The Evolution & Benefits of Server Virtualization
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This document discusses the benefits of server virtualization for businesses. It begins by outlining top business challenges such as reacting quickly to market changes and containing costs. It then discusses what businesses demand from IT, including flexibility, cost control, simplicity, continuity, and security. Server virtualization can help meet these demands. The document provides a brief history of virtualization and explains how the virtualization approach abstracts physical hardware and allows for more efficient utilization of servers than the traditional one application, one server model. Key benefits of server virtualization include more efficient utilization rates, reduced power consumption and costs, decreased capital expenditures, enhanced business continuity, more flexible resource allocation, simplified management, and acting as the first step towards cloud computing. The
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The Evolution & Benefits of Server Virtualization
- 1. The Evolution & Benefits of Server Virtualization By: Hitendra Molleti CTO ITP Publishing Group
- 2. Top Business Challenges React quickly to changing market conditions Contain costs and Improve quality of improve productivity products and processes Grow revenues Continually innovate to and customers beat competition
- 3. What do businesses demand from IT? Flexibility Cost Control Simplicity VIRTUALIZATION Continuity Security
- 4. Survival of the Innovative – Doing More with Less “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis’. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity.” John F. Kennedy
- 5. Brief History of Virtualization • An old concept – first virtual machines created on IBM mainframes in early ’60s • Virtualization formed the basis of “time sharing” Time-sharing refers to the shared usage of computer resources among a large group of users, aiming to increase the efficiency of both the users and the expensive computer resources they share. • IBM's CP-67 software used partitioning technology to allow many applications to be run at once on a mainframe computer. • In 1999, VMware introduced virtualization to x86 systems, followed by many vendors like Microsoft, Citrix and more The term Virtualization refers to presenting a single physical resource as many individual logical resources (such as platform virtualization), as well as making many physical resources appear to function as a singular logical unit (such as resource virtualization).
- 6. The Traditional Approach • “One Application, One Server” relationship. • Software and hardware are tightly coupled File Server Mail Server • Underutilised resources introduce real cost into the infrastructure Database Server Backup Server
- 7. Virtualization Approach • Physical hardware is abstracted by a virtualisation layer, or hypervisor • Manage OS and application as a single unit by encapsulating them into virtual machines • Separate OS and hardware and break hardware dependencies • Optimise utilisation levels
- 8. Benefits of Server Virtualization • More efficient utilization rates • Reduced Power Consumption and energy costs • Decreased capital expenditures • Enhanced business continuity • More flexible and efficient allocation of resources • Simplified server management and security • First step towards the CLOUD
- 9. More Efficient Utilization • X86 servers Typically run at utilization rates of 5 to 15% • Virtualization enables businesses to increase server utilization rates to 60 to 80% • Halt to server sprawl • Dynamic resource load balancing, resulting in improved OS & application performance Before Virtualization After Virtualization VMware Solutions Brief: VMware Solutions for SMB
- 10. Reduced Power Consumption • Underutilized x86 hardware is the most significant factor contributing to excessive energy consumption in data centers • Gartner report – “even underutilized servers use high amounts of energy. Increasing utilization levels to 60% and more requires only modest increases in power. The effective use of virtualization can reduce server energy consumption by up to 82% and floor space by 85%" • Virtualization right sizes these major contributors to excessive data center energy consumption • Greener Approach to IT, enables organizations to demonstrate environmental responsibility FACT: • For every dollar spent on server hardware, 70c will be spent on power and cooling over that server’s lifetime • Each server that is virtualized saves 7000 kWh of electricity or about $560, per year. “How VMware Virtualization Rightsizes IT infrastructure to Reduce Costs” 2008
- 11. Decreased Capital Expenditures • Consolidating of servers, enables efficient use of combined infrastructure resources and break away from the traditional model of one server for each application • Simplified migrations, when an OS is tied directly to a piece of hardware, it is complex and costly to migrate • Decreased CAPEX and also facilitate OPEX savings over a longer period of time • Accelerates ROI • Frees up servers for deployment as backup system at remote site FACT: • Gartner “60% of Server workloads will be virtualized by 2014.” “How VMware Virtualization Rightsizes IT infrastructure to Reduce Costs” 2008
- 12. Enhanced Business Continuity • Virtualization makes it affordable and efficient to deploy a backup system at a remote site • Reduced Backup and recovery time. Simple case of backing up and restoring a file. • Periodic Snapshots • Lower cost and management complexity while enhancing efficacy of business continuity plan • Helps set Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) in many cases under an hour – instead of days • Virtualized site recovery directly to the Cloud FACT: • 60 to 90% of companies that don’t have a proactive disaster plan, are out of business within 24 months of experiencing a major disaster Peter Barnes & Andrew Hiles. The Definitive Handbook of Business Continuity
- 13. More flexible use of resources • Virtual infrastructure brings uniformity to the data centre • Rapid Provisioning of servers and applications within minutes, instead of weeks • Dynamically scale to respond to unpredictable market changes and user demands. • Increase in productivity of IT Admins, enabling them to spend more time focusing on business needs. • Lower IT costs through increased efficiency, flexibility and responsiveness FACT: Gartner notes that “virtualization is the highest-impact issue changing infrastructure and operations through 2012. It will change how you manage, how and what you buy, how you deploy, how you plan and how you charge.”
- 14. Simplified Server Management & Security • Accelerated application testing & deployment, by using pre-configured VM templates & profiles • Centralized Resource Monitoring (VMM) and dynamically map computing resources to the environment • Seamless upgrade/maintenance of hardware with zero down time • Patching is safer and more effective • Guest isolation, one guest VM cannot access or even address the “hardware resources” of another guest VM or the host/hypervisor • Better forensics and faster recovery after an attack, easier to isolate compromised applications and quickly revert to a known good snapshot FACT: “Through 2015, virtualization for large enterprises will be about serving as the basis for private cloud computing.” – Gartner
- 15. Myths and Facts Myth Fact Virtual server can burn a big hole in the The primary objective of virtualization is to help you to pocket save money, by making full utilization of IT resources. Virtual machines are more vulnerable to VMs are neither more nor less secure than ordinary security threats physical systems. In fact, it becomes relatively easy to secure a virtual environment. Server virtualization is difficult to operate Virtual systems behave in a similar manner as their and manage physical counterparts. Applications don't migrate easily on virtual Almost any application that is able to run on a physical servers machine will also be functional on a virtual system. Virtual servers are not that efficient With tremendous advancement in technology, virtual machines exhibit more resilience and efficiency. Backup and data recovery are not easy Backup and recovery time is quite less. It is a simple case of backing up a file and replacing during restoration. Server virtualization and licensing Like the physical servers, virtual machines have to follow a problems go hand in hand set of licensing constraints and regulations. Virtualization creates unmanageable Server virtualization doesn't create any kind of sprawl, it in sprawl fact maximizes the utilization of hardware resources.
- 16. Consolidation Scenario Physical servers Physical machines to virtual converted retired or machines repurposed Physical Infrastructure Virtual Machine Hosts
- 17. Top Business and IT Priorities for SMBs Q. What are your firm’s five most important corporate business priorities over the next 12 months? Top Business Priorities Grow overall company revenue Growing revenue Lower operating costs Improve workforce productivity Cost reduction Acquire and retain customers Medium Improve productivity Improve quality of products Small Improve ability to innovate Customer acquisition and Improve business flexibility and resilience retention Drive new market offerings Expand into new geo markets 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% Q. Which of the following initiatives are likely to be your IT organization’s Top IT top technology priorities over the next 12 months? Priorities Upgrade BC/DR capabilities Business continuity Data center/server consolidation No Agenda or and disaster recovery Maintain or implement virtualization Unknown Data center and server Business intelligence and decision-support… Low priority Upgrade our security consolidation Critical/High Mobile/tablet apps priority Maintain or implement Implement/expand collaboration virtualization 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100% Source: Forrsights Budgets And Priorities Tracker Survey, Q4 2011
- 18. Server Virtualization: First step towards the cloud Gartner Roadmap: From Virtualization to Cloud Computing
- 19. Virtualization Enables Deliver the IT Promise Flexibility Cost Simplicity Control VIRTUALIZATION Continuity Security
- 20. Lastly select the right partner to assist you in your project. Questions? Hitendra Molleti CTO, ITP Publishing Group Email: contact@hitendra.me
Notes de l'éditeur
- 1. Flexibility. Businesses that operate across traditional borders must be able to respond to opportunities and challengesfaster than ever before. 2. Simplicity. Less has always been more for enterprises, as an increase in technology has typically led to increasedcomplexity. While per unit costs of technology are always decreasing, in aggregate companies see an increase incost. The pressure is on IT to act less as a cost center and more as a way to increase the profitability of businessUnits. So the IT team is typically in a difficult position, assessing where to try and cut costs while still moving forward with a plan to continually enhance IT services to the business.3. Security. With the growing importance of digital applications and data, the sources of threats to enterprise data havemultiplied dramatically. While businesses do everything that they can to stop these threats in the first place, they stillmust be prepared to recover from these threats as quickly as possible.4. Continuity. As businesses have expanded, the need for anytime, anywhere application access has become arequirement. At the same time, “follow the sun” (global 24/7) operations have shrinking maintenance windows and a need for applications to be running at all times. Delay or loss of data for any reason – system failure, natural disasters– has a domino-like effect across the entire organization, at any time of the day or night.Improve service levels. Keep costs low. Enhance flexibility. Simplify management.
- The economic climate is forcing companies to look for every possible means of increasing efficiency, flexibility and cost effectiveness. Strategic companies will capitalize on the current business crisis to create future opportunities. Server virtualization offers possibilities in an environment where some organizations might be paralyzed with fear. Virtualization involves a long-term strategy. It transforms how a company approaches IT and how companies see their computing needs evolving and how they want to address them.Virtualization is the foundation for building an optimized data center that can help companies improve server efficiency, lower energy costs and enhance IT flexibility.
- While its impact was substantial for mainframe users, it took years before a direct descendant of IBM's work came back to life on X86 platformsIn 1999, VMware introduced virtualization to x86 systems, which VMware points out were not designed for virtualization in the way mainframes were. VMware addressed this with what it called an adaptive virtualization routine that contained the instructions as they're generated and allows other instructions to be passed through without intervention. With this breakthrough they were first on the market with a product that slowly began to attract attention, then accelerated to the point where by 2008, a significant percentage of companies had begun to virtualize a small portion of their not-business-critical applications, and they began carrying out Windows Server backup on their new virtual machines.
- The proliferation of multiple system platforms, often resulting from mergers and acquisitions and the lack of an overall IT strategy, leads to challenges in responding to business demands. IT executives have to deal with infrastructures that are complex and often disconnected. What follows are extra administrative, utility, facilities and management costs, and escalating requirements for data center space, as well as service and maintenance issues. Typically when this happens, a company’s technology infrastructure costs slip out of control. Server virtualization can become a compelling approach to getting control over server infrastructures. Divergent paths–complex and costly IT systems colliding with business requirements for efficiency and agility–created an environment ripe for virtualization.
- Virtualization's roots go back to the 1960s and IBM, where programmer Jim Rymarczyk was deeply involved in the first mainframe virtualization effort. According to a NetworkWorld article, IBM's CP-67 software used partitioning technology to allow many applications to be run at once on a mainframe computer. While its impact was substantial for mainframe users, it took years before a direct descendant of IBM's work came back to life on X86 platforms. In fact the existence of virtualization as a concept went largely unremarked for the nearly two decades of the rise of client/server on x86 platforms. Still, it served as a powerful inspiration for VMware to reviving the concept and apply it to x86 machines.In the late 1990s, the issues that made caused IBM to application virtualization on its mainframes had begun to impact IT administrators substantially enough for VMware to step in and begin to apply its own virtualization model. These included low x86-platform server utilization, where perhaps 10-15% of server capacity was used, and rising costs associated with electrical power use, cooling and a fast-growing server and storage footprint.With increased complexity came expanding administrative costs driven by the need to hire more experienced IT professionals, and the need to carry out a wide variety of tasks, including Windows Server backup and recovery. These actions required more manual intervention in processes than many IT budgets could support. Server maintenance costs, especially those tied to Windows Server backup, were climbing and more personnel were required to work through an increasing number of day-to-day tasks. Just as important were the issues of how to limit the impact of server outages, improve business continuity and create more robust disaster recovery plans. VMware addresses the issueIn 1999, VMware introduced virtualization to x86 systems, which VMware points out were not designed for virtualization in the way mainframes were. The problem centered around nearly 20 instructions that could cause application termination or system crash when they were virtualized. VMware addressed this with what it called an adaptive virtualization routine that contained the instructions as they're generated and allows other instructions to be passed through without intervention. With this breakthrough they were first on the market with a product that slowly began to attract attention, then accelerated to the point where by 2008, a significant percentage of companies had begun to virtualize a small portion of their not-business-critical applications, and they began carrying out Windows Server backup on their new virtual machines.Piling on the bandwagonBy the late 2000s, VMware had attracted quite a bit of attention and they were joined by several other vendors offering virtualization solutions, some with better Windows Server backup solutions than others, though VMware continues to hold steady with nearly a three-quarter share of the hypervisor market. Only Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor has garnered a significant percentage of the rest of the market, followed by Citrix's XenServer. Still, the potential for the market is so big that the competition will continue, augmented in part with a fast-rising investment in the sector by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, MSPs and longtime IT industry players who offer virtualization as part of cloud and offsite computing services.
- Allows operating systems and applications to take advantage of the performance increases in processor, memory, network and disks speedThe primary sales message for advocating virtualization is that companies are leaving money on the table–a high percentage of servers are woefully underused.
- Single application servers usually have their processor sit idle for 80-85% of the time, which consumes nearly as much power and requires nearly as much cooling, compared to when they are activeEnergy—Less Is More Businesses are under increasing pressure to proactively address environmental concerns. While the primary drivers for companies to consider virtualization are improved business agility, speed, and cost benefits, green computing initiatives deliver a by-product: the benefit of an environmentally sound business practice. It can enhance corporate valuations and reputations for responding to sustainability and compliance requirements.
- Essentially, server virtualization helps maximize hardware use by aggregating more applications and services onto fewer pieces of hardware, while maintaining operating system separation. So server virtualization enables applications and services to safely coexist on the same server hardware, yet within multiple operating systems. Server virtualization can make an organization really see green — and not just via the technology’s impressive energy savings. Significant cost savings can be achieved by reducing server numbers, maintenance and floor space as well.
- Delay or loss of data for any reason – system failure, natural disasters – has a domino-like effect across the entire organization, at any time of the day or night.
- • A compromised machine can be cloned in it current compromised state for forensic analysis• Once cloned the VM can be immediately restored to a known good snapshot which is much fasterthan a physical server, reducing the impact of a security-related event• You can quickly revert to a previous state if a patch is unsuccessful, making you more likely toinstall security patches sooner• You can create a clone of a production server easily, making you more likely to test security patchesand more likely to install security patchesMost security issues arise not from the virtualization infrastructure itself but from operational issues• Adapting existing security processes and solutions to work in the virtualized environment• Most security solutions don’t care whether a machine is physical or virtual• The datacenter and its workloads just became a much more dynamic and flexible place• The risk of misconfiguration requires use of best practices specific to virtualization
- Security Best practicesSeparate and Isolate Management NetworksAlways secure virtual machines like you would physical servers• Anti-virus• Patching• Host-based intrusion detection/prevention• Use Templates and Cloning to enforce conformity of virtual machinesMost security issues arise not from the virtualization infrastructure itself but from operational issues• Adapting existing security processes and solutions to work in the virtualized environment• Most security solutions don’t care whether a machine is physical or virtual• The datacenter and its workloads just became a much more dynamic and flexible place• The risk of misconfiguration requires use of best practices specific to virtualizationSmall Code Footprint of Hypervisor is Big AdvantageVarious Claims of Guest Escape• Don’t affect Bare-Metal Platforms only hosted platforms• Not exactly escape nor a hypervisor vulnerabilityFuture: Leveraging Virtualization to Provide Better Security• Better Context – Provide protection from outside the OS, from a trusted context• New Capabilities – view all interactions and contexts• CPU• Memory• Network• Storage
- Virtualization is the foundation for building an optimized data center that can help companies improve server efficiency, lower energy costs and enhance IT flexibility.
- Virtualizing your infrastructure is the beginning of the journey to the cloud. Cloud computing provides additional cost savings and results in a zero-touch infrastructure with full automation across the board.
- Virtualization is the foundation for building an optimized data center that can help companies improve server efficiency, lower energy costs and enhance IT flexibility. Virtualization enables IT Departments to make a shift from a ‘Cost Center’ to a ‘Business Enabler’Take a holistic approach that ensures all dependencies, such as business and IT parameters, are considered. Deploy in phases to help reduce costs and keep risk within comfortable parameters. Reuse reliable assets, which can support minimal downtime and minimal impact on users. Always secure virtual machines like you would physical servers• Anti-virus• Patching• Host-based intrusion detection/prevention• Use Templates and Cloning to enforce conformity of virtual machinesVirtualization allows you to:Improve service levels. Keep costs low. Enhance flexibility. Simplify management.Maximize your current resourcesConsolidating your servers allows you to combine infrastructure resources and break the traditional model of only having one application per server.Increase availability of hardware and applicationsSecurely back up and migrate entire virtual environments without interruptions in service. This improves business continuity by eliminating planned downtime and immediately recovering from unplanned issues.Improve operational flexibility and responsivenessDynamically scale to respond to unpredictable market changes and user demands. The ability to provision servers faster allows administrators to spend more time focusing on business needs.Take the first step on the path to cloud computing
- Future: Leveraging Virtualization to Provide Better Security• Better Context – Provide protection from outside the OS, from a trusted context• New Capabilities – view all interactions and contexts• CPU• Memory• Network• StorageSecurity Best practicesSeparate and Isolate Management NetworksAlways secure virtual machines like you would physical servers• Anti-virus• Patching• Host-based intrusion detection/prevention• Use Templates and Cloning to enforce conformity of virtual machinesMost security issues arise not from the virtualization infrastructure itself but from operational issues• Adapting existing security processes and solutions to work in the virtualized environment• Most security solutions don’t care whether a machine is physical or virtual• The datacenter and its workloads just became a much more dynamic and flexible place• The risk of misconfiguration requires use of best practices specific to virtualizationSmall Code Footprint of Hypervisor is Big AdvantageVarious Claims of Guest Escape• Don’t affect Bare-Metal Platforms only hosted platforms• Not exactly escape nor a hypervisor vulnerability