x86 Server Virtualization

First Steps: x86 Server Virtualization

The concept of virtualization as a technology has been around for several years but if you’re new to virtualization it can be puzzling, laced with very IT-specific language that may baffle the lay person. If that’s the case then hopefully this first blog, in a series of two, will help simplify this hot topic.

In essence, the concept of IT virtualization is about rationalizing IT resources and can involve virtualizing servers, desktops and/or applications; and, importantly it’s also the basis for a whole range of cloud computing solutions being delivered today by service providers. This first blog will cover the key aspects of x86 server virtualization, but will be followed by a blog on desktop and application virtualization.

x86 Server Virtualization - What’s the problem it’s solving?

One of the key problems encountered by IT management is the management premise that they need to continually deliver more (IT services), with less; this has been a major thorn in the side of IT infrastructure managers for many years. Add to this the fact that just keeping the “lights on” in their data centres almost completely absorbs most of their budgets – anything from 70% to 95%. Analyst firms such as Gartner and Forrester claim slightly different statistics but it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that monies available for new hardware/infrastructure investments can be as low as 5% of their overall IT budgets. That’s a problem when you start coming to the end of your server technology refresh period.

Server virtualization itself is about consolidating multiple applications on fewer physical servers. During the Windows NT era in particular (from 1993 to 2003 and beyond) it became common practice for companies to run one application per server – but when a company has literally 100’s of applications this inevitably resulted in a proliferation of servers and so called server “sprawl”. Thus the primary benefit of ring-fencing an application on its own server so that either a hardware or software fault couldn’t bring down another application running on the same server eroded as associated operating and maintenance costs started to rise. Add to this the fact that each server required an excess of CPU, memory, networking and storage to run efficiently; and, so was effectively “over resourced”.

Consolidation of servers & pooled hardware resources

With the emergence of x86 server virtualization technologies in 2001 it then became possible to run multiple virtual machines (even running different operating systems), each one being partitioned separately on a single physical machine. The beauty here is that each virtual machine shares the system resources of the one physical machine.

Improved management of the virtual platform and High Availability on clustered systems

A key aspect of virtualization is its inherent flexibility – particularly in clustered configurations. As virtual machines can be encapsulated (creating a file image of a complete system) this means that they can be quickly moved across different physical machines – much like moving a file across a network. This means that if a hardware fault develops on a server the application can be rapidly moved from one physical machine to another. This also means that data and applications can be recovered in a matter of minutes; and, if any applications need to be shifted around (live migrations) to balance the workload on a physical machine (i.e. they are starting to demand more performance than this machine can deliver) or for server maintenance, this can be done in real-time without the user even knowing.

Such improvements in speeding up operational processes and server deployments (allowing for proactive provisioning of new, virtual servers and applications according to needs) means that fewer staff are required to maintain and manage the server infrastructure. This is reinforced by further benefits including creating better disaster recovery solutions and improving server reliability.

x86 Virtualization Vendors

According to Gartner in their x86 server virtualization magic quadrant (June 2012), there are only 6 key players, with the original innovator, VMware, retaining a significant lead in the market. However, VMware is being chased by both Microsoft and Citrix – having both pushed into the “Leaders”quadrant during 2012. They are followed by Oracle in the “Challengers” quadrant and by Parallels and Red Hat in the “Niche Player” quadrant.

Conclusion

With server virtualization technologies having been around over a decade then you would imagine that almost all data centres and servers would be virtualized, especially given the great claims for the technology. Well, Forrester claims that only about 50% of servers around the globe are virtualized which does seem odd. Indeed, vendors such as VMware claim that their virtualization customers can save up to 50-70% on their overall IT costs by consolidating their resource pools and delivering highly available machines… it’s a seemingly compelling argument for virtualization.

But what is hidden within these bare facts is that, although the technology has matured, Enterprise customers are still reluctant to add virtualization to their business critical applications for fear of negative performance impact; and, at the other end of the scale there are many SMBs that simply don’t have a large enough IT infrastructure to warrant virtualization. So the drive from 50% of servers being virtualized to 90% or 100% may be a slow march!

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