The Benefits of Virtualisation

Introduction

Surely the overriding, if not only reason for implementing any solution is to gain a clearly defined business benefit? Virtualisation, if properly implemented can deliver definite benefits.

What is virtualisation?

Primarily it is a technology that allows you to reduce the number of servers you will see in your server room by running many servers on a single physical server.

From a software perspective "many" servers still exist, you can still connect to them, run your programs on them and so on. In fact your programs will not even notice any difference.

Virtualisation allows you to do a number of things, for example it could be used to run a ‘Virtual Windows Machine’ on an Apple Mac, or a Linux Server on a Windows 7 laptop! It can also be used to run all of your windows servers on one physical server.

So what are the advantages of virtualisation?

The biggest advantage of virtualisation is the ability to create a stable, resilient working environment that allows your business systems to keep running reliably day in and day out.

Resilience: Keep your business running through thick and thin. A good example is a fibre optic broadband connection vs. an ADSL broadband connection, the fibre optic connection is more resilient (less prone to failure). The technology used in a virtual machine environment provides more resilience then having multiple physical servers. A virtual environment can be set up to allow extreme resilience. With current virtualisation technology, backup servers can be created and if a server fails, a switchover to a backup server can be made very quickly.

Disaster recovery: The ability to recover a server after a catastrophic failure. A speedy disaster recovery is another advantage of virtualisation, being much simplified.

Redundancy: Continuing to run your business even if a server fails. With a virtualised environment it is possible to configure a complete mirror of all your servers with the ability to switch to a backup server if a server fails.

Test environment: The ability to test changes without breaking your working system – With a new machine being so easy to create, duplicates of your servers can be made for testing and training purposes. This allows for new applications / workflows to be tested without the need to purchase new hardware.

The ability to change and upgrade your environment with less interruption and downtime is another advantage of virtualisation. This is called Scalability.

Save money on power: Because virtualisation uses fewer servers; less power will be used. Anywhere between 25% to 50% of the power your servers used to consume once you have moved to properly virtualised setup. Keep in mind this saving for a company with 6 servers can easily add up to £1,000 a year (based on virtualising 6 servers @ a cost of 10p per unit / kWh).