June 10, 2009 at 12:50Virtualization today
Before the crisis, with the introduction of virtualization, companies aimed not only at reducing IT costs, but also at optimizing and increasing the flexibility of IT infrastructure. Now in unstable financial conditions, the main emphasis is on saving - the rest of the parameters go by the wayside. What can virtualization offer?
Three main areas stood out: server virtualization, desktop virtualization, (content and updating desktop software) - and application virtualization, which reduces administration and software support costs.
In Russia, virtualization projects were promoted by system integrators in almost all industries; attention was paid to the flexibility and resiliency of the infrastructure. Currently, the situation has changed a bit - the question arose: how to reduce budgets while maintaining the same efficiency? Roughly say, on what, in the current conditions, you can save?
Such savings items that are easy to measure: the number of switching equipment, the reduction of energy consumption ...,
if virtualization is not used, you can start with free server virtualization. Vendors such as VMware, Citrix, Microsoft offer their products to address this issue.
Free solutions based on VMwera ESXi, Citrix XenServer will help reduce IT costs by up to 40 percent, and not spend money on new servers in the near future. This is an excellent help, given that IT budgets can be cut to a minimum.
Instead of ordering a server usually, a more powerful one is purchased, capable of performing much more tasks. In many cases, it is enough to increase the amount of RAM, since most tasks are not demanding on the processor resources. It is also preferable to use a shared storage system for virtual machines.
If the company has a large infrastructure and there are funds for optimizing IT, commercial virtualization solutions may be an option.
In the near future, offers from vendors for virtualization of a small IT infrastructure are expected. For example, VMware has Acceleration Kits, which allows you to deploy 2-4 physical servers at a discount on products.
In the absence of funds for a full-scale virtualization project, you should consider hiring consultants “by the hour”. This is not so difficult - the main thing is the right approach. Consultants can also help train employees.
If the sysadmin previously managed 10 physical servers, then using virtualization he will be able to serve up to 50 virtual servers with the same ratio for physical ones. This leads to automation of the computing environment and is provided by commercial software, but people always cost more than software products.
For companies that have already implemented virtualization technologies, in difficult crisis times, there is a way to reduce costs. The goal is to get a resource-balanced fault-tolerant data center with minimal costs. To do this, you need to increase user productivity (testing, Lab Manager products), reduce administration costs (virtual machine life cycle).
It is time to review the “one task, one server” approach. Virtualization can begin today - to get a concrete advantage tomorrow and survive in difficult conditions. To help you come free software for virtualization, products for centralized infrastructure management, the use of which reduce the cost of maintaining a fleet of servers, desktops and applications.
Three main areas stood out: server virtualization, desktop virtualization, (content and updating desktop software) - and application virtualization, which reduces administration and software support costs.
In Russia, virtualization projects were promoted by system integrators in almost all industries; attention was paid to the flexibility and resiliency of the infrastructure. Currently, the situation has changed a bit - the question arose: how to reduce budgets while maintaining the same efficiency? Roughly say, on what, in the current conditions, you can save?
Such savings items that are easy to measure: the number of switching equipment, the reduction of energy consumption ...,
if virtualization is not used, you can start with free server virtualization. Vendors such as VMware, Citrix, Microsoft offer their products to address this issue.
Free solutions based on VMwera ESXi, Citrix XenServer will help reduce IT costs by up to 40 percent, and not spend money on new servers in the near future. This is an excellent help, given that IT budgets can be cut to a minimum.
Instead of ordering a server usually, a more powerful one is purchased, capable of performing much more tasks. In many cases, it is enough to increase the amount of RAM, since most tasks are not demanding on the processor resources. It is also preferable to use a shared storage system for virtual machines.
If the company has a large infrastructure and there are funds for optimizing IT, commercial virtualization solutions may be an option.
In the near future, offers from vendors for virtualization of a small IT infrastructure are expected. For example, VMware has Acceleration Kits, which allows you to deploy 2-4 physical servers at a discount on products.
In the absence of funds for a full-scale virtualization project, you should consider hiring consultants “by the hour”. This is not so difficult - the main thing is the right approach. Consultants can also help train employees.
If the sysadmin previously managed 10 physical servers, then using virtualization he will be able to serve up to 50 virtual servers with the same ratio for physical ones. This leads to automation of the computing environment and is provided by commercial software, but people always cost more than software products.
For companies that have already implemented virtualization technologies, in difficult crisis times, there is a way to reduce costs. The goal is to get a resource-balanced fault-tolerant data center with minimal costs. To do this, you need to increase user productivity (testing, Lab Manager products), reduce administration costs (virtual machine life cycle).
It is time to review the “one task, one server” approach. Virtualization can begin today - to get a concrete advantage tomorrow and survive in difficult conditions. To help you come free software for virtualization, products for centralized infrastructure management, the use of which reduce the cost of maintaining a fleet of servers, desktops and applications.