Server Virtualisation
What is server virtualisation ?
Traditionally Server deployments were designed to run a single operating system hosting a single server.
Although this used to seem reasonable, in reality the server hardware was being significantly underutilised in most cases, with most servers able to handle much more than they were.
Today’s server virtualization solutions allow you to run multiple virtual server machines on one single physical machine, with each virtual machine sharing the resources of that one physical computer across multiple environments.
The various virtual servers hosted on one physical server can run different operating systems and multiple applications on the same physical computer.
In short, where you may have purchased and deployed three physical servers, one for File and Print, the other Exchange Email and perhaps another for database application, you could virtualise and put all three on one physical server.
If you wanted to- you could add another physical server that could act as a backup server to the first, consequently acting, as fail-over should the first server fail.
This would give you a redundant solution for your key systems and you still haven’t had to pay for hardware for a third physical server.
Why Your Company Should Virtualise
There are numerous possibilities!
Virtualisation allows much greater flexibility than the traditional method.
The biggest benefit for virtualising your IT Infrastructure is to lower your costs by reducing the amount of physical hardware purchased, hardware deployed and maintained. There are also a number of other significant benefits.
Here a few of the key ones:
Disaster Recovery / High Availability.
In today’s business environment we have found one of the greatest concerns to businesses is the speed at which systems can get back online should they fail.
Although most companies are concerned about this, many don’t do enough about it until it’s too late. This is understandable given the complexities and costs associated with implementing High Availability in the traditional manner.
Virtualisation provides cost effective methods for redundant servers for disaster recovery.
Unlike a physical server it is very easy to move a virtual server to another physical server in case of disaster.
Virtual servers can be configured to automatically synchronise themselves to another physical server so in case of failure these servers could be brought back online in minutes instead of hours for traditional server technology.
This synchronisation can occur to servers at the same locale or to servers at different locations for offsite protection.
There are many ways a virtual environment can be built for disaster recovery; it’s not a case of one-solution fits all.
P2P Computer Services are specialists at assessing our client’s requirements and recommending the best-fit solution.
Reduce energy costs by up to 70% or more.
Fewer servers and related IT hardware means a reduction in power and cooling requirements.
Increased flexibility. Ask any IT engineer how tricky it can be to migrate a physical server to a different piece of hardware. There are many challenges in this time consuming and costly exercise.
With a virtual environment this is not the case. It is simple and routine to move servers to different hardware.
Configure environments without interruption to services.
This also allows for maintenance to be conducted on servers without downtime.
Flexible growth options.
Increase your computing power in your virtual environment as your demand for it increases. This can be additional resources and / or additional virtual servers.
This can be completed in a fraction of the time it would take to accomplish the same in a traditional physical environment.
In Summary
Virtualising servers will be the path forward for many IT Solutions. The benefits are clear and if you haven’t already- you should be investigating how virtualisation could work best for you in your work environment.
As mentioned, no one solution fits all and every organisation will utilise this technology at different levels so it’s important to get the right advice to ensure you implement the best solution to compliment your business.
*In some circumstances virtualisation may not be the best fit.
If you’re due for a server upgrade or if you would like to know more please give us a call.
P2P Computer Services have extensive experience designing and deploying server virtualization solutions for its customers using both VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V visualisation platforms.
We would be happy to have a chat on how this technology might benefit you. You may find you spend less but getting so much more.
