Virtualisation: from server and desktop to the network

Momentum is gathering apace thanks to the cloud and a drive toward efficiency and security, as Brian J Dooley finds

Virtualisation lies at the heart of the current evolution of IT infrastructure. Server virtualisation has been demonstrated to provide efficiency and to cut costs in the datacentre. Desktop virtualisation is beginning to change the way in which companies deploy services to users. Both have been evolving rapidly as cloud computing continues to advance and as security, management and deployment issues are addressed.

Enterprise storage giant EMC sees an important infrastructure shift in introduction of virtualisation. “Virtualisation now presents an accepted means of deploying x86-based server computing,” says product manager Darren McCullum. “The sheer horsepower in server hardware today makes it completely uneconomical to continue to deploy servers and applications on a one-to-one basis.” EMC provides VMware integrated storage, management, backup, recovery and security.

McCullum sees a range of benefits from deploying virtualisation, among which are:

• Capital cost savings through buying less physical hardware

• Lower operational costs due to less power being required, less physical real estate, less cooling and so on

• A more responsive IT environment. VMs (virtual machines) can be deployed in minutes, whereas a traditional physical server could take weeks to procure, install and commission

• A greater user experience as planned downtime can all but be eliminated from the infrastructure

• Improved disaster recovery and more efficient test and development environments.

“Virtualisation is in the unique position of touching almost all aspects of IT infrastructure – from management, through to backup/recovery, networks, compute, desktop, security and of course, storage,” says McCullum. “To truly get the most value from a virtualisation deployment, organisations should look at their entire IT infrastructure and look to make the changes that best enable virtualisation, and best enable the management and automation of that environment over time. “