Server virtualisation and the takeup of this technology

Seems like virtualisation especially server virtualisation is really becoming mainstream and pretty much all organisations are looking at implementing some type of virtualisation. Be it in development or full production virtual machines.

Here is an interesting article i found that looks at the stats of virtualisation

• 86 percent of respondents are involved in exploring, testing or usingvirtualization technology.
• The largest portion of respondents (40 percent) will approach server virtualization by implementing a standalone pilot, with success creating the case for the production environment.
• The most important criteria when selecting a server virtualization solution are hardware reduction and infrastructure manageability.
• The two biggest hurdles to overcome when implementing server virtualization are lack of staff expertise and identifying applications that are unaffected by virtualization. This latter hurdle is most problematic to large organizations.
• The top three objectives for implementing virtualization in the production environment are improving disaster recovery, lowering administrative costs and immediate hardware and software savings.

http://www.virtualiqsolutions.com/docs/INS%20WP.pdf

Virtualisation but for mobiles...

Well it seems to be spreading the whole virtualisation bug across all electronic hardware. Virtualisation is already a great tool for PC's and servers, and now it looks like it will extend to the mobile market now.

Found this article about this by Ramana Rolla from doing a search for the future of virtualisation on google news.

http://www.mwd.com/2010/10/virtualization-is-going-to-change-everything-about-a-mobile-performance/

Basically VMware are looking at implementing something similar whereby smartphones can run multiple OSes on the same hardware giving users the ability to have different applications from different platforms on the same phone.

Where will virtualisation end up next... who knows... only time will tell...

World's largest virtual desktop implementation

Found this great article on the world's largest implementation of virtualisation on gizmag.com

http://www.gizmag.com/virtualization-green-computing/11168/

In what's billed as the world’s largest virtual desktop deployment 356,800 virtualized desktops will be supplied to schools across Brazil, bringing computer access to millions. Userful Multiplier

software effectively turns one computer into up to 10 independent PC workstations, reducing CO2 emissions by up to 15 tons per year per system* and electronic waste by up to 80%.

Additional users can work on a single computer by simply attaching extra monitors, mice and keyboards. "This deployment alone saves more than 170,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually, the same as taking 28,000 cars off the road, or planting 41,000 acres of trees”, said Sean Rousseau, Marketing Manager at Userful.

With increasing CO2 emissions, growing evidence about the toxic waste from old electronic goods and more landfill than we can deal with, green computing is a hot topic.

In developing countries virtualization provides huge scope to improve student to computer ratios at a relatively low cost and in a sustainable way. It’s also preferable to us dumping our old environmentally unfriendly computers on these countries as we rush to upgrade or buy the "next big thing".

Userful Multiplier is also a low-cost, energy-saving option for schools, libraries, internet cafes, government, call centers and many other industries, leveraging the unused processing power of computers that sit idle while users check mail, work on documents or surf the web. Each user has access to the full power of the multi-core processor and when more than one user needs the processor at exactly the same time, the computer splits its resources to perform all tasks equally quickly.

According to Userful, all other virtualization solutions lead to sacrifices in performance. Userful offers the features of a full PC including high performance video for less than $50 per additional seat in large deployments (not including monitors and keyboards) and uses standard PC hardware.

A Case Study of Server Virtualisation

Found this really interesting article/case study on a successful implementation of server virtualisation

http://itleaders.com.au/articles/a-case-study-of-server-virtualisation--virtualization-.html

Server Virtualisation is getting a lot of press, but like most new technologies, this 'IT gibberish' takes some translation for business owners to see the benefits.

IT Leaders recently completed virutalisation of its head office server rack, giving an easy to understand case study for you.

What is Virtualisation and why is it good?

Traditionally a business will run a different server for every one or two server roles. For example, a typical situation for a smaller SME would be to have one server running Microsoft Small Business Server, which gives the business file & print sharing, an email server, and domain controller.

To this base they would then add another server for new roles. If they start running a database, this would be put on a new physical server. If they have staff logging in remotely to work, then a new physical server would be used for staff to log into.

There are good reasons to run different servers, such as:

• The speed of each IT business service can operate and be monitored independently - a speed issue in one service is isolated to that service only.
  
• Some softwares don't play nicely together on the one Windows installation
  
• Some softwares will (by design) hog a lot of memory or processor, which can slow down other activities on the server
  
• If one application or server role fails, it can be worked on and repaired without having to bring down other critical business facilities. (For example, if the database server has a problem it can be worked on without interrupting email, file access, internet access, etc etc

The thing about running lots of physical servers however, is that the more you have, the more they cost to buy (capital cost), run (electricity & cooling), and maintain (maintenance and repairs).

With virtualisation, you can have multiple server environments running on a single physical server. In other words, you can have 3,4,5 or more installations of Windows server, running on the same server box. Each installation works independently, but all share the one set of hardware.

This reduces capital costs, running costs and maintenance costs.

Case Study: Turning Six Servers into One

Before Virtualisation

Here are the physical servers we had when the project began:

1. Domain Controller and Email Server and File/Print Share
2. Terminal Server and File Share
3. Sharepoint Server
4. WSUS Server (controls software updates for our clients)
5. Performance Monitoring Server (monitors every computer device on all our clients networks)
6. Reporting Server (generates performance reports from the monitoring)

In addition we wanted to set up two additional servers:

7. Data Centre monitoring (dedicated server for our new data centre facilities)
8. Backup Server (to offer our clients a backup service which runs over night across the internet, storing their data on our server.)

Our power usage for the server rack was approximately 3500 VA, and would have gone over 4500 VA by adding two more servers.

Adding more servers was also going to require more cooling, further increasing capital and running costs.

TIme to maintain 8 servers properly would normally be in the realm of 20-30 hours per month.

Considerations during virtualisation

So we went down the virtualisation path for our own equipment and were interested in experimenting with the boundaries of how many virtual servers will run effectively and safely on a reasonably priced single physical server. Bear in mind that we have less than 20 staff at this point, so there is minimal load on several of the servers, a situation that will be different for each business.

Not all servers are good to virtualise. Our Performance Monitoring server does currently need its own physical server. We also decided to leave the number one server as it was, which minimised the operational impact of the project. Both of these servers are less than 12 months old and good quality Hewlett Packard hardware so we were already happy with them from those angles. That left servers 2,3,4,6,7 and 8 as candidates for virtualisation.

This required purchasing one new server with two dual-core processors, good hard drive speed, and plenty of drive space. We started off with 3.5TB of drive space and 12 GB of RAM, with room to increase if required.

Using Microsoft Server 2008 Hyper-V (VM Ware is another good option), we then installed the host operating system and six other operating systems. We were able to cut each server over independently, resulting in a seamless transition. After each new server was brought on line we monitored server software performance and hardware utilisation. With virtualisation you want to maximise the utilisation of your server hardware, but not overload the hardware. It is incredibly flexible and allows you to assign hardware resources dynamically. For example, we could allocate to one Windows server environment, 2GB of RAM (out of the 12GB installed), 50GB of drive space and one 'virtual processor'. Then we monitor performance of the server and then tweak up or down accordingly. Allocating another 1GB of RAM is just a five minute tweak.

You also need to be aware that the more roles that one set of physical hardware is performing, the more important it is that this hardware is reliable and the downsides of hardware failure are catered for. You will definitely want fast-response warranties (eg 2hr onsite response form the hardware vendor). You also may wish to have new spare components on hand for immediate swap out, since a 2hr warranty response does not guarantee that specific parts are not requried that will take a week or more to arrive. In our case we will have a spare motherboard on hand as it will be slow to procure that model, and employ the extra protection of image-based backups that can be restored to any hardware.

After Virtualisation

Number of Physical Servers: 3

Number of Operating System environments: 8

Approximate power usage: 1800VA

Time to maintain: Around 11 hours per month.

So in analysis we have better than halved our direct power usage, halved our maintenance costs, and removed the need to upgrade cooling.

Our equipment at our data centre in Varsity Lakes, is designed from the ground up for virtualisation. Using latest generation Hewlett Packard 'blade' technology, we can run hundreds of virtual environments on industrial-strength servers, with a range of redundancy options such as complete automated fail-over in the event of hardware failure.

Talk to IT Leaders today about whether virtualisation can improve your business.

My experiences with Virtual Desktop Technologies

I have used a number of different types of virtualisation technologies over the years in IT from local desktop virtualisation to VMWare ESX server implementations.

As a developer i used alot of local desktop virtualisation technologies to test various platforms to run particular software which we built. The main driving benefit of using this technology was that we didn't have to have different hardware for different Operating Systems. All the operating systems could be run locally on the same machine so that we could ensure that our custom software could be deployed and run successfully without any issues.

Because of this technology it not only saves huge amounts of capital, because of not having to buy all the physical server. But huge amounts of time, as virtual desktop instances could easily be created while still working on the local machine.

Some of the virtualisation desktop software i have used is virtual desktop by microsoft, parallels, and virtual box

Disadvantages with Server Virtualisation

With all things technology there are advantages and disadvantages for all emerging technologies. Earlier i spoke about advantages of implementation of virtualisation, and how cost savings and server consolidation could be achieved with server virtualisation. Now im going to look at some of the disadvantages associated with virtualisation.

1. Magnified physical failures
Imagine you had 10 very important servers running on the one physical host and its internals (i.e. RAID controller fails) and wipes all the important information for all these machines.

2. Degraded Performance
Because more than one machine is running on the same physical host, performance can drop if all virtual machines need the resources at the same time. Leading to slower response times.

3. Increased Complexity
Virtualisation adds a new layer of complexity to the physical host running the machine, which in-turn can add considerable time and effort to work out the root cause of a problem if the issue is within the virtualisation layer.

4. Virtual Machine Spawl
Even though virtual server management can get quite complex, and installing a new machine can be quick. The problem might arise is that if the number of servers grows faster than the number of administrators who are supposed to manage them.

These are just a few of the disadvantages of virtualisation i have found on the internet related to virtualisation.

Benefits Virtualisation

Virtualisation, Cloud Computing, Green IT, have all been touted as the next big thing in the world of computing. All for the right reasons, because there are several advantages to be had by implementing virtualisation.

Cost Savings – this is one of the major benefits which often cited as a reason for implementing virtualisation.
Firstly when you virtualise, you can cut down on computing equipment like the number of servers you employ. The net effect is a drastic reduction in the amount of energy your company uses. This represents a huge cost savings.
Secondly, by reducing the amount of computing equipment, you are eliminating the need for more space for such equipment. Real estate costs can be a significant part of your costs. Therefore when you do not need more space for equipment, you are saving money. Cost savings of between 50 – 70% have been quoted as typical when virtualisation is implemented.
Thirdly if you run your IT in-house, you will need to employ people to administer your systems. After virtualisation, the number of systems is greatly reduced and therefore your cost of system administration will be significantly cut down.

Simplification of IT – when you virtualize, you simplify your computing, by having for example various applications running on a single server.

Reduce or eliminate need for several upgrades – when you run multiple applications each on their own server, there is the need for you to always upgrade these systems each time there is a new patch for your systems. With virtualisation there is no need for you upgrading (if your systems are outsourced) or you will have fewer systems to upgrade.

Improve efficiency and availability of resources - When you virtualise, your computing efficiency is dramatically improved. You use much less energy as a consequence. One clear advantage of virtualisation is the reduction of energy consumption. When you use less energy, the amount green gas emitted into the atmosphere is reduced. Virtualisation is therefore rightly seen as one tool in the fight against global warming.

Your business is likely to recover more quickly from a disaster (if you were hit by one) when you have virtualized than when you run all your systems in-house.

Strategic advantage – many people nowadays are becoming environmentally aware. As a result more and customers and potential customers are now looking at the green credentials of companies they do business with. If you can present your company as an environmentally friendly company, taking the right actions to protect the environment, this is a plus and can be an advantage to you over your competitors.

To sum up - virtualisation will enable better system and hardware usage; it will curb data centre sprawl, reduce your IT administration cost, by reducing the number of physical machines you have to manage, contribute towards the fight against global warming by reducing the amount of energy you use, and give you a strategic advantage over your competitors.