Virtualization: The Next Frontier

Why should you consider Virtualization?

Overview
Over the past few years enterprise businesses have dramatically decreased their reliance on traditional single server/single operating system platforms in favor of virtual server environments. Virtual servers is created by installing multiple traditional operating systems on top of a specialized operating system such as VMWare or Microsoft’s HyperV.  In a virtual server deployment, the “host” operating system uses hypervisor technology to manage the I/O communication between the “guest” operating system and the underlying physical server resources.

In general, the concept of virtualization is relatively straightforward, but it is a broad topic that diverges into many other areas including storage, replication, business continuity and others.  As small and medium-sized business begin to adopt virtualization it is important for them to understand the many benefits of a virtualized environment, but also the additional changes to their IT infrastructure.

Why should you consider Virtualization?
In today’s economy, decisions in small and medium-sized businesses can’t be made simply by following the trends of enterprises or because a technology is new and “shiny”.  Virtualization has proven itself to be the real deal in enterprise settings for many reasons but the most important being economics, efficiency and the notion of green IT (which if you are not a tree hugger, really loops back to additional indirect cost reductions for things like server space, power and cooling).

Cost Savings – Do more with less.  That’s the motto of every business in today’s post-recession (thankfully) economy.  Depending on the physical capacity/specifications of the host server and the resource requirements of the guest operating systems, a significant number of virtual servers can be provisioned on that single physical host.  It is not uncommon to see a high number of virtual servers living on a single physical server, with virtual to physical server ratios as high as 10:1, 20:1, 40:1 and even higher.

This is a huge benefit for companies, especially since a majority of physical servers deployed tend to be underutilized.  Unused memory, processor and disk resources often times idle during a server’s useful life.  Virtualization allows organizations to reclaim unused resources which save them money.  

Operational Efficiency - Deploying servers used to mean ordering new hardware, provisioning the data center infrastructure and then manually installing the operating system, all of which could take weeks or longer to accomplish.  Imaging processes reduced build-up time for traditional server deployments, but the physical server still had to be provisioned each time.  With virtualization, only the host server is physically provisioned.  Virtualization technology allows new operating systems to be deployed from existing OS images or templates.  Scripting the deployment of server images can turn a once lengthy process into an automated event. 

Along with the deployment efficiencies, virtualization has empowered IT staff with additional controls and functionality.  With virtualization, the OS becomes more of an application and can be manipulated in new ways.  Management of all virtual servers can be accomplished through a single pane of glass. Powering on/off, networking, deploying servers can all happen from a central console.  Also, combined with the appropriate storage, networking and application technologies, virtualization offers innovative new methods of backup, high availability clustering, fault tolerance, geographic redundancy.  In the past, deploying management functionalities such as these were often times impossible or cost prohibitive.

Green IT - Additionally, when servers are virtualized and consolidated, not only does the amount of server hardware needed decrease, the resources needed to support that hardware decrease as well.  Specifically, virtualization reduces the amount of square footage, power, cooling and network infrastructure needed in a data center.  Of these, power and cooling are two of the most expensive components of a data center environment.  When you hear “Green IT” and virtualization in the same sentence, this is why.  Virtualization saves energy and money.  The reality is that a significant portion of the investment in virtualization technology will be recouped by infrastructure savings.

Conclusion
For the majority of businesses, large or small, virtualization will no longer be an option – it will become the IT standard because it is a smarter more cost-effective way to manage server operations.  Traditional servers may still have their place, but the advancement in server virtualization technology has resulted in a paradigm shift that has permanently changed the landscape of IT.

For additional information on virtual server options from LightEdge Solutions, please contact your Senior Account Manager, e-mail info@lightedge.com or call 877-771-3343.

LightEdge Consulting Services

Looking for a little help or a lot of help?
Many companies have recently been forced to cut IT staff because of the current economy. If this is impacting your ability to get projects done, the professionals at LCS are able to help whether it is a limited hourly engagement to "keep the ship afloat" or large-scale implementations for new systems.

LCS specializes in:

• Assessment of IT Risks and Gap Analysis
• Overall IT Direction
• Windows Server
• Microsoft Exchange Server
  
• Microsoft Communication Server
  
• Microsoft SharePoint
  
• Microsoft SQL
  
• Software-as-a-Service
  
• Hybrid Server Solutions
  
• Cisco Networking Solutions
  
• EMC Storage Solutions
  

For more details on LCS consulting, contact Info@lightedgeconsulting.com
or call 877-771-3343

 

Gartner's top 10 strategic technologies for 2010

By Anne McCrory, Editorial Director 22 Oct 2009 | SearchCIO.com

ORLANDO, FLA. -- Gartner Inc. released its top 10 strategic technologies for 2010 this week, a list that paints a picture of an agile, mobile, secure enterprise where advanced analytics and social media identify early warning signs of failure and predict emerging business trends.

That vision was further extolled in numerous sessions at the annual Gartner Symposium/ ITxpo, where the research firm's executives described the past year as possibly the worst ever for IT. "Trust declined more dramatically in the past year than ever before," Gartner CEO Gene Hall said in his opening remarks.

Though IT budgets won't increase at many organizations, Gartner predicted a 3.3% growth rate for IT spending next year, plus a shift from capital to operating expenditures as "IT costs become scalable and elastic with the business," said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research. The top 10 strategic technologies list, proffered annually by David Cearley and Carl Claunch, wasn't the only such list offered up at the event. Sondergaard offered a list of nine focus areas based on an analysis of what people are searching for on Gartner's website. The top tier: Cost management, which will continue to be a top issue for 2010 but will encompass risk and growth as well; cloud computing, which will move from the discussion phase to small pilots; and process optimization around enterprise applications (ERP, customer relationship management, supply chain management) that will allow organizations to get more out of these investments.

His second tier included business intelligence; virtualization, as organizations create the foundation of a cloud infrastructure and move from owned to shared assets; and social media. The latter isn't just for so-called digital natives but also for "silver surfers," those over 60 who will become the most important segment in the next 10 years, he said.

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2010

Cearley and Claunch's list focuses on technologies that have the "potential for significant impact on the enterprise during the next three years." Some have fallen off the list from past years because companies should have already incorporated them into their plans (like service-oriented architecture or master data management), their adoption has slowed (unified communications) or there won't be market shifts warranting inclusion on the 2010 list (specialized systems and servers beyond blades). Others have come back in new forms: virtualization, which topped the 2009 list, is now embedded in several wider areas as well as standing on its own for a specific usage.

Here, then, is the list for 2010:

1. Cloud computing. Organizations should think about how to approach the cloud in terms of using cloud services, developing cloud-based applications and implementing private cloud computing environments. "Everything will be available as a service," Cearley said. "That doesn't mean you use it all [or] move it all there."

2. Advanced analytics. Real-time data analysis will enable fraud detection on one hand and prediction and simulation on the other, as organizations use data to look ahead.

3. Client computing. Enterprises need to develop a five- to eight-year client computing roadmap before making near-term decisions such as whether or how to upgrade client hardware or move to Windows 7. The progression of desktop virtualization technology and the range of devices available make this an important analysis. "Build a strategic client computing roadmap bringing all issues and devices together, or you will be following vendor roadmaps," Cearley said.

4. IT for green. The "green" concept has moved beyond energy-efficient data centers to using IT to enable green throughout the enterprise. For example, an organization could use IT to analyze and optimize shipping of goods.

5. Reshaping the data center. A flexible "pod" model, where data center sections can be independently heated, cooled and powered, allows the organization to light up new sections only when needed.

6. Social computing. Organizations need to examine the use of social media by both internal and external constituents and figure out how to govern it. Social network analysis can be used both to detect fraud and to change business processes to boost internal efficiency.

7. Security -- activity monitoring. As targeted attacks rise and cloud computing adds complexity, organizations need to identify a longer-term plan for how all of their security technologies come together. Security incident and event management devices, for example, are one approach that is becoming mainstream.

8. Flash memory. This technology, made ubiquitous by popular USB sticks, is a faster, although more expensive, storage alternative. Price drops mean it will offer a "new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers," Gartner said.

9. Virtualization for availability. Live migration technology such as VMware Inc.'s VMotion will enable the use of virtualization for high performance, possibly displacing failover cluster software and even fault-tolerant hardware.

10. Mobile applications. Mobile is at a tipping point, given the proliferation of handheld devices and their power and storage.

Disaster recovery is dead; long live continuous business operations

By Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer 07 Oct 2009 | SearchCIO.com

"Disaster recovery is dead. I think it's been dead for a long time," Alan Berman was saying.

It might seem odd that Berman, executive director at the Disaster Recovery Institute International and former CIO at a major financial institution, should proclaim that information technology disaster recovery is dead. But the point was not to deny disasters -- they happen. Rather, that disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity have become synonymous.

"We don't do recovery anymore, because what everybody wants is continuous operations," Berman said.

What is the impact of a compliance audit on IT operations?

30 Oct 2009 | SearchCompliance.com

Complying with the increasing number of regulations has made leveraging IT essential. That's particularly true in the automation of processes to handle the information in an organization's possession. As requirements grow, systems that both facilitate compliance and demonstrate to auditors that standards for security and data protection have been met are an increasingly critical area of IT operations.

Table of contents

• How are compliance audits different?
• What regulations require compliance audits?
• Who performs compliance audits?
• What is the role of IT in a compliance audit?
• What are the penalties for noncompliance?