Virtualization: The Future Is Now
Why Now Is The Time To Move From Physical Machines To Virtual Machines
Introducing Virtualization
Virtualization offers the ability for multiple operating systems to reside on the same physical machine regardless of whether the OS is an older legacy system or a newer system. Linux and Windows can even co-exist on the same machine. Software known as a Hypervisor then takes a layered approach to management, acting as a mediator between these Operating Systems
and the hardware that they reside on. The hardware is partitioned in such a manner that the virtualized solutions can run side-by-side, sharing resources as needed and without interfering with each other. The Hypervisor manages the drivers for the operating systems, and keeps a strict list of hardware requirements minimizing the risk of not having the drivers that it needs.
Many advocates of virtualization use a Storage Area Network (SAN) to link virtualized servers together. References are made to the popular “black box” example, which states that software doesn’t necessarily need to know what’s going on within the resource it is relying on, as long as the resources are available to the software as it expects them to be. This approach allows applications to operate within their own “containers”, or virtual machines.
Virtualization By The Numbers
- 540,000 virtual machines existed worldwide in 2006.
- According to research firm Gartner, there could be as many as 4,000,000 virtual machines by 2009.
- A 20 watt virtual machine requires only 10 watts of cooling from HVAC.
- A 200 watt physical machine requires 100 watts of power to run proper HVAC equipment.
Benefits Of Having Virtual Machines Can Include:
- Reduced need for upgrades
- Simpler system upgrades when necessary
- Improved security and fault tolerance
- Improved redundancy
- More efficient disaster recovery
- Consolidated workloads
- Allowance of legacy software to run on new hardware (under warranty) reducing risk and costs of maintenance
- Isolation from other virtual machines. (When one virtual machine fails, other machines continue running
- Independence from changes in physical hardware
- Virtual machines are easy to image
- A virtual machine can be cloned many times
- Corporate green initiatives
Consolidation
There are many reasons for an enterprise to consider virtualization; primary among them being better resource utilization. Most servers are under utilized, with average CPU usage at 10% at any given time. If an enterprise runs multiple servers, each using only 10% of its available resources, then 90% of the resources is squandered. Using this example, the enterprise could benefit from virtualization by reducing the number of servers it relies on, and instead fully utilize the resources from the servers it has.
Before virtualization, data centers would build out their infrastructure well above normal requirements in preparedness for business opportunities or sudden emergencies. This largely unused surplus takes up space and still requires power, as well as cooling to counteract the heat that each machine produces. Underused investments realistically don’t provide any return for a data center.
Consider that as present equipment ages, or warranties run out, new equipment must be introduced to take its place. New business demands often require more memory, or more space. A transition to newer equipment must happen without causing interruption to ongoing business needs and with the least amount of downtime possible. This can be a big job, considering it’s likely that the company’s day-to-day operations are hosted on these systems. A virtualized solution makes it possible to migrate legacy hardware out of the datacenter, and new equipment in without suffering significant downtime. Since all datacenters have to contend with managing aging servers, upgrading to newer, more efficient solutions is a relevant concern for anyone with a web presence.
By leveraging virtualization a company can:
- Reduce the amount of space being used
- Reduce power consumption
- Reduce the financial investment on hardware
- Reduce the load on cooling mechanisms by reducing overall heat production
Disaster Recovery
If business is impacted with even minor downtime, then prolonged downtime due to disasters can destroy a companies reputation altogether. Most companies understand this, and have a business continuity plan in place. These disaster recovery plans detail how to preserve business assets and functionality in the event of a disaster. Disaster recovery can include preventive measures that can either reduce the potential loss in a disaster or detail disaster responses that secure the assets and functionality as soon as primary operations cease.
Due the immense potential that virtualization has on business continuity, disaster recovery is the second most important reason to consider virtualization.
By encapsulating a server’s applications, OS, and data into a small set of files, virtual machines are positioned as hardware agnostic and extremely portable. This enables an accelerated recovery period. Comparatively, data centers that have not consolidated through virtualization have more data spread over more hardware, and do not have the flexibility of shared resources to expedite a full backup, meaning a much more cumbersome, time consuming, and detail intensive recovery period.
Case Study
As a case study, Hosting.com consolidated 60 legacy servers utilizing VMware’s ESX Server virtualization software. We focused on consolidating such assets as web servers, servers with miscellaneous applications, and statistics servers.
- We consolidated 60 servers down to 6 physical servers --a 10 to 1 ratio-- and reduced the physical server footprint by 75%.
- We reduced our Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for a physical machine from 24 hours to 30 minutes.
- We reduce the data center footprint for the consolidated equipment by 70%.
- We realized annualized costs savings of over $100,000 due to the smaller data center footprint, lower power costs, and reduced personnel expense, which provided a tremendous return on investment (ROI).
We did not apply virtualization to any “high transactional” servers, such as database servers (SQL), email servers (Exchange), or any I/O intensive servers. These servers are not necessarily good candidates for consolidation since up to 15% of server resources go toward the actual process of virtualization. If a server is already using a higher percentage of resources, then performance could actually be sacrificed by virtualization. Servers with high resource utilization rates must be analyzed on a case by case basis, depending on the expectations of that server.
The key step in creating the best virtualized solution is a thorough analysis of the current consumption of resources. Months before we consolidated our servers using virtualization, we took detailed performance metrics on the servers we considered candidates to become “virtual machines”. This is even more important in the case of resource intensive servers. Is this server a good candidate for virtualization? What amount of virtualized resources would be appropriate for this solution? Hosting.com’s Professional Services team can be engaged to provide
reporting of performance metrics, graphs, reports as well as metrics that detail historical data (before the consolidation), and current data (after the consolidation).
Once the best virtual solution has been engineered, the conversion can begin. A conversion from a physical machine to a virtual machine can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 12 hours.
There are two types of conversions, a “live” conversion, or an “off line” conversion. A “live” conversion is done while the server is up and running. Depending on the scale of the conversion, this can take an estimated downtime anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes. An “offline” conversion is done by bringing the server down entirely. This type of conversion is more appropriate for busy servers, and therefore, downtime varies.
Why Use Virtualization?
The reasons to consider virtualization continue to grow at an exponential rate. With the Hypervisor in place, virtual machines become “hardware agnostic”; allowing them to run on almost all traditional x86 servers.
Using virtualization, benefits include the flexibility that one machine can run many virtual machines, resources are easier to consolidate, patches are easier to apply, changes and upgrades are easier to implement. Furthermore, virtual machines are easier to restore, streamlining disaster recovery. Simply put, virtualized machines allow provisioning at a much faster rate. Consolidation through virtualization offers effective solutions to disaster recovery, while actually improving the overall available footprint in a datacenter, and lowering costs. This approach enables a datacenter to position itself for growth. Ask yourself: Which would be more manageable: 60 physical machines, or 60 virtual machines?
Simply put, there is a better way to do things. Hosting.com is already enjoying tremendous success with virtualization in our own infrastructure, and we are eager to help you take full advantage of all of the great benefits that enterprise virtualization can provide you.
Media Contact
If you have any questions regarding the content found in our newsroom, please contact:
Aaron Hollobaugh
Communications Director
(502) 214-4102 Tel
(502) 214-4150 Fax