photo credit: Ronnie Garcia
It’s not my usual fare, but my latest article, Introduction to Server Virtualization, is up on Mid-Market Innovators. Here’s a snippet:
A typical data center contains many servers. Traditionally, since hardware was cheap and applications were complex, many administrators installed one application per server. Though this provided their applications with security and isolation from other processes, it resulted in server sprawl. Workload on these servers would vary widely depending on the time of day and user activity. Many of the servers would spend a large percentage of their time idling away, doing practically nothing. Average server utilization levels are typically about 10%. Server virtualization increases each physical machine’s utilization by dividing physical servers into multiple virtual servers. Each virtual server contains its own operating environment and applications; it looks and acts exactly like a real server.