NEWSLETTER - VIRTUALISATION - THE WAY FORWARD
Tight budgets, limited resources and short deadlines are now a fact of life in the IT department. But if you analysed the server usage within your organisation you would probably find that very few of them are actually running at optimum utilisation.
This, not uncommon, situation is an area where you can make meaningful savings in your overall budget - with the right solution.
What is virtualisation?
Virtualisation enables you to run multiple systems on today's high-performance hardware - so instead of seven machines running at 10% utilisation, you can run one machine at 70% utilisation. This delivers savings in:
- Hardware spend
- Power, space, and cooling since there are fewer machines running
- Personnel as you will require fewer administrators since you have fewer machines
Virtualisation technology is a way to pool IT resources while masking the physical attributes and boundaries of the resources from users. Initially developed for mainframes it is now a mature and stable solution that can bring great benefits in any IT infrastructure.
The rise of iSCSI
Virtualisation allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a single machine. Key applications that it can be utilised for include cross-platform integration as well as:
- Implementing production server consolidation and containment - Contain server sprawl by running software applications in virtual machines on fewer, highly scalable, reliable enterprise-class servers. It is possible to consolidate 10 or more virtual machines per physical processor, thereby drastically increasing server utilisation and containing server sprawl
- Providing advanced business continuity protection at lower cost - Deliver high availability for critical applications with cost-effective virtualisation-based solutions. This enables the implementation of a unified disaster recovery (DR) platform that allows many production virtual machines to be recovered in the event of hardware failure without investing in costly one-to-one mapping of production and DR hardware
- Streamlining software testing and development - Consolidate disparate development, testing and staging environments involving multiple operating systems and multi-tier applications. Set up self-service developer portals to increase developer productivity
- Securing and managing enterprise desktops - Secure enterprise desktops of a geographically dispersed workforce by providing a standard corporate desktop image in a virtual machine. At the same time, provide standardised enterprise desktop environments hosted in virtual machines accessed through thin-clients or PCs
- Simplifying infrastructure provisioning - Reduce the time for provisioning new infrastructure to minutes with sophisticated automation capabilities. Virtual appliances combine simple deployment of software with the benefits of preconfigured devices. Centralise control and responsibility for hardware resources while giving business units and application owners complete control over how resources are utilised
- Re-hosting legacy applications - Migrate legacy operating systems and software applications to virtual machines running on new hardware for better reliability
Managing your IT infrastructure through virtualisation
VMware Infrastructure is the most widely deployed software suite for optimising and managing industry standard IT environments through virtualisation – from the desktop to the data centre. The only production-ready virtualisation software suite, VMware Infrastructure has delivered results at more than 20,000 customers of all sizes, used in a wide variety of environments and applications.
The suite is fully optimised, rigorously tested and certified for the widest range of hardware, operating systems and software applications. VMware infrastructure provides built-in management, resource optimisation, application availability and operational automation capabilities that deliver transformative cost savings as well as increased operational efficiency, flexibility and IT service levels.
The benefits of VMware
VMware Infrastructure delivers measurable savings in both capital and operating costs by:
- Increasing hardware utilisation and reducing hardware requirements with server consolidation ratios commonly exceeding ten virtual machines per physical processor
- Reducing the cost of rack space and power proportionate to the consolidation ratio achieved
- Decreasing staff costs by simplifying and automating labour and resource intensive IT operations across disparate hardware, operating system and software application environments
In addition, VMware Infrastructure improves the responsiveness, serviceability, availability and flexibility of your IT infrastructure by:
- Enabling broad-based, cost-effective application availability and business continuity independent of hardware and operating systems
- Enabling continuous uptime and non-disruptive maintenance of IT environments with live migration of entire running systems
- Eliminating the need for cumbersome software installation and configuration with virtual appliances
- Accelerating the application development and deployment lifecycles
- Improving responsiveness to business needs with instant provisioning and dynamic optimisation of application environments
- Allowing legacy systems to co-exist with new environments
If you would like information on how VMware Infrastructure can help reduce your costs, please contact us at this address: nburrell@nviron.co.uk
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