MMIS 627 Deliverable-B

MMIS 627
Deliverable-B

Scott Leith
December 2, 2007

TOPIC # 7: Review at least five vendors that focus on server virtualization or any level of virtualization. Discuss the types of products and services these vendors have and indicate the customers that use these services.

TITLE: Virtualization delivers more value from the information resources companies already use.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Statement of the problem... 3
Body of the Paper.. 3
Advantages of virtualization... 3
Who benefits from virtual servers. 4
Types of virtualization and their application. 6
Conclusion. 7
Reference List.. 8
Bibliography.. 8

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The labor of delivering more value to the organization out of its information resources without increasing costs seems to be a paradox. Value is tied to productivity, or the product of the work and resources expended. Information technology departments need to fully utilize the resources they already have in order to create value without using additional work and resources (Burry, 2003). They also need to get the most value out of the time already being invested. In today’s competitive market, companies cannot afford to waste their information or human resources and so they must employ the tools that let them maximize their potential. Companies must achieve gains in software development, desktop deployment and maintenance, hardware costs, server management, security, and efficiency of business continuity planning (McAllister, 2007).

BODY OF THE PAPER

ADVANTAGES OF VIRTUALIZATION

Virtualization can create gains in productivity throughout the Information Technology environment. First and perhaps most obviously, virtual servers such as VM Ware or Solaris Containers reduce hardware costs because multiple servers can be hosted on a single chassis (McAllister, 2007). Organizations can get more out of their hardware investment. Most servers are not fully utilizing the hardware resources, particularly the processors. Companies should more completely utilize the computing resources in the hardware that they already pay for. Businesses implementing load balancing or redundancy can do so without investments in new hardware (Burry, 2003).

Benefits include improvements in utility as well. Virtual servers can be installed almost as quickly as a computer can be started up. System Administrators can migrate a new server to a production environment, create new instances of a server for load balancing, and recover from failures much faster than if they had to rebuild or reconfigure a device. The virtual servers become device independent, some even platform independent. Any servers running the virtual host operating system can have new servers deployed quickly to them (Burry & Nelson, 2004).

Further productivity gains can be achieved in business processes by putting virtualization to work. Testing of new configurations, applications, or code can be done safely and with repeatability in a virtual environment. A developer can quickly recreate a heterogeneous environment on a single laptop.

WHO BENEFITS FROM VIRTUAL SERVERS

Virtual server applications are not exclusive to large enterprises. These days anyone can find an aspect of virtualization that works for them. While grid computing remains a technology found only in large organizations, small businesses can benefit from reduced hardware costs as much or more than their larger counterparts. Developers in any corporation reap rewards in security and convenience (Burry & Nelson, 2004). Even home users benefit when they surf the Internet with impunity from the security of a virtual desktop environment.

The Small Business case for virtualization is simple. Reduced hardware costs come from hosting several or nearly all services on a single or pair of servers. Disaster recovery goals are met because all the company needs to do is acquire a new piece of hardware and start the virtual machines again (Burry & Nelson, 2004). Managing the services is easy because they are all on one device with the same or similar environments and configurations (Burry, 2003). Often times fewer licenses are needed. This is true of Solaris Zones which focus on dedicating resources to multiple services instead of running multiple instances of an operating system. Furthermore, with the trend of small business toward using Linux, open source virtualization software such as Xen is maturing. This makes virtualization feasible even in open source environments (Cummings, 2006a).

For large organizations, the major draw is the efficiency of virtualization. Server performance can be improved through creating multiple instances of a service and using load balancing. A single service can hang from poor coding or resource intensive queries but the one service cannot hog the server’s resources because it is only allowed a predefined portion of the resources. Also virtual machines install very quickly and are easily replicated so companies can move services quickly from development to production. Virtualization is more efficient in the datacenter as well. Resources such as space and energy consumption are more efficiently used by virtual servers as is server management efforts. Grid computing uses a network of servers and distributes the load among them from a central point. In this part hardware abstraction, part virtualization, and allows companies to maximize the use of their hardware resources (Cummings, 2006b).

Gains on the development side include more than the speedy transfer of virtual machines from development to production. Developers can create and test their products on virtual machines isolated from the organization’s production environment. Developers can quickly create or import systems into this virtual machine’s environment by running them on the same computer or on the same small network. This way the development system can be tested with all the production systems without being on the production network – all in a very short amount of time (Burry & Nelson, 2004).

Another group who benefits from virtualization is private users at home. Virtualization allows for absolute security on a user’s PC. Users can work with in their virtual environment without worrying about how it will affect their files or purchased software. Users can surf the Web from a virtual machine without fear because the virtual machine can completely isolated and any changes from malicious code or malware need not be saved. This is a common tactic of information security professionals who are wary of the Internet.

TYPES OF VIRTUALIZATION AND THEIR APPLICATION

Virtualization products can be divided into four categories: full virtualization, para-virtualization, OS-level virtualization, and hardware virtualization. Full virtualization involves running multiple complete instances of an operating system on a single device. Software called a hypervisor coordinates access to the hardware resources by the operating systems. Practically any operating system can be run on this type of virtualization and they need not be the same OS. Examples of this type of virtualization are VMware, Microsoft Virtual PC, and KVM (kernel-based virtual machine) for Linux. A drawback to this type of virtualization is that the hypervisor must use the processor too and so the processor is not completely devoted to production (McAllister, 2007).

Para-virtualization is more limiting than full virtualization but it is also more efficient. In para-virtualization each OS is aware that it is running as a virtual machine. This is restrictive in that it requires the OS support virtualization by the hosting hypervisor. However, the guest OSes cooperate with the hypervisor and host OS to allow the hypervisor to run more efficiently and reduce the strain on the processor (McAllister, 2007). Xen is an example of this type of virtualization. It is specific to Linux however because it requires modifications to the kernel of the guest OS and this is not possible on proprietary operating systems (Cummings, 2006a).

OS-level virtualization does not employ a hypervisor. Hardware resources are allocated to the virtual servers by the operating system. The operating system maintains the virtual servers as independent from one another but they are not independent of the host OS. As such, all virtual servers run the same operating system. Though less flexible, this incarnation of server virtualization is faster and easier to manage. Examples of OS-level virtualization are Sun Containers and Virtuozzo/OpenVZ for Linux (McAllister, 2007).

The latest trend in virtualization is hardware virtualization. Intel and AMD have included in their latest x86 chipsets support for virtualization in their hardware. The chipsets manage “virtual server access to I/O channels and hardware resources” alleviating the most processor-intensive tasks of the hypervisor. This technology also allows servers to employ para-virtualization without modifying the operating system. One barrier for this type of virtualization is that software must be written specifically to support the hardware virtualization. This makes newer software necessary (McAllister, 2007).

CONCLUSION

Virtualization is becoming the solution of choice for a multitude of challenges. Support for virtualization will soon be found in all new products as companies continue to find new uses for it. This should be on every network or system architect’s mind because the benefits are compelling and they are not exclusive to a single environment. Quite the opposite, with all the different types and applications of virtualization, it can be employed by everyone. Even home users can benefit from virtual environments. It reduces hardware and energy costs, eases system management, increases efficiency, and maximizes the contribution of computing resources.

REFERENCE LIST

Burry, C. M., & Nelson, C. (2004, January 21). Plan on server virtualization. Computerworld. Retrieved October 20, 2007, from http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,89232,00.html.

Burry, C. (2003, June 18). Server consolidation: Steps to IT and business rationalization. Computerworld. Article 82228. Retrieved October 20, 2007, from http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=82228&intsrc=article_pots_side.

Cummings, J. (2006a, November 11). Linux virtualization heats up. Networkworld. Retrieved November 30, 2007, from http://www.networkworld.com/buzz/2006/111306-virtualization-side1.html.

Cummings, J. (2006b, November 11). Virtualization hits the big time. Networkworld. Retrieved November 30, 2007, from http://www.networkworld.com/buzz/2006/111306-virtualization.html.

McAllister, N. (2007). Server virtualization. Infoworld. Retrieved October 20, 2007, from http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/12/07FEvirtualserv_1.html.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rich, A. (2004, September 4). Spotlight on Solaris Zones feature. Sun Microsystems. Retrieved November 25, 2007, from http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/solaris_zones.jsp.