Virtual Cloud Module 1 PDF

PRINCIPLE OF VIRTUALIZATION Module 1 Introduction to Virtualization What is Virtualization?, Why You Need Virtualization ?, Virtualization in Current IT scenario , Comparing Virtualized and Non- Virtualized Environment. Und...

PRINCIPLE OF VIRTUALIZATION Module 1 Introduction to Virtualization What is Virtualization?, Why You Need Virtualization ?, Virtualization in Current IT scenario , Comparing Virtualized and Non- Virtualized Environment. Understanding Virtualization Technologies: Server Virtualization - Operating system Virtualization, Hardware Emulation and Para-virtualization, Client Virtualization - Application Packaging, Application Streaming and Hardware emulation and Storage Virtualization. 1 2 History of Virtualization The virtualization concept is believed to have its origins in the mainframe days in the late 1960s and early 1970s. IBM invested a lot of time and effort in developing robust time-sharing solutions. Time-sharing refers to shared usage of computer resources among a large group of users, aiming to increase the efficiency of both users and expensive computer resources they share. Due to virtualization, the cost of providing computing capability dropped considerably and it became possible for organisations, and even individuals, to use a computer without actually owning one. The capacity of a single server is so large that it is almost impossible for most workloads to effectively use it. The best way to improve resource utilisation and at the same time simplify data centre management, is through virtualization. Datacenters today use virtualization techniques to make abstraction of physical hardware, create large aggregated pools of logical resources consisting of CPUs, memory, disks, file storage, applications, networking and offer those resources to users or customers in the form of agile, scalable and consolidated virtual machines. Source: https://www.slideshare.net/adityathatte/session-1-fdp 3 4 The Need for x86 Virtualization Virtualization was neglected during the 1980s and 1990s when the client-server applications and inexpensive x86 servers and desktops established the model of distributed computing Rather than sharing the resources centrally in the mainframe model, organisations started using the low cost distributed systems to build large computing capacity. The growth in x86 server and desktop deployments has introduced a new IT infrastructure and operational challenges. Following are some of the challenges faced while using x86 server: Low Infrastructure Utilisation: Increasing Physical Infrastructure Costs: Increasing IT Management Costs: Insufficient Failover and Disaster Protection: High Maintenance End-user Desktops: Source: https://www.probrand.co.uk/it-services/vmware-solutions/history-of-virtualisation 5 Low Infrastructure Utilisation: Typical x86 server deployments achieve an average utilisation of only 10% to 15% of total capacity, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), a market research firm. Organisations typically run one application per server to avoid the risk of vulnerabilities in one application affecting the availability of another application on the same server. Increasing Physical Infrastructure Costs: The operational costs to support growing physical infrastructure have steadily increased. Most computing infrastructure must remain operational at all times, resulting in power consumption, cooling and facilities costs that do not vary with utilisation levels. 6 Increasing IT Management Costs: As computing environments become more complex, the level of specialised education and experience required for infrastructure management personnel and the associated costs of such personnel have increased. Organisations spend disproportionate time and resources on manual tasks associated with server maintenance, and thus require more personnel to complete these tasks. Insufficient Failover and Disaster Protection: Organisations are increasingly affected by the downtime of critical server applications and inaccessibility of critical end-user desktops. The threat of security attacks, natural disasters, health pandemics and terrorism have elevated the importance of business continuity planning for both desktops and servers. High Maintenance End-user Desktops: Managing and securing enterprise desktops present numerous challenges. Controlling a distributed desktop environment and enforcing management, access and security policies without impairing users’ ability to work effectively is complex and expensive. Numerous patches and upgrades must be continually applied to desktop environments to eliminate security vulnerabilities. 7 8 Why virtualization is required in IT industry? IT enterprises are implementing the concept of virtualization over the recent years due to its size, budget, staffing and resource constraints. Out of which, the budget and resource utilities have lead to heavy impediments for their exponential growth. IT challenges, such as, low server utilisation, complex server-storage migration, inefficient server deployment, increased total cost of ownership, server sprawl, high-availability requirements, disaster-recovery complexity, green IT requirements, automation and policy driven management have led to the innovation called virtualization. Virtualization is a technology to run multiple same or different operating systems which is completely isolated from each other. For instance, Run both Windows and Linux operating systems on the same machine. 9 Why virtualization is required in IT industry? Virtualization is a technology to run multiple same or different operating systems which is completely isolated from each other. For instance, Run both Windows and Linux operating systems on the same machine. Virtualization is a technology that can benefit computerized commercial businesses and government organizations. Virtualization enables creating virtual machines on physical machines using software It is a proven software technology that is rapidly transforming the way that people compute. Source: https://cloudtweaks.com/2012/12/the-history-of-virtualization/ 10 Why Virtualize? Following are the reasons for virtualization: Server Consolidation and Infrastructure Optimization Physical Infrastructure Cost Reduction Improved Operational Flexibility and Responsiveness Increased Application Availability and Improved Business Continuity Improved Desktop Manageability and Security Source:http://www.mpcl.in/virtualisation.html 11 Factors that justify the need for virtualization Following justifies the need for virtualization: Energy Management Hardware and Operating Costs Availability of Resources Uninterrupted Business Continuity Disaster Recovery Plans 12 Case Study of Virtualization Retail Chain Eases IT Manpower with Desktop Virtualization Malaysia's supermart giant Mydin reduces the time needed to roll out new software patches from 120 man-hours to just 15 minutes and minimises the maintenance of thin-client devices due to desktop virtualization. When it decided to deploy desktop virtualization, retail giant Mydin had the usual concerns associated with bandwidth and user resistance. So it focused most of its efforts on assuring employees about the benefits and is now reaping the rewards from better utilisation of its IT resources. The Malaysia-based supermarket chain chalked up 2.1 billion ringgit (US$650.16 million) in revenue last year and is targeting to hit 2.5 billion ringgit (US$774 million) this year. It manages more than 200,000 items daily and is looking to open another three new hypermarkets over the next two years. For more details refer: http://www.zdnet.com/article/case-study-retail-chain- eases-it-manpower-with-desktop-virtualization/ 13 Server Virtualization Case Study of Server Virtualization The Challenge Shelco had a number of servers reaching the end of their lifecycle. In today’s environment, it was imperative for Shelco to find a cost-effective way to improve the end user’s experience with Shelco systems. Rather than replacing hardware, Shelco was looking to virtualize on a SAN. The Solution AT-NET Services, Inc. installed a server virtualization solution utilising Cisco UCS Servers, VMware, and a NetApp Storage Area Network (SAN). The virtual server solution included: Physically staging the servers and SAN, configuration of the local network, servers and SAN, virtualizing seven servers, configuring backups and performing administrative training. The Impact “The completed project has enabled Shelco to replace our aging physical servers with virtual machines. SAN performance has improved our end user experience and provided an enhanced capability for backup and disaster recovery planning. Our interaction with the AT-NET team was outstanding. They did an outstanding job of understanding our needs and tailoring the initial proposal to win the job.” Source: https://www.expertip.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/shelco.pdf 14 What is Virtualization? Initially the computer hardware was designed to run a single operating system and a single application as shown in the following Figure 1, leaving most machines vastly underutilised. Figure 1: A Physical Machine Figure 2: Virtualization Architecture Source: https://blogs.sap.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/figure1_462528.png Source: https://blogs.sap.com/2014/05/28/a- brief-intro-of-virtualization-and-vmware-esxi/ The solution to the above problem is virtualization. Virtualization is the ability to run multiple operating systems on a single physical system and share the underlying hardware resources as shown in Figure 2. Virtualization is one of the hardware reducing, cost saving and energy saving technology that is rapidly transforming the IT landscape and fundamentally changing the way that people compute. In computing, virtualization means to create a virtual version of a device or resource, such as a server, storage device, network or even an operating system where the framework divides the resource into one or more execution environments. 15 Before and After Virtualization 16 What is virtualization? (Continued..) Virtualization is a proven software technology that is rapidly transforming the IT landscape and fundamentally changing the way people compute. Today’s powerful x86 computer hardware (x86 is a generic name for the series of Intel microprocessor families that began with the 80286 microprocessor) was originally designed to run only a single operating system and a single application, but virtualization breaks that bond, making it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same computer at the same time, increasing the utilisation and flexibility of hardware. Virtualisation is a technology that can benefit anyone who uses a computer, from IT professionals, commercial businesses and government organisations. Join millions of people around the world who use virtualization to save time, money and energy while achieving more with the computer hardware they already own. Source: http://www.tuscom.com/home/networks/virtualization/ 17 18 19  How does Virtualization Work? In essence, virtualization lets you transform hardware into software Use software, such as, VMware ESX to transform or “virtualize” the hardware resources of an x86-based computer including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller — to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications just like a “real” computer Multiple virtual machines share hardware resources without interfering with each other so that one can safely run several operating systems and applications at the same time on a single computer 20 21 Virtual Machine A virtual machine is a tightly isolated software container that can run its own operating systems and applications as if it were a physical computer A virtual machine behaves exactly like a physical computer and contains its own virtual (that is, software-based) CPU, RAM hard disk and network interface card (NIC) An operating system can’t tell the difference between a virtual machine and a physical machine, nor can applications or other computers on a network. Even the virtual machine thinks it is a “real” computer Nevertheless, a virtual machine is composed entirely of software and contains no hardware components whatsoever. As a result, virtual machines offer a number of distinct advantages over physical hardware Benefits of Virtual Machines: Compatibility: They are compatible with all standard x86 computers. Isolation: They are isolated from each other as if physically separated. Encapsulation: They encapsulate a complete computing environment. Hardware independence: They run independently of underlying hardware. Source: http://www.tuscom.com/home/networks/virtualization/ 22 Jargons in Virtualization (Continued..) Hypervisor If virtualization is defined as the enabling multiple operating systems to run on a single host computer, then the essential component in the virtualization stack is the hypervisor. This hypervisor, also called Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), creates a virtual platform on the host computer, on top of which multiple guest operating systems (a guest OS is the software installed on either a virtual machine or partitioned disk that describes an operating system that is different from the host operating system) are executed and monitored. This way, multiple operating systems, which are either multiple instances of the same operating system, or different operating systems, can share the hardware resources offered by the host. Hypervisors are commonly classified as one of the following two types: Type 1: Native or Bare Metal Type 2: Hosted 23 Type 1 or Bare Metal Hypervisor A bare-metal virtualization hypervisor does not require admins to install a server operating system first Bare-metal virtualization means the hypervisor has direct access to hardware resources, which results in better performance, scalability and stability One disadvantage of a bare-metal virtualization hypervisor is that hardware support is typically more limited, because the hypervisor usually has limited device drivers built into it Bare-metal virtualization is well suited for enterprise data centres, because it usually comes with advanced features for resource management, high availability and security. Admins can centrally manage this kind of virtualization hypervisor, which is critical when you one have has many hosts in their virtual infrastructure The most popular bare-metal virtualization hypervisors are: VMware ESX and ESXi Microsoft Hyper-V Citrix Systems XenServer 24 Type 2 or Hosted Hypervisor Unlike the bare-metal virtualization hypervisor, a hosted hypervisor requires you to first install an OS. These hypervisors are basically like applications that install on a guest OS. This approach provides better hardware compatibility than bare-metal virtualization, because the OS is responsible for the hardware drivers instead of the hypervisor There are some disadvantages with bare-metal hypervisor; a hosted virtualization hypervisor does not have direct access to hardware and must go through the OS, which increases resource overhead and can degrade virtual machine (VM) performance Hosted hypervisors are common for desktops, because they allow you to run multiple operating systems. These virtualization hypervisor types are also popular for developers to maintain application compatibility on modern operating systems The most popular hosted virtualization hypervisors are: VMware Workstation, Server, Player and Fusion Oracle VM VirtualBox Microsoft Virtual PC Parallels Desktop searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Understanding-hosted-and-bare-metal-virtualization-hypervisor-types 25 Characteristics of Virtualization Virtualization has three characteristics that make it ideal for cloud computing: Partitioning: Runs multiple operating systems on one physical machine Utilises server resources completely Supports high availability by clustering virtual machines Isolation: Isolates faults and security at virtual machine level Dynamically controls CPU, memory, disk and network resources per virtual machine Encapsulation: Encapsulates the entire state of the virtual machine in hardware independent files Saves the virtual machine state as a snapshot in time Re-uses or transfers whole virtual machines with a simple file copy 26 Basic Virtualization Technologies / Types of Virtualization : Proxmox Proxmox is a free, open source server virtualization product with a unique twist: It provides two virtualization solutions. It provides a full virtualization solution with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and a container-based solution OpenVZ. VMware VMware is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter and on up to the cloud. VMware was founded in 1998 to bring theconcept of virtualization to industry standard x86 systems. The concept of virtualization had been known since the 60ies mainframe world but for a long time no one was able to “crack the code” for bringing this concept to x86 systems. Xen Xen is capable of virtualizing x64 servers. Xen follows the Open Source (Free) licensing model and is specifically meant for Enterprise use and choose this technology to implement experiments of this research , user can find more details about Xen technology 27 Different types of virtualization Server Virtualization: Server virtualization allows for more than one server to operate on the same piece of hardware. Desktop Virtualization: Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it. Application Virtualization: In application virtualization, a given application is a single platform that can be executed on virtually any other machine. Network Virtualization: Network virtualization is using network resources through a logical segmentation of a single physical network. Storage Virtualization: Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Server Virtualization Server virtualization is the most active segment of the virtualization industry featuring established companies, such as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix With server virtualization one physical machine is divided into many virtual servers At the core of such virtualization is the concept of a hypervisor (virtual machine monitor) A hypervisor is a thin software layer that intercepts operating system calls to hardware. Hypervisors typically provide a virtualized CPU and memory for the guests running on top of them. The term was first used in conjunction with the IBM CP-370 Source: http://slideplayer.com/slide/3293493/ 29 Server Virtualization For this slide topic ( For Explanation and diagrams : Refer PDF notes page : 16 to 21) Why Virtualization ? Different Types of Server Virtualization (Explanation & Diagram) Full virtualization , Para virtualization, OS level virtualization What is Operating System Virtualization / OS Virtualization ? 30  Benefits of Server Virtualization Increased Hardware Utilisation Security Development Source: https://www.infoq.com/articles/virtualization-intro 31 Desktop Virtualization Desktop virtualization is a virtualization technology that separates an individual's PC applications from his or her desktop Virtualized desktops are generally hosted on a remote central server, rather than the hard drive of the personal computer The client-server computing model is used in virtualizing desktops, desktop virtualization is also known as client virtualization Benefits of Desktop Virtualization include: A lower total cost of ownership (TCO) Increased security Reduced energy costs Reduced downtime and centralised management 32  Application virtualization is running an application on a thin client (a thin client is a lightweight computer built to connect to a server from a remote Application Virtualization location; the server does most of the work, which can include crunching numbers and storing information for the thin client) A terminal or a network workstation with few resident programs and accessing most programs residing on a connected server The thin client runs in an environment separate from, sometimes referred to as being encapsulated from, the operating system where the application is located Benefits to application virtualization include: Requiring fewer resources compared to using a separate virtual machine Allowing incompatible applications to run on a local machine simultaneously Maintaining a standard, more efficient and cost-effective OS configuration across multiple machines in a given organisation, independent of the applications being used Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/573/application-virtualization 33 Network Virtualization Network virtualization refers to the management and monitoring of an entire computer network as a single administrative entity from a single software- based administrator’s console Network virtualization is designed to allow network optimization of data transfer rates, flexibility, scalability, reliability and security Benefits of Network Virtualization include: Customisation of Access: Administrators can quickly customise access and network options, such as, bandwidth throttling and quality of service Consolidation: Physical networks can be combined into one virtual network for overall simplification of management Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/655/network-virtualization 34 Storage Virtualization Storage virtualization is the process of grouping the physical storage from multiple network storage devices so that it looks like a single storage device. The process involves abstracting and covering the internal functions of a storage device from the host application, host servers or a general network in order to facilitate the application and network-independent management of storage. Benefits of Storage Virtualization include: Migration: Data can be easily migrated between storage locations without interrupting live access to the virtual partition with most technologies. Utilization: Similar to server virtualization, utilisation of storage devices can be balanced to address over and underutilisation. Management: Many hosts can leverage storage on one physical device that can be centrally managed. Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4798/storage-virtualization 35  Overall Benefits of Virtualization Virtualization can increase IT agility, flexibility and scalability while creating significant cost savings Workloads get deployed faster Performance and availability increases Operations become automated, resulting in IT that's simpler to manage and less costly to own and operate Reduce capital and operating costs Minimise or eliminate downtime Increase IT productivity, efficiency, agility and responsiveness Provision applications and resources faster Enable business continuity and disaster recovery Simplify datacenter management Build a true software-defined datacenter 36 Virtualization use cases There is perhaps no better use case for virtualized desktops than in education sector: Desktop virtualization combined with a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) consumption model is a great fit for education By offering Desktops as a Service (DaaS) to the students, schools/colleges/university can reduce costs and complexity while delivering significant enhancements to the learning experience Rather than a school providing a system, with DaaS students are assigned a desktop virtual machine that they connect to over the network Source: https://blog.equinix.com/blog/2011/12/21/desktop-virtualization-use-cases-education/ 37 Virtualization vendors in IT industry VMware VMware dominates the server virtualization market Its domination doesn't stop with its commercial product, VMware vSphere VMware also dominates the desktop-level virtualization market and perhaps even the free server virtualization market with its VMware Server product VMware remains in the dominant spot due to its innovations, strategic partnerships and rock-solid products Source: https://www.vskills.in/certification/tutorial/cloud-computing/vendor-offerings/ 38 Virtualization vendors in IT industry (Continued..) Microsoft Microsoft came up with the only non-Linux hypervisor, Hyper-V, to compete in a tight server virtualization market that VMware currently dominates Not easily outdone in the datacenter space, Microsoft offers attractive licensing for its Hyper-V product and the operating systems that live on it For all Microsoft shops, Hyper-V is a viable solution that has only gotten more competitive in the virtualization space with each new Windows’ Server release Microsoft has also been steadily gaining traction with enterprises looking to leverage the company's Azure cloud services as well as those interested in managing both on-premises Hyper-V services and Azure service Source: https://www.vskills.in/certification/tutorial/cloud-computing/vendor-offerings/ 39 Virtualization vendors in IT industry (Continued..) Citrix Citrix was once the lone wolf of application virtualization, but now it also owns the world's most-used cloud vendor software called Xen (the basis for its commercial XenServer) Amazon uses Xen for its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service and so do Rackspace, Carpathia and SoftLayer Source: https://www.vskills.in/certification/tutorial/cloud-computing/vendor-offerings/ 40 Virtualization vendors in IT industry (Continued..) Red Hat For the past 15 years, everyone has recognised Red Hat as an industry leader and open source champion Hailed as the most successful open source company, Red Hat entered the world of virtualization in 2008 when it purchased Qumranet and with it, its own virtual solution: KVM and SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment) Red Hat released the SPICE protocol as open source in December 2009. The company's renowned Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) desktop and server virtualization platform is based on the KVM hypervisor and Red Hat's Enterprise Linux (RHEL) server operating system RHEV is based on open standards and works with Linux and Windows, as well as enterprise applications, such as, SAP, SAS and Oracle Source: https://www.vskills.in/certification/tutorial/cloud-computing/vendor-offerings/ 41 Virtualization vendors in IT industry (Continued..) Oracle If Oracle's world domination of the enterprise database server market doesn't impress you, its acquisition of Sun Microsystems has made it an impressive virtualization player. Additionally, Oracle owns an operating system (Sun Solaris), multiple virtualization software solutions (Solaris Zones, LDoms and xVM) and server hardware (SPARC). What happens when you pit an unstoppable force (Oracle) against an immovable object (the Datacenter)? You get the Oracle-centred Datacenter. Source: https://www.vskills.in/certification/tutorial/cloud-computing/vendor-offerings/ 42 Google Ganeti The company's open source Google Ganeti cluster virtual server management software tool is built on top of existing virtualization technologies, such as, Xen or KVM and essentially serves as a wrapper around these hypervisors to help system admins set up clusters. Source: https://www.vskills.in/certification/tutorial/cloud-computing/vendor-offerings/ 43 Virtualization Adoption Trend Source: https://www.slideshare.net/beldeninc/data-center-trends 44 Players of Virtualization as per Gartner’s Magic Quadrant 2016 Figure: Virtualization Gartner Magic Quadrant 2016 Source: Source: Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure, Authors: Thomas J. Bittman, Philip Dawson, Michael Warrilow, Aug. 3, 2016 45  Virtualization in Current IT scenario Virtualization usage has soared to great heights in IT. Thanks to hypervisors (such as, Hyper-V and VMware ESXi) and their ability to run multiple operating systems on a single computer, IT departments have reached new levels of efficiency and better usage of precious compute, storage and memory resources. In fact, according to the 2016 Spiceworks State of IT report, more than 76% of organisations are taking advantage of virtualization today and that number will continue to grow in the future. Now let us take a closer look at operating systems and virtualization. Figure: Showing the growth of virtualization in IT Source: https://community.spiceworks.com/networking/articles/2462-server-virtualization-and-os-trends 46  HARDWARE EMULATION AND PARAVIRTUALIZATION Paravirtualization is an enhancement of virtualization technology in which a guest OS is modified prior to installation inside a virtual machine (VM) in order to allow all guest OSes within the system to share resources and successfully collaborate, rather than attempt to emulate an entire hardware environment. 47 48 WHAT IS CLIENT VIRTUALIZATION? Client virtualization simulates a user's desktop experience, but separates the desktop from the hardware, OS and applications. The simulated client desktop or virtual machine (VM), runs on a physical host server which is running virtualization software called a hypervisor. Many virtual clients can run on one host server with each client having different user properties, data, applications and even operating systems. This allows users to seamlessly access their regular desktops from inexpensive low-end, thin-client or shared machines. Types of Client Virtualization ✓ Presentation virtualization ✓ Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) ✓ Application virtualization Two flavour of Client Virtualization : i) Application Packaging ii) Application Streaming 49 Comparing Non-Virtualized and Virtualized Environment Non-Virtualized Single OS image per machine Software and hardware tightly coupled Running multiple applications on same machine often creates conflict Inflexible and costly infrastructure Virtualized environment Hardware-independent operating system and applications Virtual machines can be provisioned to any system Can manage operating system and application as a single unit by encapsulating them into virtual machines Source: https://www.vmware.com/pdf/virtualization.pdf 50 Case Studies Showing Benefits of Virtualization in Enterprises Over the past few years, virtualization has transformed the traditional datacenter Countless businesses have reduced energy and hardware costs as more IT professionals realise the benefits of virtualization For companies that demand more computing power, virtualization can help deliver improved performance without the need for an expanded facility or additional cooling infrastructure Case study 1: Financial Services Company Running Out of Space As computing needs continued to grow, an online financial services company faced a problem all too common in today’s datacenters. The company was running out of space to house physical servers and its existing cooling infrastructure couldn't keep up. New workloads meant addition of physical systems and valuable time was spent configuring those systems and balancing power distribution. Finally, the company turned to server virtualization technology to help solve its space problems and improve efficiency. Today, the company is 75% virtualized and runs 200 VMs on just 10 physical servers, leading to an estimated 33% savings in power use. Source: http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Case-studies-show-the-benefits-of-virtualization 51 Case Study 2: Architectural Firm Uses Storage Area Network Technology in its Virtualization Rollout Storage area networks (SANs) have become commonplace in the modern data centre and are especially valuable for virtual systems. However, it is critical to plan and budget for all the technology needed to properly deploy and manage a SAN Planning ahead is also essential for identifying the potential costs that could surface beyond the initial SAN deployment and is key to realising the benefits of virtualization This case study shows what happened when an IT solution provider supported a data centre virtualization project for an architectural firm that did not budget for licensing costs and SAN management tools Source: http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Case-studies-show-the-benefits-of-virtualization 52 Case study 3: Healthcare Provider Sees Benefits of Virtualization Virtualization isn't just for large datacenters supporting enterprise businesses. Even smaller organisations can use virtualization technologies to improve performance, as evidenced by this case study of a New York healthcare provider The company's director of IT was frustrated by frequent downtime caused by aging servers and had to manoeuvre his way through long-expired warranties and self-maintenance, and eventually turned to server virtualization software This case study illustrates why a well-built virtual infrastructure is often more reliable than its physical equivalent. It also demonstrates the other benefits of virtualization that can be realised, including high availability and increased reliability Source: http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Case-studies-show-the-benefits-of-virtualization 53