There's a new wind of change blowing in the IT industry today. It's called virtualization--specifically, guest operating system (OS) or hardware virtualization. Guest OS virtualization is a software layer that allows users to simulate a physical machine and run one or more virtual machines (VMs) on top of a single physical host. This opens up many opportunities for users looking to create testing, training or development environments, provide secure virtual desktop environments, reduce the number of physical boxes to manage, all while opening up vast possibilities in business continuity.

IMPACT OF GUEST OS VIRTUALIZATION

Guest OS virtualization is probably the most popular of the many different types of virtualization - and for good reason.

Guest OS virtualization provides the features of a physical machine with considerable savings in power, cooling and space requirements. There are thousands of servers today running at less than 10 percent utilization — and many are running at less than 5 percent utilization. Each of these servers is drawing a full amount of power, requiring a full amount of cooling, and requiring a full amount of space in datacenters around the world.

Then consider that, when properly configured to run guest OS virtualization, the same server can actually run between 10 and 20 virtual machines, servers or desktops. Each of these virtual machines does not require its own power, each does not generate its own heat and each does not require space, yet each of these virtualized computers can offer up all of the same services it did while running on a physical machine.

Even better, each virtual machine is nothing more than a set of files on a disk somewhere. So when users take a physical instance of a server and convert it to a virtual instance — effectively performing a Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion--they transform the physical machine into a set of files in a folder. Then once it is in this state, it can be moved it from server to server, shut down, rebooted, and more - without any significant performance degradation!

Just think of what can be done with virtualized desktops by placing them in virtual instances on a server and giving users remote access to the enclosed and controlled environment a virtual desktop provides. They can be used to test patch and service pack deployment, provide support in multi-system environments, provide training to end users and technicians alike, or simply provide controlled environments. When testing or training is done, just reset the virtual machine back to its original state and its back in business, saving significant time.

In addition, the monetary savings associated with Guest OS virtualization are incredible. First, there are significant savings due to the avoidance of hardware purchases. Second, there are software savings.

For example, software manufacturers such as Microsoft have changed their software licensing models to support virtualization. Buying a license of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition now grants you up to four free virtual instances of the OS. Buying a license of Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition gives you the right to run an unlimited number of virtualized instances of any Windows Server OS. Microsoft has even made a license calculator available on their Web site ( www.microsoft.com/ windowsserver2003/ howtobuy/ licensing/ calculator.mspx).

Third, consider the power savings. Each single desktop system removed will reduce power consumption by 650,000 kilowatt-hours per year. Next, consider the cooling savings and finally, think of the space savings. With organizations everywhere running out of space in their datacenters, guest OS virtualization has a significant impact as it frees up valuable real estate and reduces cooling requirements.

Power companies everywhere are looking to guest OS virtualization as a means of reducing energy costs and turning data centers into greener pastures. For example, California's Pacific Gas and Electric Company is now offering rebates to customers if they begin a virtualization project to reduce their power consumption and heat generation (www.pge.com/ hightech).

Guest OS virtualization vendors are abundant, but three main vendors — VMware, Microsoft and XenSource (acquired by Citrix) - have taken the market by storm. Running any of these vendor products lets users virtualize any environment, whether it involves training, testing, development or even production. And what's more, each of these vendors offers free versions of their tools.

MANAGING MIXED ENVIRONMENTS

While virtualization brings very powerful offerings to the datacenter and to IT professionals worldwide, it also has inherent issues. All VM's are stored within folders and files on their host machines, and because of this, it's really easy to provision and proliferate VM's. For instance, a user would take machine number one's files and copy them to create machine number two, repeat to create machine number three, repeat again for number four and so on.

However, all machines - even virtual ones - need to be managed. It's true that companies save on hardware management, but IT administrators still need to manage the OS, update it, secure it, deploy software to it and perform other general administration tasks on it. And in addition, there is now an additional, virtualized layer to manage.

All of this can be a big time drain on IT resources. In a recent survey of IT professionals in mid-market organizations, King Research found that one of the biggest challenges IT professionals face today is working with many different tools to manage existing infrastructures. On average, IT professionals have to access up to six different tools to perform complete end to end management. A majority of respondents said that their biggest challenge was learning to use each of these tools effectively.

Adding another tool to manage virtualization does not solve this problem. In fact, it can make it worse. What is needed is a single, integrated platform that can be used to manage both physical and VM's.

INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT FOR VIRTUAL AND PHYSICAL MACHINES

In an ideal world, there would be no difference between managing a physical machine and a VM because both are endpoints that must be managed. This means that IT administrators could apply the same simple strategies they had been using previously with physical machines for VM's, which might look something like the following:

Deploy virtual machines via specialized imaging and scripted installations.
Reset and re-provision virtual machines via virtual state management--a technology that reduces time and network bandwidth required to reset the state of a machine by using a pre-defined image file manifest to modify machine settings and files.
Discover and inventory existing virtual machines through agentless scanning.
Patch virtual machines and physical machines through patch management.
Use a standardized software delivery mechanism to update all machines and enforce software compliance.
Enforce licensing compliance through overarching asset management.

An integrated platform simplifies management task by treating each virtual machine exactly as if it is a physical machine, using the same tools to handle the administration of each task.

CONCLUSION

Virtualization offers a very strong value proposition to organizations of all sizes, but it also brings an additional layer of management. Success in dealing with the added complexity lies in providing one single layer of management for both physical and virtual machines.

The advantages of virtualization technologies demand thorough consideration, but don't allow complex management strategies to complicate IT efforts. Effective management of the Guest OS is attainable through a simple, sensible, single-layer management approach, utilizing the same strategies that make up the management of physical machines.

Read the original article from Enterprise Networks and Servers, here.