Saving Costs with Virtualization

VIRTUALIZATION this is buzz word which is with many companies accross the IT industry. At the present scenario considering the economic downturn, many companies are looking forward to implement virtualization. Understanding the importance of virtualization even redhat and microsoft are implementing interoperability in virtualizations. But one questions to mind for many of them is what is virtualization . how is it evolved and what are the advantages????

Say for example we want to create a file server; of course we will need to have lots of storage space, but accessing this data will not put much strain on the processor or processor cores on this machine. To better utilize the resources on this machine, we decide to add other services onto this computer. Even though we are now using the computer resources more efficiently, we are also opening up the computer to a wider range of possible attacks. This is where virtualization comes in. We can utilize the resources of the computer much more efficiently and still keep our systems optimized and secure for the type of role that they play in our overall IT environment.

i will explain an example how the concept of virtualizastion is useful practically. If you currently have 24 servers in your datacenter; with virtualization you can reduce that number to 3. With fewer servers to purchase and maintain the savings can add up pretty quickly. Also because you are using fewer servers to do the same amount of work as before, you will also see a savings on electricity and cooling in your data centers.

Virtualization allows us to periodically take snapshots of our computers so that in case of an unforeseen shutdown, we can restore the snapshot and have our machines up and running much faster than having to go through a normal system restore from backup.

The economic downturn has prompted more businesses to deploy green IT practices, some of which are reaching energy savings of up to 80 per cent, a claim suggests.


These are the fews things which i got from http://www.bladewatch.com here it explains the advantages of virtualization
Reducing hardware support costs - particularly if you consolidate from different server types to fewer - the less range in your hardware support cost, and the younger your servers, typically the lower the cost. For example 16 types of Compaq Proliant to two types of HP/IBM blade?

Energy efficiency - you should be able to consolidate many physical servers to one physical server, fewer servers providing the infrastructure, coupled with ideally things like SAN boot, energy efficient processors and power supplies.
Business empowerment - possibly the most important one, being able to deploy and roll back more on demand in line with the business need - that we can provision/reconfigure servers more quickly, a memory upgrade need not be a three week process.
Disaster recovery opportunities - could your disaster recovery data center be consolidated to require less data center power and space? Do I need all those rack servers, or a batch of blades?

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Virtualisation Interoperability Pact by Microsoft and RedHat

Well the two Giants, Microsoft and Red Hat who were strong contenders who compete with each other and who were totally against to each other strategies , Now they are providing solutions by supporting each other????? Sounds Interesting so here is the story...

Red Hat and Microsoft customers will now have the ability to run Microsoft Windows Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual servers on either host environment with configurations that will be tested and supported by both virtualisation and operating system companies.

Actully this will happen by each company will accept virtualization validation/certiication programme and will gonna provide tech support for their combined server or mutual server virtualisation customers. These companies said that The reciprocal validations will allow customers to deploy heterogeneous, virtualised Red Hat and Microsoft solutions with confidence.

“The world of IT today is a mixture of virtualised and non-virtualised environments. Red Hat is looking to help our customers extend more rapidly into virtualised environments, including mixed Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Server environments,” said Mike Evans, vice president, corporate development, Red Hat. “Red Hat listened when our customers asked us to provide interoperability between our respective guest and host virtualisation solutions. We are excited to announce these agreements today as the result of our collaboration with Microsoft.”

There are some key things which need to be considered given by redhat

Red Hat will validate Windows Server guests to be supported on Red Hat Enterprise virtualisation technologies;
Microsoft will validate Red Hat Enterprise Linux server guests to be supported on Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server; and once each company completes testing, customers with valid support agreements will receive coordinated technical support for running Windows Server operating system virtualised on Red Hat Enterprise virtualisation and for running Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtualised on Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft Hyper-V Server.

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HP and IBM to face challenge by CISCO Virtualization???

Cisco is getting ready to challenge its very long compatriots HP co and IBM in the playground that they dominate the market.

According to a report in Monday's The New York Times by Reg alumnus Ashlee Vance, Cisco's purported server line's selling point will be its "sophisticated virtualization software."

Cisco already owns 2% of VM Ware.In the present scenario Complex Virtualization schemes are becoming the rule , Cisco is in a strong position to use its networking history or network savvy to bind servers together into one big virtualised family. well this will be a perfect move by cisco to compete its competetors .

But the interesting thing is to look on how IBM and HP Co gonna react on this move by CISCO as they were supporting CISCO networking hardware for years in the market. This is like thier own companion throwing the challenge in their playground.

But CISCO says that this not to "Enter into the new market, but this is just a market transition."But HP and IBM might become aggressive with the move of CISCO when ever it happens

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