Virtualization
Virtualization explained
Know virtualization with techRIDGE
Most of the servers that have been deployed are used upto 30% to 40%. In some extreme cases it goes to 65% to 70%.
But most of the hardware resources on a server hardware is not used to its optimum.
In earlier days a server with a dual core processor and 4GB ram with 146GB HDD space was considered to be a good server and used to take care of most of the application requirements.
Today many of the mid level server hardware have capacities upto 1TB of server ram and 16 processor cores or 32 server cores.
Virtualization has given way to consolidation of many of the legacy servers into one single physical server hardware – thereby saving huge amount of real estate space, power and cooling requirements. This also brings ease of management as because compared to managing may be 100 physical servers only 15 or 20 physical servers have to be managed now. In addition to the above it also enables high availability of many of the servers which otherwise would not have been possible or would have cost a huge amount of money.
Virtualization enables the operating system along with its installed applications to be virtualized into one single big file which is then run on a hypervisor. This enables multiple servers to be run on single server hardware.
Techridge supports or deploys Virtualization on HYPER-V and VMWARE and migration between the both.
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Virtualization enables the operating system along with its installed applications to be virtualized into one single big file which is then run on a hypervisor. This enables multiple servers to be run on single server hardware.
Server virtualization enables consolidation of multiple servers into one or more server hardware connected to a centralized storage. This helps in optimum utilization of server resources including memory, processor, disc space etc.
This also reduces space requirement in a datacenter and also helps in reduced power and cooling requirements – thereby contributing towards a greener technology deployment and reduced carbon footprint.
Having a centralized storage in place and running the machine in virtualized form enables high availability of the particular application which otherwise would not have been cluster aware or highly available. Virtualization allows Virtual machines or servers to failover to other available servers in the group in case one of the server hardware hosting the virtual machine fails or is shutdown for maintenance purpose.
In earlier days where storage or SAN Storage is deployed – LUN’s or volumes were carved out of the set of hard drives installed on the storage and made available to a particular server or a group of server. Data within that particular volume could not be moved onto another group of servers.
Storage virtualization enables location independence by abstracting the physical location of the data. One of the major advantages of storage virtualization among others is data can be migrated from one physical location to the other while maintaining concurrent I/O access.
Utilization of available storage/s is increased by virtue of pooling, migration and thin provisioning of storage space.
Desktop virtualization or VDI as its normally known means creation of multiple virtual machines i.e. client machines running win XP pro/ Win7 Win8, win 10 etc. on a suitable server hardware. Desktop virtualization allows users to access their desktop from any device from within their network or outside office in a secure manner without the management having to worry about data security or loss of data or data theft.
The desktop is presented to the end user in a virtual manner wherein all the data created by the user is stored centrally. Hence even if the user looses his laptop or if his / her desktop crashes the data is secured and stored in the central server. The user can access his virtual desktop from any other machine without having to wait for IT dept to restore back his machine.
It allows a more centralized client os/ virtual machine environment which is easier to manage and maintain.
Also with BYOD becoming more and more predominant in many corporates – Desktop virtualization allows a more efficient, secure and productive environment for the user to work.
In many companies even if latest version of some of the software is deployed – there might be scenarios wherein some users might have to access older versions of the same program. For example there might be a situation wherein user might have to access old version of MS Access even if the latest version is installed in his or her machine.
Installation if multiple version of the same application is not supported form many of the standard applications available in the market and even if it is supported maintaining such a system is complex. And given the fact that access to the old system might be required once in q month or so represents a big challenge for the IT team to manage its environment.
Application virtualization allows users to run any application on their machine without having the need to install the application their computer. The application is presented from a centralized server in an encapsulated form to the local machine which appears as if running from the local machine but in reality it is not. This actually enables in faster delivery and maintain compatibility of different applications and their related versions in a easy way. A user does not have to worry about having multiple versions of MS office installed in his or her machine.