Data Center Infrastructure Management

November 16, 2012 By

 

Most organizations spend more than 70 percent of their IT budgets on infrastructure such as servers, operating systems, storage and networking. This is required to manage the swift yet uneven pace of growth that is essential to survive in today’s highly competitive environment. When organizations achieve the critical mass, they are often bogged down by the widely varying demands placed on their IT infrastructure.

Even as the investments for hardware and software are tracking downward, the costs of managing and supporting infrastructure are increasing. Server sprawl leads to increased operations and support costs, labor intensive legacy platforms lead to increased administration and support costs, deployment and maintenance of IT systems is costly and consumes too much time and effort and, managing system security and user identity information across enterprise systems can be complex.

Desktop, Server and Device Management

Data centers can manage desktops, mobile devices, and servers as well as deploy patches, operating systems, and applications across the network, asset inventory and proactive monitoring of systems by implementing and managing the Microsoft System Centre Suite.

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) – The SCCM comprehensively assesses, deploys, and updates servers, client computers, and devices-across physical, virtual, distributed, and mobile environments.

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) – SCOM uniquely enables data centers to reduce the cost of data center management across server operating systems and hypervisors through a single, familiar and easy to use interface.

Security and Networking

Data centers should guarantee that information and communication are protected from unauthorized access while at the same time provide a mechanism to protect the IT infrastructure from attacks and viruses while preserving access to corporate resources.

Fore Front Endpoint Protection (Anti-Virus) – By allowing a data center to use its existing client management infrastructure, the solution helps reduce ownership costs while providing improved visibility and control over endpoint management and security.

Fore Front Threat Management Gateway (Firewall and Proxy) – The solution reduces the cost and complexity of web security through multiple layers of continuously updated protections that are integrated into a unified, easy to manage gateway.

Fore Front Unified Access Gateway (Firewall, Proxy and SSL VPN) – The solution utilizes a combination of connectivity options, ranging from SSL VPN to Direct Access, as well as built in configurations and policies. This enables the delivery of comprehensive, secure remote access to corporate resources for employees, partners, and vendors on both managed and unmanaged PCs and mobile devices.

Data Protection and Recovery

Organizations require a structured or disciplined backup, storage and restore management solution to protect their data. Disaster Recover Planning – an in-depth analysis of current systems and creation of definitive plans in case of natural or intended disasters.

Virtualization

In today’s highly automated, technology-enabled economy, business capability has become inextricably linked to IT capability. However, IT infrastructure is becoming increasingly complex. The need of the hour is to leverage IT so that

it becomes a more efficient and strategic asset of business.  By consolidating resources through server, client and storage virtualization, organizations can increase their resource utilization from 10%-15% to as much as 80%. Hardware requirements can also be reduced by 10:1 ratio or better. Automated system management and administration at every level in the data center allows greater focus on more strategic planning activities. Moreover, through virtualization, organizations can achieve a reduced deployment time for new IT services by 50% to 70%.

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Innovations in Cloud Computing and Virtualization

November 12, 2012 By

Modern data centers rely heavily on virtualization technology to improve productivity. As a result of the immense pressure on its performance, the technology itself has stepped up and evolved drastically since its inception. Virtualization is a concept wherein a virtual version of a hardware, software, operating system or storage space is created in order to centralize administrative tasks and enhance scalability and performance of the component that has been subjected to virtualization.

Virtualization ensures optimal resource utilization. With the aid of this technology, one can run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single platform/CPU. It’s a perfect example of enhanced multitasking or hierarchical multitasking. In multitasking, you are allowed to run multiple applications on a single operating system, whereas in virtualization, you are simultaneously running several operating systems on a single CPU; on each operating system, you can simultaneously run several applications. This reduces the overhead cost of the data center as you are making full use of the available CPUs, thus bringing down the need for more.

The latest innovation in the virtualization technology is the Converged Network Adapter. It is a server card that is meant to serve the purpose of a Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter and Ethernet Network Interface Card in one card. It connects the storage network and the computer network. For companies struggling with complex physical and virtual networking, CNAs are a boon to have. Once the CNA is connected and routed properly, it can pass both TCP/IP networking and storage traffic simultaneously.

The main advantage of CNAs is the reduction in the number of adapters required to connect the servers to the ports.

After understanding the importance and hype around cloud computing, it becomes more or less important to strategically adopt cloud computing into the enterprise. The hype around cloud computing keeps growing as the number of cloud service offerings evolve.

Cloud computing should not just be an alternative to expansion of an enterprise. Maximizing the effects of cloud computing on an enterprise should be on the grounds of being able to leverage the technology to its full capacity. At this stage it is important to understand the needs of an enterprise, and its end-user requirements. There are several strategic plans for the successful adoption of cloud computing.

  • Understanding the requirements and demands of the enterprise, and the end-user
  • Frame the right team of professionals
  • Create a definite strategic plan
  • Deploy the right measures to achieve the objective

Cloud computing services have the obligation to abide by the standards of certain regulatory bodies. They are required to pass all the compliance audits. At the end of the day, all that matters for the successful adoption of cloud computing is a series of right decisions.

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CLOUD COMPUTING AND VIRTUALIZATION

October 4, 2012 By

In the present scenario of changing technology, the IT sector is keen on reducing costs, and improving performance. Innovative use of the advanced techniques is a logical solution, but is very elusive. Data centers need to optimize infrastructure and deploy strategies to improve data center operations. These would enable centers to leverage the benefits of cloud computing and virtualization for their economic benefits.

Cloud computing and virtualization are two relatively similar ideas, but with a whole new horizon. The whole process of implementing the infrastructure requires a lot of detailed discussion about the type of data center and its requirements.

Cloud computing is a scalable platform that is used for the delivery of a service or a capability, to build and run applications over the network. It refers to the IT services that are deconstructed from the underlying infrastructure, and provisioned when needed as well as providing infinite resources to meet the growing demands. It entrusts remote services to the user’s data via computing and networking. The user’s data is stored in a remote location, whereas the end client can access the application through a web browser or a simple mobile app.

Cloud computing fundamentally changes the way IT services are delivered to clients. IT sectors need not concentrate on developing a separate hardware and software encrusted infrastructure for all their servers and storage devices. This would mean that the companies also need to upgrade their servers based on the changing trends. This facility of cloud computing requires neither ownership nor installation of dedicated resources. Cloud computing offers a wide array of benefits:

Reduced cost: Reduction in the cost is definitely an added advantage to any data center operative. The organization would have to invest only in the required capacity and not on unnecessary infrastructure and maximum capacity.

Flexibility: A data center always needs to forecast its future requirements. It needs to be well equipped to situations of migration and need of excess workload. Cloud computing eliminates these undesirable consequences.

Location independence: As cloud computing does not use a physical infrastructure, users can access any application irrespective of their location or the device they are using.

Scalability: A major problem that data centers incur is the expansion plan. Cloud computing offers “on demand” services without having to look for onsite resources.

Security: Access to the log audits is very difficult, hence ensuring security to the data stored. Since the data is distributed over a widespread area and relying on multi-tenants, concern over data loss is relatively minimized.

Maintenance: Maintenance of cloud computing applications is simpler as it does not involve installing applications on every user’s device. It can be accessed from any location.

Server virtualization refers to the servers and data storage devices that are simulated using software. It is the division or segregation of servers. Every single virtual server runs on its own and as a part of another physical server. Many virtual servers can run on a single physical server. These virtual servers can be isolated and can be handled singly, even away from the physical servers.

Through virtualization, you can install a software only once and be rest assured that everyone will have access to it. You don’t need multiple licences to make the software available to all your employees. Since you are technically installing it only on one system, you are not violating any laws either. Same is true with storage. This technique avoids the need for data replication, thus saving storage space.

Virtualization can bring higher utilization, better security and easier management.

Server utilization can definitely bring in some great amount of flexibility and energy efficiency into data centers.

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DATA CENTER VIRTUALIZATION

October 1, 2012 By

Server virtualization refers to the servers and data storage devices that are simulated using software. It is the division or segregation of servers. Every single virtual server runs on its own and as a part of another physical server. Many virtual servers can run on a single physical server. These virtual servers can be isolated and can be handled singly, even away from the physical servers.

At a business and enterprise level, virtualization of data centers helps in reducing equipment costs, improves quality and system availability.

All the resources need to be managed well like the software and hardware in order to create virtualization efficiently and in an affordable manner.

In the traditional and conventional methods, every new application required a separate server. This inturn adds overhead costs and takes several weeks to be employed. This means that there are huge stacks of servers staged in different rooms. This would lead to excess power consumption and energy wastage.

Virtualisation is a technique of creating a virtual pool of servers, operating systems, storage devices and network resources. It enables a single user to access multiple physical devices at the same time. With this, one operating system can control the operation of multiple computers or vice versa.

Through virtualization, you can install a software only once and be rest assured that everyone will have access to it. You don’t need multiple licences to make the software available to all your employees. Since you are technically installing it only on one system, you are not violating any laws either. Same is true with storage. This technique avoids the need for data replication, thus saving storage space.

The drawback with data centers is the challenge you will face while scaling up as and when the need arises. Your data center host must have rack space to accommodate an extra server or two and also must be equipped to handle an increase in cooling and power needs. Of course, there is a problem of your resources going on standby mode when not in use, too.

Storage virtualization is one type of virtualization that greatly helps in reducing the operational costs and improving the agility of performance. It means that the large number of servers and storage devices are virtually stacked up in a pool, for e.g. a virtual storage pool. Storage virtualization leads to the next generation of data centers.

Computing virtualization is also growing very fast. Some of the leading companies in the space have developed cross-platform virtualization software that allows data center managers to cluster and partition servers. .With the help of these tools, many virtual servers can be offered on an a single server or a single server can offer the roles of many different virtual servers.

Networking virtualization can occur at the LAN or the WAN. On the LAN, virtual LAN technology allows network managers to isolate and partition LANs running on a single physical LAN.

On the WAN side, the same effect can be achieved with MPLS, a technology that offers partitioning of WANs into multiple isolated virtual WANs running on a single physical infrastructure. Virtualization can bring higher utilization, better security and easier management.

Server utilization can definitely bring in some great amount of flexibility and energy efficiency into data centers.

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Converged Network Adapters (CNA)- A Way to Smarter Virtualization

June 19, 2012 By

Modern data centers rely heavily on virtualization technology to improve productivity. As a result of the immense pressure on its performance, the technology itself has stepped up and evolved drastically since its inception. Virtualization is a concept wherein a virtual version of a hardware, software, operating system or storage space is created in order to centralize administrative tasks and enhance scalability and performance of the component that has been subjected to virtualization.

Virtualization ensures optimal resource utilization. With the aid of this technology, one can run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single platform/CPU. It’s a perfect example of enhanced multitasking or hierarchical multitasking. In multitasking, you are allowed to run multiple applications on a single operating system, whereas in virtualization, you are simultaneously running several operating systems on a single CPU; on each operating system, you can simultaneously run several applications. This reduces the overhead cost of the data center as you are making full use of the available CPUs, thus bringing down the need for more.

The latest innovation in the virtualization technology is the Converged Network Adapter. It is a server card that is meant to serve the purpose of a Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter and Ethernet Network Interface Card in one card. It connects the storage network and the computer network. For companies struggling with complex physical and virtual networking, CNA is a boon to have. Once the CNA is connected and routed properly, it can pass both TCP/IP networking and storage traffic simultaneously.

The main advantage of CNA is the reduction in the number of adapters required to connect the servers to the ports. This in turn reduces the amount of cables, switch ports, PCI express slots and other network components. It ensures a clutter free and relatively less expensive server room.

CNA mostly supports 10 GB enhanced Ethernet. This is adequate for network and storage traffic. But times are changing and in order to keep up with the data demand and enhanced speed, changes are being made to accommodate 40 GBEE and even 100 GBEE.

CNA supports both copper and fiber transceivers. It also supports single mode and multimode fibres and copper twin and copper twisted cables. These adapters are extensively used data center vendors. They can provide more services with less. They can also be used as a standalone network adapters or standalone fibre channel host bus adapters as well. Additional features can be enabled as and when required.

A number of virtual platforms are now making room for CNA’s superior features. They now support data center bridging and data transfer offload capabilities with is quite sub-standard in the previous versions. This allows you to manage  all the traffic from your own desktop. They enhance the capability of virtualization further, thus making its usage quite beneficial.

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Data Center Infrastructure Management

June 1, 2012 By

Most organizations spend more than 70 percent of their IT budgets on infrastructure such as servers, operating systems, storage and networking. This is required to manage the swift yet uneven pace of growth that is essential to survive in today’s highly competitive environment. When organizations achieve the critical mass, they are often bogged down by the widely varying demands placed on their IT infrastructure.

Even as the investments for hardware and software are tracking downward, the costs of managing and supporting infrastructure are increasing. Server sprawl leads to increased operations and support costs, labor intensive legacy platforms lead to increased administration and support costs. Deployment and maintenance of IT systems is costly and consumes too much time and effort and managing system security and user identity information across enterprise systems can be complex.

Identity and Access Management:

Rapid search, identification and verification of user access rights helps guarantee information, communication and IT infrastructure protection from malicious attacks. The Activity Directory Domain Services offered help create a scalable, secure, and manageable infrastructure for user and resource management. These services provide the means to manage identities and relationships, and the out-of-the-box functionality needed to centrally configure and administer system, user, and application settings. Some of these services are:

  • Active Directory Implementation
  • Active Directory Migration from Previous Versions

Desktop, Server and Device Management

Data centers can manage desktops, mobile devices, and servers as well as deploy patches, operating systems, and applications across the network, asset inventory and proactive monitoring of systems by implementing and managing the Microsoft System Centre Suite.

  • System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) – The SCCM comprehensively assesses, deploys, and updates servers, client computers, and devices-across physical, virtual, distributed, and mobile environments. Optimized for Windows and tightly integrated with Windows 7, it is the best choice for gaining control over IT systems.
  • System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) – SCOM uniquely enables data centers to reduce the cost of data center management across server operating systems and hypervisors through a single, familiar and easy to use interface. Through numerous views that show state, health and performance information as well as alerts generated according to some availability, performance, configuration or security situation being identified, operators can gain rapid insight into the state of the IT environment, and the IT services running across different systems and workloads.

Security and Networking

Data centers should guarantee that information and communication are protected from unauthorized access while at the same time provide a mechanism to protect the IT infrastructure from attacks and viruses while preserving access to corporate resources.

  • ForeFront Endpoint Protection (Anti-Virus) – By allowing a data center to use its existing client management infrastructure the solution helps reduce ownership costs while providing improved visibility and control over endpoint management and security.
  • ForeFront Threat Management Gateway (Firewall and Proxy) – The solution reduces the cost and complexity of Web security through multiple layers of continuously updated protections that are integrated into a unified, easy to manage gateway.
  • ForeFront Unified Access Gateway (Firewall, Proxy and SSL VPN) – The solution utilizes a combination of connectivity options, ranging from SSL VPN to Direct Access, as well as built in configurations and policies. This enables the delivery of comprehensive, secure remote access to corporate resources for employees, partners, and vendors on both managed and unmanaged PCs and mobile devices.

Data Protection and Recovery

Organizations require a structured or disciplined backup, storage and restore management solution to protect their data. Disaster Recover Planning – an in-depth analysis of current systems and creation of contingency plans in case of natural or intended disasters.

The System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) from the Microsoft System Center suit can also be implemented for data management. The SCDPM delivers unified data protection for Windows servers such as SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, Virtualization and file servers, as well as Windows desktops and laptops. DPM seamlessly uses disk, tape, and cloud-based repositories to deliver an easy-to-use and best-of-breed backup and recovery solution for Windows.

Virtualization

In today’s highly automated, technology-enabled economy, business capability has become inextricably linked to IT capability. However, IT infrastructure is becoming increasingly complex. The need of the hour is to leverage IT so that it becomes a more efficient and strategic asset of business.  By consolidating resources through server, client and storage virtualization, organizations can increase their resource utilization from 10%-15% to as much as 80%. Hardware requirements can also be reduced by 10:1 ratio or better. Automated system management and administration at every level in the data center allows greater focus on more strategic planning activities. Moreover, through virtualization, organizations can achieve a reduced deployment time for new IT services by 50% to 70%

Data Center Talk updates its resources every day. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum

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Virtualization – The Long and Short of It

March 13, 2012 By

virtualizationNew, up and coming terms like virtualization, data centre and cloud  computing are often out of reach for most of us out there but after doing some research, it’s clear to me now that, to understand the concepts, you need to ask the right questions. The obvious one being what is virtualization?

Basically it’s a platform which enables a single user access multiple devices, something like a single computer controlling multiple machines. In other words, we have a system / server where the virtualization platform is installed and on that platform several operating systems are installed. Hence the user can access any of the operating systems at any given time or even simultaneously. To an outsider it looks like 3 different systems are at work while in reality, its only one server.

Virtualization solves a problem of buying and managing a lot of servers at any given time. It saves a lot of trouble in case of a server failure and makes the entire system compact.

To understand the concept much more clearly, consider its 3 subsections, host operating system, the hypervisor, and the guest operating system.

 Host OS: it is the original OS with which the virtual machines share all information. The virtualisation platform is installed here.

Hypervisor: It is a program which allows multiple OS to share a single host. This enables the OS to have the host OS’s memory. The hypervisor handles memory allocation and resources of the virtual machines and makes sure that they don’t interfere with each other.

Guest OS: simply put, an OS other than the host OS which is sometimes installed is called a guest OS. It’s usually installed inside the virtual system. For e.g. the OS windows, Linux and MAC are the guest OS on the virtualisation platform of the Host OS.

It is crucial for the virtualisation administrators to monitor and manage the platform resources like I/O traffic diligently. They should make sure that they are optimising the host resources and prevent performance degradation.

Now, there are the different types of virtualization and companies provide specific domain solutions for them.  There are essentially three types:

Hardware Virtualization:

This is the most common type implemented in the IT industries as well as in the data centres. The host Server is virtualized and hence allowing the server to be able to run different OS simultaneously on the same hardware.

It has several benefits namely, less no of servers, easier and faster addition of capacity as per needs & less power consumption.

Desktop Virtualization:

This means that the end users(us) data are all stored in a VM(virtual machine) in the hosted environment which can be of the IT ‘s in house or of the data centers. They can be managed in one place for all the users of the company. This process has few takers as it requires a lot of work and takes a lot more planning to execute it.

Storage Virtualization:

Consider this, when a company is growing, it will need more space, even for the servers it’s using, and before you know it , it’s going to increase tenfold. Hence the company needs proper plans for disaster control that’s where this comes to picture. This ensures that multiple storage devices appear as one common media. Storage virtualization takes care of that.

Virtualisation is adopted by honchos like citric and Microsoft but there are other companies like HP, IBM, oracle etc have entered the market. The conclusion is that the more completion in the industry the more affordable it becomes for the  end user.

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Is Virtualization the Same as Cloud?

March 1, 2012 By

It is very common to confuse cloud computing with virtualization. Since they are both relatively new and since organizations are calling it the saving face of new age technology, I assumed we might want to look into what exactly the two technologies are and how diverse they are from each other.

Cloud is essentially a highly scalable platform where you can store data, build and run applications that can be accessed through the internet only. Cloud is a mode to mobilize all applications so that you can remotely access your organization data through any device that has access to internet. Data center hosts or collocation hosts who are interested in cloud technology provide software as a service packages to their clients. Cloud makes it possible to have your servers in a secure environment in any part of the world and your clients still can access and modify the data if they have required security clearance. Cloud makes use of virtualized resources in order to fulfill its requirements. A cloud host provides hardware and hosting facilities depending on the usage requested by the client.

Virtualization, on the other hand, is a technique of creating a virtual pool of servers, operating systems, storage devices and network resources. It enables a single user to access multiple physical devices at the same time. With this, one operating system can control the operation of multiple computers or vice versa.

Building your own data center takes a lot of capital investment; and maintaining it is a nightmare you do not want to go through if your main aim is to focus on your business. Hiring a service is a better option. Unlike the cloud, in a data center, you have to note that you will merely be storing your servers on someone else’s property. So you are responsible for upgrading your servers as and when technology takes a giant leap. The drawback with data centers is the challenge you will face while scaling up as and when the need arises. Your data center host must have rack space to accommodate an extra server or two and also must be equipped to handle an increase in cooling and power needs. Of course, there is a problem of your resources going on standby mode when not in use, too. Cloud may be an ideal solution from an economic point of view. Like we have mentioned before, you only pay for the services you are using; not for idle or standby services.

Virtualization is all about the control. Pure, unparalleled control over multiple devices using a single point of operation. With virtualization, for instance, you can run a very large application even though your system individually cannot support it. In other words, your system interacts with the other systems connected to the virtualization network, notes which system is available and uses part of the available system’s resources in addition to your own to run your application. It’s like your system has temporarily expanded its capacity to run your application successfully.

Through virtualization, you can install a software only once and be rest assured that everyone will have access to it. You don’t need multiple licences to make the software available to all your employees. Since you are technically installing it only on one system, you are not violating any laws either. Same is true with storage. This technique avoids the need for data replication, thus saving storage space.

So you see, one technology has nothing to do with the other; and they, most certainly, are not the same thing. Virtualization, to an extent, makes the cloud operable.

 

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Risks of Virtualization

January 25, 2012 By

Whether business are small or large are progressively spinning to virtualization technology in order to save cost and boost redundancies in case they face collapse. So the conventional security explanations are not enough to guard virtual machinery.

The capability to generate dozens of virtual servers as files in a sole corporal server might engrave electricity expenditure, save room, make IT management jobs more easier, and allows them to create split environments to test new appliances at their own will. No doubt that this is frequently used and highest mounting technologies in small and large businesses. But every thing that has its advantages must have drawbacks also and virtualization has no omission. Security issues are the main thing you have to be anxious more about that when you employ virtual servers. Most common risks of virtualization are:

Information safety is not originally involved in the Virtualization Plans
Information gathers from different sources indicates that almost 40 % of projects that uses virtualization technology were carry out without the use of information security group in the early planning and design stages. Normally, the operational expert team will dispute that nothing has changed in reality — by now they have skills and procedures to secure the workloads, operating systems and the hardware beneath. Whereas the truth is that this argument pays no attention to the original layer of software in the shape of a Hyper Visor (HV) and Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) which is pioneered when workloads are being virtualized.

The cooperation of the virtualization levels might result in the cooperation of all hosted workloads

The virtualization level symbolize one more significant IT stand in the communications, and similar to any software that is write by humans, this level will certainly hold entrenched and exposed vulnerabilities that can be utilizable. Known to the advantaged level the hyper visor hold in the heap, hackers already have start target this level to potentially cooperate all workloads hosted over it.

The short of visibility and power on internal virtual nets shaped for VM to VM Communications Blinds Existing Security Policy Enforcement Mechanisms

For the purpose of efficiency in connections between the virtual machine,  nearly all virtualization policies contains the aptitude to produce virtual networks based on software and switch within the physical host to facilitate virtual machines to communicate straightforwardly. This interchange will not be noticeable to safety defense devices that are network based, such as network based interruption avoidance systems.

Workloads of diverse conviction stages are merged on to a particular physical server with no enough separation

As the organizations shift ahead of the low hanging fruit of workloads to be virtualized, additional vital systems and receptive workloads are being under attack for virtualization. This is not essentially a subject of matter but it can turn into an issue as these workloads are shared by other workloads from dissimilar trust regions on the similar physical server with no sufficient separation.

Sufficient controls on managerial admittance to the Hyper visor and VMM layer and to managerial apparatus are deficient

Because of the serious support the hyper visor/VMM layer supplies managerial admittance to this layer have to be firmly controlled, but it is complex by the verity that main virtualization policies provide several conduits of management for this layer.

A potential failure of separation of responsibilities for network and safety controls

As physical servers are misshapen into a single mechanism, it raise the danger that system managers and consumers will unintentionally get access to information that surpasses their usual freedom levels.

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The Pros and Cons of 100% Virtualization

January 16, 2012 By

To understand virtualization you must first comprehend what this term means exactly.  Look up the word virtualization in any dictionary and you will find the following result:

“Virtualization, in computing, is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, a storage device or network resources.”

The different types of virtualization include:

  • Hardware
  • Software
  • Desktop
  • Memory
  • Storage
  • Data
  • Network

The Pros of Virtualization

The main pro of virtualization is the ability to reduce items into one chunk. This can help save resources and storage requirements. On top of this a company can expect to see huge savings in operational costs. Less power is often required once the new processes are in place and this has a huge positive impact on the environment.

One of the main benefits of using virtualization is that it makes functions such as backups, system recovery and system migration more doable.  Virtualization is perfect for creating test scenarios and can be used to improve existing functions in your data center.

In a recent report it was stated that virtualization can help solve cloud hosting integration issues and help speed up your data delivery times.

Implementing virtualization is fairly fast weeks as opposed to months. Plus this can all be done in real time. Great for any company!

The Cons of Virtualization

The key thing to keep in mind here is that the virtual environment is a shared environment. Your hosting account uses many virtual machines and each of these guest machines is unaware of what is happening on any other machine at any given time.

Taking the above scenario into consideration if the performance of one machine is affected this will affect all other machines run by the same host. This could possibly lead to slow down times or the inability to access your account.

There are certain barriers in place which need to be considered before taking the virtualization route.  One of these is when scanning or defragmentation is taking place. This can cause a system slow down. Plus when files are deleted on virtual disks the space is not always made available again resulting in wasted space.

Conclusion for Virtualization

If you are considering implementing virtualization then take the time to weigh the pros and cons of virtualization and see if it is right for your business requirements.

If you would like to discuss the topic of virtualization further please do so by visiting our Data Center Talk Forum and leave your comments on the article there.

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