In IT today, the only constant is change. Achieving best business results from a complex enterprise-class IT infrastructure means more than simply deploying new solutions; it means redefining IT as a versatile instrument of business strategy, which can change in parallel with changing demands. Toward that end, many businesses have pursued big-picture strategies such as consolidation—to reduce the number of servers required to support IT services— and virtualization—to unchain those services from specific implementations and redeliver them in a more dynamic, virtual form. Through consolidation and virtualization, the enterprise can achieve a simpler, more scalable, more cost-efficient IT infrastructure that aligns more flexibly with emerging business goals. Originating at IBM around 40 years ago in the specific context of separate logical partitions running in parallel on a shared mainframe, virtualization has taken on new life in a number of contexts: virtual servers to virtual storage, optimized networks, workstations in virtualized environments, and application virtualization. And like any major paradigm shift in business, virtualization has become a success because it delivers core practical benefits that drive business value by:
_ Decreasing IT costs and business risks _ Increasing operational efficiency and flexibility _ Simplifying deployment and management _ Enhancing overall business resilience _ Enabling new forms of innovation.
As today’s companies increasingly embrace virtualized technologies, it’s important to understand what they mean, how they relate to one another, and how they are commonly implemented. In the pursuit of a big-picture virtualization strategy that incorporates varying virtualization-centric products, industry best practices and leading expertise to make your IT division more efficient, resilient, flexible and practical, IBM is one of the premier solution providers in today’s business arena. IBM offers a rich, diverse and integrated array of virtualization solutions, spanning from x86 systems to System z mainframes to storage virtualization and beyond. Furthermore, IBM can work effectively with you to develop key business strategies and processes to capitalize on those solutions’ benefits—all while guided by established best practices. IBM also has long experience in the concepts, theory and practice of virtualization, going as far back as the 1960s and the origin of virtualization itself. And while some competitors outsource the specifics of solutions and consulting to third parties once they’ve got a signed contract, IBM does not. What is the benefit to clients? Full accountability that the strategy will work as described, a single reference point to answer questions and resolve problems in the event they occur, and a tighter connection between new business processes and technological solutions. With IBM’s help, businesses today can leverage the many engaging opportunities virtualized technologies present in enhancing every aspect of how IT works in the overall organization.
What is Virtualization?
While some forms of virtualization are more common than others, the general goal is the same in each case: to abstract a form of technology away from its original environment—a literal and physical form—and redeliver it in a virtual form. This virtual form, if implemented well, is capable of the same functionality as the original, yet is able to dramatically increase control and flexibility. The virtual version is, in short, significantly easier to change to suit changing goals because it has been freed from its physical constraints. This is a tremendous advantage in a business context, where IT services must continually be revised, adapted, or developed from scratch to meet emerging needs. Server virtualization has received considerable attention in recent years due to its ability to consolidate many physical servers into multiple logical servers that can be deployed onto fewer physical servers.
Server consolidation: A necessity for today’s enterprise
Many of today’s largest organizations find that “server sprawl”—the rapid increase of servers in the IT infrastructure—constitutes a cumulative problem. In such cases, virtualization can help by shifting the functionality of many servers onto fewer servers (consolidation). Since the mid-1980s and the rise of the microcomputer as an alternative to large mainframes, IT divisions have increasingly moved many services to smaller servers, deploying more and more services on inexpensive servers to meet specific business needs on a case-by-case basis.
