Advances in server virtualization technology continue to highlight the many benefits of using server virtualization in the data center to efficiently consolidate servers, save physical space, provide more flexibility, and manage disaster recovery.
Consolidate Servers
The most obvious benefit of server virtualization is the capability to consolidate applications on existing servers. Business applications usually don’t require anywhere close to the resource capacity of their computers—perhaps an average of 20%. Several applications can be run on shared servers using virtual environments, allowing up to a 60-80% resource utilization of a company’s servers. The need for fewer servers results in significant savings in new server hardware spending, and additional savings are realized in lower hardware maintenance costs for servers. After a virtual environment has been in place for a period of time, it is important to track the actual utilization of each virtual machine in order to realize the most benefit. Some may have been needed only temporarily and may be currently idle, while others may not need all the storage space that they were originally allocated. Systems that can automatically identify these situations can increase the efficiency of your set up and help cut future spending.
Conserve Physical Space
Using fewer servers also reduces the need for additional physical data center space. Limiting the size of the physical footprint means cost savings in heating, cooling, and electricity, as well as other maintenance needs for a facility.
Provide Flexibility
In the constantly changing IT environment, flexibility is crucial to maintaining older applications as well as developing and testing new applications. Different operating systems may also be required on the same hardware platform. Server virtualization technology can allow a standard virtual server set up that can be easily duplicated to speed up server deployment, and can provide the environment to run legacy systems along with newer versions of applications. Programs in development can be safely tested in virtual environments, and the migration of applications can be accomplished without interrupting business.
Manage Disaster Recovery
Planning for better disaster recovery management is another benefit of server virtualization technology. Traditional tape backup systems have typically required one or two days for a complete restoration. Virtualization could allow a restoration in less than half a day because the systems and applications already exist in other untouched virtual environments and just need to be brought online if proper planning, updating, and testing have been done. If a system fails, it can be automatically switched to a standby server or brought back to its original state with a virtual copy of the original image. Applications and operating systems that are the critical components of your business or that cannot be easily recreated should be the primary focus for disaster recovery planning.
Virtualization strategies vary, but the benefits continue to be impressive in reducing hardware requirements and physical space allotments, as well as allowing the maximum strategic flexibility for allocating resources and planning for efficient disaster recovery.
