Server Virtualization

Frustrated by the costs of maintain ever larger data centers-or building new ones-many companies are exploring virtualization. Virtualization lets your IT staff turn your data center into an internal cloud of computing resources controlled by a single virtual data center operating system (VDC-OS).

The pervasiveness of load balancing technology does not mean it is universally understood, nor is it typically discussed other than from a basic, network-centric viewpoint. This White Paper thoroughly explains load balancing and strips away some of the mystery and magic from basic load balancing practices.

Although hardware storage prices have come down, storage administration and software expenses still run about seven times the cost of storage hardware. Storage consolidation provides a partial solution by expanding device connectivity and reducing points of management. However, once storage is consolidated, the job is only half done. You still need a centralized, flexible method of management that masks the complexity of the storage environment and reduces administrative overhead. That’s where virtualization fits in.

HotSchedules needed an agile and scalable IT environment that could respond quickly to growth opportunities. The company deployed the Windows Server 2008 operating system with Hyper-V virtualization technology to consolidate its server environment, reduce costs, and maximize network performance. By hosting up to 19 virtual machines on each physical server, HotSchedules increased its growth capacity while cutting power costs 77 percent and enhancing the company’s competitive position.

The Maxol markets a comprehensive range of oil and petroleum products to all sectors of the Irish market. Maxol used the Windows Server 2008 Enterprise operating system featuring Hyper-V virtualization technology to consolidate 22 servers to 6 servers, an 80 percent reduction.

NetBenefit is a leading provider of managed hosting services in the United Kingdom. Faced with ever more expensive London data center costs, the company decided to implement the Windows Server 2008 operating system featuring Hyper-V virtualization technology to give it the ability to create competitively priced entry-level virtual machines to complement its existing managed hosting services.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft’s next generation hypervisor technology, adds an exciting new dimension to the server virtualization market. With Hyper-V and Microsoft’s integrated Server Management suite, you can take advantage of a powerful set of tools to help simplify infrastructure management and better utilize your hardware investments.

This Dell Virtualization Reference Architecture (RA) white paper describes Dell validated architectures for Windows Server 2008® Hyper‐V. The Virtualization RA is intended to provide customers with example virtualization solution configurations that can be used to consider, evaluate, and select the Dell virtualization solution components that best fit their requirements.

Microsoft has launched the most advanced Windows Server operating system yet: Windows Server 2008. Dell closely collaborated with Microsoft during development, gaining expertise in all aspects of its features and functionality, including key advancements in the management of remote infrastructures.

Ray Pawlikowski, President of HotSchedules, discusses how virtualization services from Dell helps HotSchedules scale their business while reducing power consumption and floor space costs.

Windows Server 2008 includes the Hyper-V role, which is a hypervisor that enables server virtualization. This new virtualization hypervisor enables a Windows Server 2008 system to host many VMs or child partitions that run directly on the hypervisor layer. Hyper-V servers and VMs can be centrally managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) to enable centralized management and advanced features. This demo video shows Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).

Learn about strategies for enterprise data protection from the data center to remote office environments.

Download this exclusive article to gain insight on how to view the entire archival infrastructure including benefits that storage management can provide.

What are your peers doing in terms of virtualizing Exchange? This 2008 Computerworld Research study explores initiatives surrounding virtualizing Microsoft Exchange. It analyzes Exchange 2007 migration and upgrade plans, the many drivers behind virtualizing Exchange, the challenges faced when virtualizing Exchange, the current status of virtualized server environments, and more.

Regardless of industry or geographic location, business information is exploding on a massive scale—affecting primary, secondary, and archival storage systems. The sheer quantity of data being amassed is outpacing organizations' ability to keep tabs on it, maintain corporate compliance, meet strict government regulation, and even simply house it in a useful format that can provide invaluable history and knowledge. Learn more today.

Understand why, if you are planning to use virtualization to implement business continuity or disaster recovery, ensuring you have the most reliable hardware is essential.

Today's hottest technology has its roots in the mainframe era. Are there lessons to be learned from the past?

"Virtualization can be like putting all your eggs in one basket.  Ensure you have a resilient basket…"

As server virtualization goes mainstream, the workloads of virtual machines are taking on mission-critical proportions.

For workloads that traditionally require dual-processor systems, such as e-mail and collaboration, Web serving and Java-based applications, IBM offers the System x3350. It's also ideal for server deployments that require a dedicated server with high RAS features. For extensive details, download the product guide.

When the IBM System x3350 was compared directly with Dell's PowerEdge R300 under the new SPECpower ssj_ops/watt benchmark, the IBM server scored more than 15 percent better than the equivalent from Dell. See all the details in this special report.

Selecting the right server for your business-critical applications is an investment in the future of your business. This datasheet explores the IBM System x3650 server, and shows how it can save energy costs, help you manage growth and complexity, and protect valuable IT investments.

Energy use and environmental impact are hot topics right now. But it's not just the environment at stake, it's your IT budget. By "going green" with the energy efficient IBM System x servers featuring Intel Xeon processors, you can cut your energy costs by half and save floor space to make room for future growth. Get the details on these benefits and many others in this Solution Brief from IBM.

Certainly server virtualization offers an elegant way to minimize planned downtime during routine software and hardware maintenance, or scheduled upgrades. But that addresses only part of the availability story.

One of the pillars of the Virtual Data Center is virtual platform infrastructure, or the virtual machine; however virtual platforms are dependent on many other, oft forgotten components of both the physical and virtual data center.