Part of the difficulty in understanding the benefits that virtualisation offers is that there are so many different definitions of the term. In very simple terms, virtualisation is ‘getting more from less’. It’s about making the most efficient use of computing resources. It’s about physically decoupling the traditional relationship between hardware and software – the separation of the resource of service request from the physical infrastructure delivering the service.
The most common virtualisation technologies are
Operating System – Multiple operating systems run on a single host system
Server – Multiple virtual operating systems run on top of server hardware without an intervening operating system
Paravirtualisation – Sub set of Server Virtualisation. Thin client operation between server hardware and modified operating system
Desktop – Access to full desk top environment regardless of the location of the applications
Application – Application is accessed from a central hosted platform without local installation
Storage – Data storage access from a central hosted store, Typically applies to SAN & NAS arrays
Why Virtualisation?
Typically, most organisations use individual servers to host no more than a single application, causing significant overspending on capital and operating costs, inefficient performance and underutilisation (analysts estimate less than 10% utilisation is common). Virtualisation allows server hardware to be used more efficiently with resources being dynamically allocated to applications on demand. Each application can be run in a separate virtual environment, leading to fewer servers, fewer racks, less power, reduced operating costs and an overall reduction in your IT footprint
Benefits of Virtualisation
| INCREASE |
- IT Efficiency |
| |
- Manageability |
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- Network performance |
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- Application performance |
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- Hardware utilisation |
| REDUCE |
- Overall IT footprint |
| |
- Hardware acquisition costs |
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- Hardware related maintenance costs |
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- Cooling, power and rack space |
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- Unplanned downtime |
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- Netwrok utilisation |
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- Risk |
Panacea’s approach is to use the combination of experience, risk free deployment methodologies and best practice guidelines to deliver solutions that help our customers to improve the availability and efficiency of their IT operations whilst reducing operational costs.
Contact us on 0844 225 2480 or email enquiries@panacea.co.uk