Tech Sizzlers: Computing without Hassles

NEW DELHI, INDIA: How about expanding the computing resources across the enterprise at the same time optimsing on the hardware and software? Such a thought might be dismissed unrealistic a decade ago, but today skeptics were nowhere in sight as enterprises embrace Virtualization-the hottest tech in the town.

The market for Virtualization remains bullish, going by an IDC report; it estimates that the share of virtualized servers alone is bound to double from the current 22 per cent  to 45 per cent by the end of this year. What’s driving Virtualization are its defined benefits it brings to table.

For instance once the IT environment gets virtualized the complexities in terms of management of servers, storage and the desktops come down drastically.

Experts say that virtualization has passed the hype curve and its adoption is increasing by the day. According to IDC virtualization will become mainstream during 2008 by virtue of its defined benefits and as a result will lead to wide-scale adoption.

In an Indian context enterprises across verticals are adopting virtualization. Moreover IDC estimates the share of virtualized servers to double from the present 22 per cent  to 45 per cent by end of 2008.

In addition to benefits like ease of management and better resource utilization, enterprises are increasingly becoming aware of additional benefits like design densities, power and cooling.

A key Technology

Virtualization is rapidly being deployed in server, storage, networking, as well as client environments. By far the most visible adoption of virtualization technology is happening in servers, from the largest UNIX server down to the smallest volume system.

Virtualization is being used as a tool for consolidation, a means to reduce space and power requirements, and more recently as a way to bring business continuity to a larger part of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Virtualization also infuses   agility into the data centers so that it may quickly adapt itself in order to provide necessary IT infrastructure for supporting a business decision.

The key to these benefits is that virtualization encapsulates the software stack and decouples it from the underlying hardware. This means customers get both consolidation and mobility benefits, which is clearly a challenge in a non-virtualized environment.

Aligning IT with the business goals is the fundamental premise of any IT deployment.  As business expands, companies need to be able to quickly deploy new IT services and applications but can no longer afford the high costs of energy, real estate, and complexity associated with server sprawl.

Seeking increased business agility, enterprises are looking to virtualization technologies to get more out of their computing resources.

Types of Virtualization

Experts say that Virtualization can be implemented by a variety of ways. The decision to go in for Virtualization and at what level of virtualization that is required is driven by the heterogeneity of the enterprises computing infrastructure. For instance, on the servers Virtualization can be achieved at a hardware level by what is popularly known as domaining.

Here a server system may provide the flexibility of virtualization along with features like electrical isolation such that   hardware faults or changes cause minimal disruption while providing maximum flexibility.  

Virtualization can also be achieved at a software level using what may be termed as a hypervisor.  The hypervisor software is a layer that sits just above the hardware (called baremetal hypervisor) or just above an operating system (called hosted hypervisor) and provides an environment where in it can facilitate the simultaneous functioning of multiple operating systems. 

Another abstraction of software virtualization is OS virtualization also called as containers or zones. It provides the ability to create several independent OS instances or user space instances giving a feel of a completely independent server from a user perspective.

This form of virtualization is very light and imposes very little or nil penalty on the system unlike many of the hypervisor based virtualization. 

Another form of virtualization is Virtualized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Here the entire desktop environment goes Virtual. One can create multiple virtual systems and provide the same functionality of a physical desktop.

Notwithstanding the type of virtualization, the end result enterprise accrue is simplified management of their digital assets.