Server Virtualisation
Virtualisation in a Nutshell
The average utilisation rate of any server is around 5-15%. Thus
if you need more than one server (say a file server, an SQL server
and a terminal server) then why not combine all three servers into
one and up the utilisation rate to 15-45% or more? In the process
you save yourself a lot of money.
The term virtualisation broadly describes the separation of a
resource or request for a service from the underlying physical
delivery of that service. The net effect of virtualisation is that
you can combine several servers into one. Another effect is the
ability to recover from IT disasters quickly.
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Before virtualisation
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Single OS image
per machine
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Software and
hardware tightly coupled
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Running multiple
applications on same machine often creates conflict
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Underutilized
resources
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Inflexible and costly infrastructure
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After virtualisation
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Hardware-independence of operating system and
applications
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Virtual machines
can be provisioned to any system
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Can manage OS and application as a single unit by
encapsulating them into virtual machines
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Business Benefits
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Reduced capital expenditure on IT servers.
With virtualisation you can combine several servers into one
and increase server utilisation rates from 5-15% to 60-80%.
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Reduced operating costs. With reduced
physical servers you have less need for space, power or
cooling.
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Business Continuity – Reducing the cost and
complexity of business continuity (high availability and
disaster recovery solutions) by encapsulating entire systems
into single files that can be replicated and restored on any
target server, thus minimising downtime.
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