (say at the end of an accounting period or the launch of a new service) these data files can be moved to a different physical server with processing capacity to spare. This process takes minutes and involves little physical work.

By utilising this feature of Server Virtualisation businesses are able to react quickly to peaks and troughs of user demand, significantly reduce deployment times and make better use of their physical server infrastructure.

Business continuity

Expanding on the concepts discussed under the previous heading, the ease and speed of deployment of virtual server images allows businesses to cope with individual machine failures as well as more serious site availability problems.

By having the core data of the business and the virtual server images on centralised storage, the recovery from a server failure can be as easy as starting the virtual servers that were being run by the failed device on another physical virtual server.

Once again, for organisations with large server infrastructures and a statutory or business need to have a Disaster Recovery site, the cost savings can be significant. With data and virtual server files replicated to the off site facility the virtual servers can be started in minutes.

The cost of Server Virtualisation

You may feel all of the business benefits discussed in the previous sections seems too good to be true and that there must be a cost to Server Virtualisation. Well the answer is yes and no!

Like any changes to a data centre there will be a cost involved to get the physical work done whether it is by your staff or ADA’s technical consultants. However, implementing Server Virtualisation using the basic version of VMware has no software costs beyond a host operating system, as VMware Server is a free download!

To find out if your business could benefit from server virtualisation call your account manager today or contact ADA on 01444 232000.