Server virtualization technology is an extremely beneficial process for any IT organization. Once the initial investment into creating a virtualization setup is made, this process pays back on its investment by offering the following two types of benefits; financial and performance related.
Virtualization Technology Financial Benefits
While the performance benefits of a virtualization setup takes some time to show up, the financial benefits can be seen immediately. One of the immediate effects of a server virtualization project is the immediate reduction in the hardware, i.e. the number of servers required. With the technology available in the market today, it is not uncommon to see IT reduction costs of 50% to 70%. Sometimes hundreds of servers can be replaced by a fraction of the original amount, each of which hosts several virtual machines.
With less hardware, you’re overall IT budget will decrease. The reduction in the hardware cost is more significant than all the other savings incurred by migrating to a virtualization setup. In addition, by its very nature the process offers various other types of savings which turn into financial benefits. These include the reduction of floor space required, a utility bill savings as you will need less power for the servers you do have, and the low cost of software required for individual server licenses.
These latter kinds of savings are however less immediately apparent. For example, if you are not already cramped for space in your organizational setup, then the additional space freed up due to cutting down on the servers required may not necessarily translate into profits. However, if there is a significant shortage of space that you encounter in your datacenter facility, this is a very real and tangible benefit.
While enabling the servers to host virtual machines requires specialized software, usually s it is offset by a major reduction to the overall licensing costs for the usual server software. Virtualization licenses are usually very complex and in some cases, the migration actually increases the total number of licenses required. However, this is generally the exception and not the rule.
Virtualization Technology Performance Benefits
Virtualization technology performance benefits may not be immediate, but instead will become obvious after the migration. The reduction in hardware costs can be categorized as tangible or immediate benefits. However, the financial savings alone are not enough to warrant a complete overhaul of server setup if there are no performance benefits.
One of the major reasons that compel companies to invest in server virtualization technology is the increased flexibility that such a setup gives them. In case new software or operating system has to be installed, the use of server virtualization technology makes the process extremely fast because the need to buy an additional hardware unit is eliminated. This leads to increased response times and increased adaptability since requests for additional virtual machine servers can be fulfilled on the go. Now this is inherently a difficult benefit to analyze and quantify simply because it cannot be explained in terms of a simple equation. However, companies that do take the time to think through the benefits of such a process stand to profit greatly in the long term by the scalability offered.
Server virtualization technology also increases reliability of the IT network environment. In a normal server farm, expensive cluster technology must be employed in order to maintain the business continuity and dependability of the network environment. These clusters are difficult to maintain and require specialized usage licenses. Most databases and other servers were hosted in this fashion before the introduction of virtualization technology. In a virtualized server setup, this approach can be skipped by providing protection at the individual virtual machine level. While this is slightly less robust, it is much easier to implement and provides easy recovery in case of a failure.
Easy testing is another advantage of virtualization technology. In most businesses, testing software thoroughly is often critical to the organizational goals, especially if the software in question is an ERP or a mission-critical application. In a non-virtualized setup, the testing is very complex because each system has different characteristics, even if the configuration is similar. With a virtualized setup, it is possible to gain access to a copy of the target machine and perform an accurate test at any given time. This paves the way for creation of dedicated testing virtual machine setups so it does not impact the production environment.
In conclusion, server virtualization technology has many financial and performance benefits. Although financial savings are usually the ones which compel the decision makers to make the jump to a virtualized environment, in most cases the performance benefits are the ones which make the migration worth many times the investment in the long run.
