Virtualisation or virtualization, what ever your region is the power of it is undeniable and certainly beneficial given the right circumstances. Now lets get something straight first, this is why you should possibly consider moving to virtualisation not why you should dump all your new servers and purchase some new bad boy Blades and load up virtualisation, this is for you guys with old servers looking to upgrade or for those just starting their server experience for the first time.
Now I have been playing with VMware tools for a while so I personally favour them over other solutions such as Microsoft’s. I’ve used VMware Workstation 4+, VMware Fusion, and the GSX server (now the free Server version). VMware truly know how to create great products so be sure to check them out.
What is it?
Virtualisation is the ability to run multiple operating systems at once one one or more devices. Essentially I can have Windows XP and FC5 running on my Mac while still being able to use the sexy Leopard. Now that was a dumbed down version for those (and me) who really care about the broader picture. For a true picture of virtualisation check the wikipedia.
So with virtualisation you could run a Windows Server 2003 server with Exchange and Sharepoint while also running a Linux distribution with Asterisk and BIND/Named.
Why you should actually care.
In a perfect world all applications should run on all platforms with out any fuss. But this simply is not the case; Exchange which is an amazing mail and groupware server runs only on the Windows architecture whereas LAMP is truly one of the best web server platforms. Now I wish I could have the best of both worlds and run Exchange natively on the UNIX core but it simply cannot be done.
There are two solutions to this issue, if you already have a Windows server and a Linux server then I suggest you just use them for the time being but if you are stuck with one server or can only afford or justify one power hungry machine then I suggest virtualisation. With a server based virtualisation solution like the ones from VMware you can run the application on the server and then create an instance of a Windows server and then a Linux server. So now you will have 2 servers running on one physical hardware which greatly reduces costs and the prospect of cooling and power.
Now VM isn’t just for running two services on one, you could have multiple Window Servers providing the Active Directory, MSSQL and mail skills while the Linux side handle web serving, Squid caching and DHCP/BOOTP.
Going one step further
Now VM doesn’t just mean be able to run a lot of operating systems side by side all for one and one for all. It can also promote a great environment in our IT department by allowing people in different fields to collaborate on server installations. Now longer is the server rollout hindered by the fact that budget does not allow for a server but instead limited by smaller factors like how much RAM or CPU power is available in the VM box, if you pick your server right then this usually isn’t a problem.
Employees can now be at their workstation building images for the VM instead of hogging an actual server and then finding out later they made a crucial mistake with some hardware. By just taking regular backups of the image creation process you can ensure that you are building a trouble free server image. If you are paid overtime, just take your notebook home and continue building image; where ever you are you can create your own server. When done you can have the image hosted on a SAN or NAS for review by your peers before shipping it off to the physical VM server. You can greatly increase your server rollout times because the KVM is not being hogged and the techies are all focused on their own servers with their own knowledge, no longer are your OS specific to what your techies should build.
The VM server can take regular snapshots of your server in motion so if you ever get a virus or data corruption you can just roll back the image to specific date when there was no issue. All you will need to do is power down, revert an image and power up; you do not need to restore a whole physical server to disk. You will never have to pull the servers offline for critical Windows Updates or package updates, just take a copy offline and stick in a workstation and begin the update process from there and when ready pop in the new clean image replacing the old.
But wait! You need to consider.
Is it really for you? You need to think what pressures your servers come under and whether a higher spec VM server could handle the load of multiple operations. Open up the task manager or run “top” and check what the memory usage and CPU utilisations are, this will ensure you won’t run into any server meltdowns when you pile your hard-hit SQL server with your hard-hit mail server. If you are a small business chances are you could easily amalgamate your servers into one badass solution.
Can you afford the cost of the hardware? Will selling off all your current servers actually justify the cost of a beasty new sever that may never hit over 10% utilisation? If you physical servers are fine in their current situation then you really need to sit down and wonder whether a virtual solution will help improve your server standings, chances are you could easily convert some of your current physical servers in distributed solution and still enjoy the power of virtualisation.
Hardwarez
Look at getting a multi core server. For best results try purchasing Quad core servers such as those using the Intel Xeon processors which are found in most server offerings around the globe such as from Dell or HP. Make sure you get a lot of RAM installed in the server and possibly ask for an installation of multiple network cards (though VMs can share one network card). These offerings from Dell look perfect.
Try before you buy.
VMware have made a version of the server virtualisation solution available for free. It is called VMware Server and the version 2.0 is in BETA and offers great features such as 64-bit virtual machines, web administration and USB 2.0 support. So don’t jump into the deep end first, give VMware Server 2 a try and see if you could really benefit from a virtual server. Because it would be seriously crazy to go virtual without knowing what you are really getting into. I really recommend using VMware Server for just a small business setup, it is free and will no doubt serve the needs of many small businesses.
I suggest you just take this is a guide along with your own research and available whitepapers. I just wish to promote that virtualisation is a great future that everyone should be aware of to save money and save the environment.
