Why Is Virtualisation So Important?

As an IT professional, you are use to change; changes in requirements, changes in service demands, new applications, new users, the list is endless and the only constant factor is the need to change.

More and more organisations are looking towards consolidation and virtualisation as being the way to keep pace with such change and lay the necessary dynamic IT foundation on which new and the ever increasing flow of requirements can be met.

Through consolidation and virtualization, businesses can achieve a simpler, more scalable, more cost-efficient IT infrastructure that aligns more flexibly with emerging requirements. However, Virtualisation is not a new thing; it originated around 40 years ago, yet over the past few years it has taken on a new life in a number of contexts: virtual servers to virtual storage, optimised networks, workstations in virtualised environments, and application virtualisation. Across all of these areas, virtualisation delivers some significant benefits:

• Decreasing IT costs and business risks
• Increasing operational efficiency and flexibility
• Simplifying deployment and management
• Enhancing overall business resilience
• Enabling new forms of innovation.

Virtualisation and server consolidation is something that cannot be ignored. Working with the right partner to find the most effective solution for your business is paramount. At b2Lateral, we are independent IT infrastructure specialists who understand every aspect of virtualisation and can help to recommend the most appropriate options for your business. To start you off, we thought we would share some of the basics with you.

What is Virtualization?
The goal of virtualisation in its basic form is to abstract a form of technology away from its original environment and to redeliver it in a virtual form. For example, to abstract an application from its physical server dependency and deliver it back in an instance of an operating system running independently from the platform.

The benefit of doing this is that you break the dependency the technology has on a physical device and as such, are able to operate multiple technologies on a single device, each operating in their own virtual environment.

The best example of this is where virtualisation is used to consolidate many physical servers into multiple logical servers that can be deployed onto fewer physical servers.

Why Is Server Consolidation Important?
As we have grown the amount of applications we use in our businesses, we have in most cases proportionally grown the amount of servers we require. Server sprawl is an issue we all face; it is not just the physical problem of where we put all of these servers, it is also the cost of buying them, managing them, powering them and cooling them. What is more, each time you add a new server, you are increasing the number of points of potential failure within your IT network.

By reducing the amount of servers we have, we can:

• Reduce IT management time
• Reduce risk of failure
• Reduce power consumption
• Reduce support & maintenance costs
• Better align resources to demand

What Is Virtualised Storage?
Traditionally we have allocated storage to each physical server and we have all experienced the consequences. As the data stored by each application and user grows, we run out of physical storage and our only option is to upgrade the hard drives on the server and spend valuable IT time performing data migration.

It is often the case that you will have some devices with an abundance of free storage, while other servers are in desperate need for expansion. Virtualised Storage is a means for you to pool storage resource across all of your servers and dynamically allocate this on a per application basis, effectively redistributing storage capacity as and when needed.

The benefits are obvious; you instantly gain the benefits of a much larger storage pool and utilise the storage you have available far more effectively.

Creating Virtual Workstations
A traditional workstation environment contains a high-end desktop computer featuring local storage, local processing, local applications and local data. While it can be repurposed to serve new business functions on demand, that process will typically require new software and new configuration from IT staff. Similarly, giving someone else the use of that workstation will involve changing its location (or the user’s). In these senses, it represents a classic example of a literal IT implementation in which an asset is tied to dedicated hardware and is, for this reason, relatively inflexible.

A virtualized Workstation environment, by contrast, overcomes these shortcomings through a completely different configuration. The entire workstation environment associated with that workstation is hosted remotely and accessed via software that delivers that environment over an IP network. The end user accesses a workstation in a window, with all the applications and data that would have been available on a literal workstation now delivered via virtual servers.

There are multiple benefits delivered to the business through workstation virtualisation including:

• Reduce cost of desktop workstations
• Reduce costs of workstation management
• Greater mobility to users
• More responsive and dynamic services to users
• Greater security and IT control

So Why Is Virtualisation So Important?
Well as you have seen above, it can impact every aspect of your IT infrastructure. It can individually and collectively reduce hardware costs, improve reliability, reduce mundane IT management tasks, but most importantly, provide greater control and flexibility to both IT and the users of IT.

To find out more about the different virtualisation approaches and technologies available, contact b2Lateral on +44 (0)844 664 2565, or email us at info@b2lateral.net and we will connect you with one of our virtualisation specialists.