VMWare offers key IT management, performance and cost advantages in a multi-server environment, including Server Consolidation/Containment, Fast Server Deployment, Rapid Recovery and Server Load Management and Service Continuity.

How does VMWare work?

VMWare ESX Server transforms physical systems into a pool of logical computing resources. Operating systems and applications are isolated in multiple virtual machines that reside on a single physical server. System resources are dynamically allocated to virtual machines based on need and the administrator sets guarantees, providing mainframe-class capacity utilization and control of server resources.

VMware functionality specifically provides the following key advantages:

• Server Consolidation
  Typically X86 based server platforms may only have a standard CPU utilisation off 5-15%. VMware using this principle allows multiple operating systems to share one physical servers resources. This allows organisations to consolidate their existing server systems onto fewer physical nodes, saving in hardware infrastructure, space, power and cooling requirements, whilst fully utilising server resources. Typically VMware can consolidate as many as 8:1 onto a single server platform.
  
  
  
  Old Model: Traditional X86 Architecture -- New Model: VMware Technology
  
  
• Rapid Recovery & DR
  VMWare provide rapid recovery of Server instances in the event of a server hardware failure. If a physical server fails, the virtual server instances running on that server can be brought up in minutes using VMWare ESX server running on a another server.
  
  
  
  VMware also will provide organisations a rapid mechanism for the DR recovery of server instances at a DR site, without having to have a 1:1 ration of primary to DR site physical server nodes.
  
  
• Load Management & Service Continuity
  VMotion technology lets you move live, running virtual machines from one host to another while maintaining continuous service availability. This also allows an organisation to manage server hardware performance by transferring server instances to other ESX servers when a particular ESX server has a high work load. This can be done non-disruptively using VMotion and VirtualCentre Management Server.
  
  
• Rapid Deployment
  VMWare provides a rapid deployment platform for new and test server instances. Because server instances are encapsulated as a single file, new servers can be rapidly deployed by taking a copy or clone of that file. Using VirtualCentre Management Server new server instances can be deployed within minutes rather than hours.

More Information?

Call Global Storage on 03 9445 3300 and ask for one of our storage consultants to find out how server virtualisation can benefit your organisation.