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Virtualization is a broad term referring to the abstract utilization of computer resources through one or multiple software-based user interfaces. Virtualization technology empowers users and administrators to maximize resource utilization while creating a secure, high- availability, scalable technology infrastructure.
The History of Virtualization
Virtualization is not a new concept. It has been around for decades since IBM developed the technology on its mainframe computers back in the 1960s. Virtualization has also received acceptance in the workstation processing environment in recent years as technologies have been introduced that are tailor-made to take advantage of virtualization software. Intel and AMD’s introduction of multi-core processors has also spurred the movement.
Virtualization saves money, but it also creates an unsurpassed, secure environment for testing applications and applying security patches. By running applications on a virtual machine, the ‘live’ environment is undisturbed and running as testing is completed. This way all the debugging can be done without affecting end-users at all. The virtual environment can test software migrations even as they are being consolidated within your company’s data center. This enables businesses to take small steps towards their ultimate goal to run as an efficient, virtualized processing entity. Also, backup and recovery becomes much simpler and more manageable when running on a dedicated backup virtual machine.
Inherent Benefits of Virtualization
Virtualization represents a huge monetary savings opportunity for businesses. Virtualization revolutionizes software licensing as we currently know it and application developers are scrambling to develop new licensing models. By enabling a single computing source to run as multiple logical resources, it can allow a single server application access to numerous users without violating traditional licensing models that are figured per user or per processor.
Vendors using virtualization software enable other applications to run on logical partitions at the application layer. This makes the software transparent regarding its physical location, thus rendering traditional per processor software licensing meaningless. Along with multi-core processors on the hardware end, virtualization is forcing new licensing methods on all software application developers even as this is written.
Consolidating applications on fewer servers enables businesses to run using less hardware. Oftentimes, servers are under-utilized with a significant amount of processing power idling and unused. Running fewer servers saves money not only in up-front hardware costs but also by reducing energy bills and re-directing IT staff to focus on higher priority tasks within the organization. Plus, processing power on servers and workstations is used more efficiently up to the capabilities of all the computer equipment.
Keep in mind that the software industry will catch up to the advantage virtualization currently presents to businesses and will come up with pricing schemes that are more beneficial to their bottom line.
Where per-chip licensing was a simple concept meaning one chip per piece of hardware hence one license required, virtualization, with its transparent logical partitions, permanently obscures how to define this.
Vendors are trying and are coming up with various methods to tackle the problem virtualization presents to them. Most of these new pricing models are still based on hardware instances but count on a per-socket basis, instead of per-core, which can save businesses a boatload of money when they take advantage of virtualization.
One idea floating around for a new licensing model involves pricing based on memory used or number of cores. New releases from perpetual competitors like Microsoft and Sun are now based on treating each virtualized server as a physical server and come prepackaged with a number of virtual machines that can be released under the licensing agreement.
The fact is businesses are always searching out new ways to cut costs. After all, reduced operational costs translate into an increased bottom line. One of the most expensive departments within business operations traditionally has been the IT department. With expensive hardware and highly-skilled employees needed to manage the equipment and software applications, cost-containment is very important to the bottom line. With the advent of virtualization, businesses today have the opportunity to trim the costs involved by consolidating hardware and have IT staff members focus on higher priority tasks within the organization.
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