Server Huggers Block The Path To Virtualisation

Despite the obvious benefits, some business people are still blocking virtualisation because the technology fundamentally changes the way IT is “owned” within their organisations, according to a webinar hosted by eWEEK Europe.

Virtualisation shares the resources of physical servers, so users can run as many “virtual” servers as they like, getting more flexibility and the ability to run their hardware more efficiently. However, most organisations have a history of departments “owning” their IT hardware.

This can create tensions which make it difficult to get the benefits of virtualisation within old-fashioned cost and management structure, according to a webinar, The Future of Server Virtualisation, chaired by eWEEK Europe, as part of BrightTalk’s summit on virtualisation.

Why wouldn’t you virtualise?

“You can use hardware better, and with lower risk,”  said Chris Puttick (left), the CIO of Oxford University’s Archaeology Department. A keen virtualiser, he has moved his department’s IT from twenty separate physical servers onto a bank of four modern machines, which support up to 100 virtual servers.

Since some of those virtual servers are used intermittently, it is much more efficient to have them on virtualised hardware, where they can be parked on hard disk when not in use, said Puttick. Also, any changes are easier in a virtual world: “If an upgrade goes horribly wrong, you can switch the older version of the server back on and you have lost nothing.”

In the early days of virtualisation, IT managers worried about the reliability of the virtual servers, and the overhead in virtualising, but both problems are in the past said Puttick, who reckons about three percent of his servers’ CPU time is spent running the hypvervisor – the thin layer of software which enables virtualisation.

Overall, his servers run at about 50 percent of their CPU capacity.

Savings in space, power and maintenance costs add to the benefits and, in general, virtualisation is worth doing whether a company is running one physical server or a hundred, said Gary Thornton, technical director of CNet Training. Modern servers are all designed explicitly for virtualisation.