Advantages and Disadvantages of Virtualization

Advantages of Virtualisation

Ø Benefits for Companies

ü Virtualization provides several benefits for companies, including:

ü Greater efficiency and company agility

ü Ability to more-effectively manage resources

ü Increased productivity, as employees access the company network from any location

ü Data stored on one centralized server results in a decrease in risk of lost or stolen data

Ø Benefits for Data Centers

ü Not only is it beneficial for companies, but virtualization provides several benefits for data centers as well, including:

ü Cutting waste and costs associated with maintaining and cooling its servers by maximizing the capabilities of one server

ü Allows data centers to be smaller in size, resulting in overall savings due to a reduction in —

ü Energy needed

ü Hardware used

ü Time and money needed for maintenance

Ø Reduced IT costs:

ü Capital expenditure savings. Virtualization lets companies reduce their IT costs by requiring fewer hardware servers and related resources to achieve the same level of computing performance, availability and scalability.

ü Operational expenditure savings. Once their servers are virtualized, IT staffs can greatly reduce the ongoing administration and management of manual, time-consuming processes by automating operations, thus resulting in lower operational expenses.

ü Data-center and energy-efficiency savings. As companies reduce the size of their hardware and server footprint due to the use of virtualization, they lower their energy consumption, cooling power and data-center square footage, thus resulting in lower costs.

Ø Easier backup and disaster recovery. Simple data recovery is another great advantage of this technology. For instance if your virtual server suddenly becomes corrupted you simply delete it and restore it from its virtual backup. You do not need to spend time and effort on restoring your entire system from scratch and then restore it from the latest backup. So a corrupted virtual system can be recovered in mere minutes.

Ø Better business continuity. With an increasingly mobile workforce, having good business continuity is essential. Without it, files become inaccessible, work goes undone, processes are slowed and employees are less productive. Virtualization gives employees access to software, files and communications anywhere they are and can enable multiple people to access the same information for more continuity.

Ø More efficient IT operations. Going to a virtual environment can make everyone’s job easier – especially the IT staff. Virtualization provides an easier route for technicians to install and maintain software, distribute updates and maintain a more secure network. They can do this with less downtime, fewer outages, quicker recovery and instant backup as compared to a non-virtual environment.

Ø Improved System Reliability and Security. Virtualization of systems helps prevent system crashes due to memory corruption caused by software like device drivers. VT-d for Directed I/O Architecture provides methods to better control system devices by defining the architecture for DMA and interrupt remapping to ensure improved isolation of I/O resources for greater reliability, security, and availability.

Ø VMs are portable. Its just a huge file. Take that file with you anywhere and you have your files and operating with u whereever you go. However you can only run it on a pc that has a Virtualisation software, software that allows you to run virtual machines.

Ø Testing and learning. If your a software developer, you can test software inside a VM. If the VM would or ever crash your operating system due to your software, then the main operating system is not affected, only the VM would be.

Ø So its good for testing purposes. Its also good for testing a virtual network. You could set up multiple VMs and network each VM together as if they were separate machines. This would allow you to test out networking protocols.

Ø 3. If you have a server with lots of computing resources then you could create lots of webservers which are separate to each other and resell what they call 'virtual server' to customers. This means they get a slice of your computer resources. If their webserver shuts down abnormally, the machine wouldnt be affected as you they will only have access to their virtual machine.

Disadvantages of Virtualization

Ø Upfront costs. The investment in the virtualization software, and possibly additional hardware might be required to make the virtualization possible. This depends on your existing network. Many businesses have sufficient capacity to accommodate the virtualization without requiring a lot of cash. This obstacle can also be more readily navigated by working with a Managed IT Services provider, who can offset this cost with monthly leasing or purchase plans.

Ø Software licensing considerations. This is becoming less of a problem as more software vendors adapt to the increased adoption of virtualization, but it is important to check with your vendors to clearly understand how they view software use in a virtualized environment.

Ø Possible learning curve. Implementing and managing a virtualized environment will require IT staff with expertise in virtualization. On the user side a typical virtual environment will operate similarly to the non-virtual environment. There are some applications that do not adapt well to the virtualized environment – this is something that your IT staff will need to be aware of and address prior to converting.

Ø Not Supported by All Applications: If your CPU does not allow for hardware virtualization then you can run some operating systems in software virtualization but generally its slower. So slow that it would annoy you.

Some operating systems will not run in software virtualization and require that you have a CPU with hardware virtualization. So it would cost you more if you dont have a CPU with hardware virtualization.