The benefits of virtulization come directly from the flexibility that it allows.

There are three scenarios discussed here that show what the flexibility of some form of VM solution can provide.

1.  Disaster Recovery Opportunities.

Traditional DR strategies around failover, system and whole site replication and third site options rely on similar server and operating systems to make them viable. Data recovery is a problem solved long ago and IT operations are more than familiar with incremental backups, snapshots and recovery.  As more businesses begin to realise that systems/applications are increasingly mission critial the applications themselves need to be more resilient.  
    
Having to have replicated server environments for Windows, Unix and/or Linux means that many Data Centres are over designed and carrying unused capacity just in case one architecture dependent application fails.
    
This is where the power of virtualization becomes a tangible benefit. Owning or leasing some short term capacity in it’s cheapest form (either Windows or Linux) could be a solution for many enterprises.  In essence all you need to buy is CPU time and memory to host a guest VM soltion of your application.  The data may be in the cloud or on portable storage that can be easily accessed by the stood up virtualized platfrom.
    
Needless to say the focus then becomes on well trained administrators who are comfortable with working with hybridized solutions and not a single flavour of architecture.
    
2.  Pre Sales Demonstrations.

Virtualized platforms are a must for the average pre-sales or training consultants.  No lenghty installs are required and you are no longer reliant on the right hardware being in the right place at the right time.  Now you can take a VM solution of your application either as part of an image on your laptop or on a portable USB drive.
    
The benefit is the ability to pre-configure the scenarios in advance of the session but still have the flexibility to model new scenarios as the demo evolves.  Most VM solutions allow for persistent or non-persistent storage so this allows a quick recovery if you have deviated away from your configuration that you might need in the next session.
    
The only limitations are processing power and disk, but with high end laptops and portable USB drives with up to 1TB of storage this should not be  limiting factor for most demo systems.

It’s akin to having your test server in your laptop bag or suitcase.
    
3.  Massively Parallel Processing.

Having worked with a Unix based billing system that like most billing solutions has to deal with peak loads for rating and billing processing virtualization could offer a solution to a common problem.
    
Typically disk is a cheap and well used resource that can be added to an expanded.  There will always be a need to manage such a resource effectively but CPU and memory in enterprise servers are expensive and less easy to add in a 24×7 production server.  Even planned downtime can severely impact on the SLA of the billing department.
    
Virtualization can work in two ways in such a situation.
    
Lunchtimes and out of hours there is an untapped resource of idle CPU and memory in distinct units, the common desktop on the employees desk.  If these are Windows PC’s (which most are) then a VM solution that allows you to run a unit of rating or billing in a hosted Unix or Linux Virtual Machine allows you to distribute the processing across the available computing power of the enterprise.  Even as a stop gap solution to handle abnormal peak loads (SMS sent on New Years Eve, phone calls made in the aftermath of a terrorist event) or a longer term transition to more CPU and Memory on the production server virualization allows for this to happen.
    
New Linux version of Suse, Ubuntu and Redhat are becoming more and more usable for the average end user.  The interface looks familiar and in a time of web clients a browser run on XP has the same functionality as one run on Suse 11.0.
    
So what prevents enterprises from mass adoption of Linux clients? the inertia of trying to replace Microsoft Office is usually cited as a reason. Despite the efforts OpenOffice or GoogleDocs don’t have the same draw. The answer is a VM solution to allow users to run Office applications on their Linux clients.
    
Alternatively adoption of application virutalization options like the Mono Project or Wine allow Windows applications to be run directly in the Linux environment without the need for guest virtual machines.
    
With the release of freeware options like VirtualBox, virtualization is set to become a growth area.  With the focus on green data centres and new domains (e.g. Healthcare) starting to understand the need for cost effective DR strategies 2009 should be a good year for the proponents of virtualization.

 

David Mould is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight from David Mould and other experts, please visit www.insightcommunity.com.