virtualization at a Glance

· In corporate IT environments, servers are needed to do many jobs. Each machine is tasked to do only a single job, and often many servers are given the same job. This is done to prevent hardware and software problems on one machine from endangering several systems. There is a downside with this arrangement, though, in that server hardware can be very expensive, and many servers do not utilize their full resources. When this is the case, server virtualization can provide a way to reduce hardware costs while still providing protection against software failure.

Server virtualization

Server virtualization

Server virtualization allows a physical server to be partitioned to run multiple secure virtual servers. This creates an opportunity to consolidate physical servers, thus helping to reduce hardware acquisition and management costs by eliminating “infrastructure sprawl” at the server level.

If the resource requirements of one of the server-based products running in a virtual server grows, because of increased usage for example, moving that virtual server to a different physical server with more available resources is as simple as copying a file.

This ease of replication of virtual servers also means that it’s simple to maintain snapshots of virtual servers as file back-ups and quickly restore complex systems to operation in the event of physical server hardware failures. This increased resilience results in more efficient use of existing physical server resources, lower operating costs, reduced power consumption and greater overall reliability