The necessity and challenge of SMB server virtualization

Chinese enterprises in the largest number of small and medium-sized enterprises, faced with a shortage of money, and the reality of lack of manpower. Faced with the development of enterprises have to put into IT systems but not very strong financial backing, not fully equipped with the IT operation of the team, so can not endlessly expand the hardware environment, can not be exhaustive on the line all the needs of the IT system how to do? Server virtualization technology can be a lifeline.

Virtualization is a trend, server virtualization can quickly achieve ROI, is currently the most prevalent and most widely deployed virtualization technology. According to IDC data, 39% of enterprises have deployed server virtualization, while 54% of enterprises are implementing server virtualization, and another 5% are evaluating server virtualization scenarios. A survey of more than 2,600 technology decision-makers in Europe and the US found that 53% of enterprises and 54% of SMEs have implemented x86 server virtualization technology, or are planning to deploy server virtualization technology over the next year.

For SMEs, the following factors drive their rapid deployment of server virtualization technologies:

Server low utilization: Most workloads now use only 5% to 25% efficiency, and can be more efficient by consolidating multiple workloads onto one server.

Business continuity: Business continuity puts higher demands on system reliability and requires strong fault tolerance, disaster preparedness, and server virtualization to improve business continuity.

x86 server performance: Based on x86 system performance has been significantly improved over the past few years, these solutions, which replace data center mainframes, provide a new arena for server virtualization due to upfront low costs.

Dynamic Provisioning: Server virtualization can automatically balance workloads in real time. By using the live Migration feature in hypervisor, the provisioning tool can migrate the running virtual machines (without interruption) to servers with more resources, or flexibly adjust different virtual machines to match workloads and optimize business processes.

It is worth mentioning that server virtualization is also into the cloud of Sunshine Avenue, server virtualization is it modernization of the catalyst, it will change IT management, use, procurement and outsourcing patterns. Virtualization can even have an impact on business innovation and growth. If the deployment goes well, server virtualization will play a substantial role in helping businesses shift to private and public clouds.

However, with the continued explosive growth of virtualization, the complexity of virtualization and management visibility will be significantly enhanced. It is still a little difficult for the company if the project is to be implemented with limited time, limited cost and best quality. Lack of experience can also delay the process of the project, or even the company to the virtualization of the prohibitive.

IT staff in small and medium enterprises typically have multiple roles in it, and even in enterprises with hundreds of employees, their limited IT staff must be responsible for addressing it technical issues from helping other departments, including implementation and operation of networks, servers, etc.

As a result, the IT operation of small and medium enterprises often adopts a reactive approach, which causes them to face many challenges in implementing and maintaining virtual servers:

1. Lack of planning: IT staff in small and medium-sized enterprises are generally competent to identify and solve technical problems, but lack the resources to plan these technical problems; they often implement new technologies without a comprehensive plan and without taking into account worst-case scenarios.

2. Inability to implement specialized solutions efficiently: they lack the training and expertise to implement specialized solutions in specific virtualization areas. For example, backup and recovery in virtualized application environments are very different. Most senior IT professionals spend a lot of time learning the best methods and available technologies, but often there is not enough time.

3. Lack of standardized and proven processes: IT staff in small and medium-sized enterprises often lack the relevant resources and know-how to define and demonstrate their IT processes.

4, focus on the Windows environment. Finally, many small and midsize enterprises mainly use the Windows environment, especially in their internal applications and virtual machines. Experience with Windows servers and other Windows-oriented technologies is valuable and easy to translate, but this experience does not apply to all virtualized operational environments.

All in all, despite the benefits of server virtualization technology, virtualization does not magically allow small and medium enterprises to dispense with the administrative overhead that is often required to manage physical servers. Therefore, the implementation of server virtualization technology, small and medium-sized enterprises need reasonable planning and demand analysis, scientific calculation of how many virtual machines the business system needs to complete the work, under the guidance of reasonable planning to complete the realization of virtualization.