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How would you define virtualization?
I'm working with my IT Director to propose a new IT strategy to our board- virtualization. Neither of us are very good at explaining IT concepts in "layman's terms," so I was wondering if anyone out there could help us out with how you would explain, or define, the concept of virtualization to your board of directors? We definitely need to cut costs across the board, and think virtualization is the best way to go, but our problem is being able to clearly explain this to our higher-ups. Any advice?
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7 Answers
In the simplest terms -- Vitualization allows you to use less hardware to run multiple operating systems.
What types of virtualization are you wanting to do? My two personal favorites are: server virtualization - where you run multiple server operating systems on the same hardware; and desktop virtualization - this means you can run a thin client (cheap computer) and push the desktop environment from the server to the workstations. This has many advantages over the normal thick client environment.
Virtualization is an abstraction. What you are doing is adding a layer between the hardware and the virtual operating systems. This layer becomes the go between for the physical hardware and the virtual machines. It handles all the requests that the virtual machines make to use the physical resources (processor, bus, ethernet card, etc.)
VMware offers some fantastic solutions in these areas. You could also go the Microsoft platform route, but some of it's product are not quite up to par with VMware.
These videos might help:
Server Virtualization - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnNX13yBzAU
Desktop Virtulization - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11o-Pq_Z_s4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsKxOsHpios
And here's a Virtualization Overview PDF from VMware: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/virtualization.pdf
Good Day David:
My understanding of virtualization from a hosting perspective is the ability, though technology, to segment a physical server into one to many virtual machines that when accessed directly appear to be independent servers.
There are a number of technologies which allow virtualization to take place; and each of them has their pros and cons.
In terms of trending, consider the Internet (as Darpanet) came out in 1968/1969 (Al Gore did not create the Internet), email in 1971, FTP in 1973, DNS in 1984, the first browser in 1992, the commercialization of the Internet in 1994, the DOT com bust starting in 2000 (thank Jesus we survived it), virtualization is still relatively new in the hosting arena (it started more in the desktop space taking off there before it really hit the hosting market).
Initial implementations were very proprietary and subject to a lot of failure / bugs. Like a lot of new products on the market, marketing and advertising told one story, while real life told another story.
Over the past two years, in the hosting market place, we've seen VMWare and Citrix XenServer take off.
The key benefits of virtualization in the hosting market place are as follows:
* Physical Server consolidation
* Isolation of logical services which can greatly aid in PCI compliance and overall security.
* The ability to maximize the utilization of the CPU, RAM, hard drive of the physical server.
In terms of practical examples:
* One of our partners who co-locates most of their equipment is saving hundreds of dollars per month on co-location fees by reducing the electric and rack space foot print of equipment through server consolidation using Citrix XenServer.
* Our own company is doing something very similar to the said partner reducing our main infrastructure from 15 servers down to 2 physical severs running Citrix XenServer.
* Most of our managed service customers automate their hosting operation using Parallels H-Sphere (yes, we are a hosting provider that helps other hosting providers); H-Sphere is a multi-server, multi-operating system control panel and automation suite.
Some of the SMB H-sphere hosting providers in the past ran their entire operation on one physical server which made PCI compliance hard to attain. By still using one physical server whose logical servers are isolated from one another through VMWare or XenServer, they can more easily reach PCI Compliance. Their costs typically stay the same, but they can do more with what they have on hand.
As you can guess, there's a lot more to virtualization than what's in this post; and I think all of us in the field are still in the infancy stages of learning.
Thank you.
I explain it to non-techie people in a very simplistic way. Although by no means technically accurate the visualization works.
We're coming full circle with virtualization and cloud computing technologies. Big Iron is back in the data center, secured and maintained by professionals. Users get to keep their pretty GUI whereas applications, data, operating systems and whatnot a secured and looked after by IT. This delivers the benefits of security, interoperability and application consistency. Many current pitfalls in regards to data security, virus's, malware, application compatibility are either virtually eliminated or addressed by pro's who know how to fix the issues. Users Apps and data will always be available to them from anywhere, and soon, from any type device. Think iPad and coming similar pad devices.
IBM was right! Nobody needs a desktop computer! They were just 30 years of the mark.
Take a look at this explanation (pictures included ;):
http://www.atum.com/what_is_vps_hosting.php
When presenting to the Board of Directors, I've found the less technical information the better. And if using a PowerPoint presentation, less verbiage, but more meaningful.
So, according to Webster's dictionary, Virtual means 'in effect but not in fact'.
As it relates to your IT projects, it means simulating hardware with software. And to the board, it means you can do more with less, with potentially better business continuity recovering from 'disasters'. It means you can bring up a virtual development environment to simulate your production environment without needing to duplicate hardware across the board, and by shutting down development you can increase capacity for business needs during peak demands.
Our explanation here with a video sums up virtualization nicely: http://www.ers.ie/Blog/post/What-is-Virtualization-An-Introduction-to-Server-...
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