Virtualization in the computer world is probably one of the most up and coming technologies currently available. In my opinion it is the future (and in the opinion of *many* others), not just because it allows for easier manageability of servers and more recently, workstations; but because it helps contribute to our ever valiant efforts at saving the environment.

For those of you who are unsure what I’m talking about, think of virtualization like this, the ability to consolidate hardware, the ability to improve reliability, the ability to reduce administrative overhead, and (this is a big and), the ability to lower operating costs.

Now that I have your attention, let me get you listening a little more intuitively, VMware (the leader in virtualization technology), has made available their introductory virtualization hosting software for FREE (yes free!). VMware Server as it’s called is designed to run on any x86 (or x64) based platform and enables us IT guys to play around with virtualization without breaking the bank. While it isn’t designed for production use, it is an excellent way to see how virtualizing (yes that isn’t a real word, but it’s fitting) your servers can help with all of those abilities that I mentioned above.

Imaging consolidating 10 servers down to 1, or being able to host full development environments, complete with workstations, on a single server. VMware makes it possible through their extensive line of virtualization products.

VMware server products are valuable tools for organization of all sizes. It may seem like virtualization is designed strictly for enterprise sized organization with 100’s of servers, maybe when it was first introduced, but not anymore. With server applications becoming more and more resource intensive, no longer is it feasible to host domain services, e-mail service, web services, and database services on the same server. But, if it isn’t feasible to host all of those items on the same server, is it really feasible to purchase a second server, third, or fourth server to host those applications? The answer is…not really. While yes you do want to segregate your production services and servers to avoid one application bringing down your entire infrastructure. By having a dedicated server for each application not only are you wasting resources on purchasing and maintaining the physical machines, but the actual resources of the servers are being wasted.

Try this little test, go to one of your servers and start Performance Monitor (Start à Run à ‘perfmon’) and now let it run all day, now check back to view the average processes usage. I checked my domain controller and the average processes usage was less than 7%! What does that mean? Well, quite simply that 93% of my server’s processes power is being wasted! Now imagine if I implemented a server that enabled Virtualization, with one server using less than 10% of the resources, I could technically have 10 servers in one!

The possibilities of virtualization are endless, take a look at our server virtualization page for more details, or contact us for more advanced information. Check back soon for more articles on virtualization, that is, only if you are interested in saving money