Virtualization with Custom Servers

Virtualization is the buzz word circling around every facet of IT these days. Books could be written on the the subject but here is the main idea: Virtualization saves money and headaches! With the new parallel processing designs of modern CPUs multiple systems can be virtualized and condensed onto a single box.

Let there be no mistake about it, virtualization is complex! There isn't an end-all virtual platform because the needs of every virtual solution are different. Also, virtualization operating systems are very picky on what hardware is supported. This is where custom servers come in to save the day. Custom servers are offered by a lot of manufacturers but you want to make sure that the company you choose has the technical know how to build a virtual platform that will work for you.

In general, a virtualization solution will have 2 or more virtual hosts. These servers run the VMs and are the workhorses for your users. In general a 1U server or a 2U server is best suited for these because (depending on the OS) the virtual processing nodes need very little storage. Memory and CPU cores/speed is what's vitally important for a virtual host.

Next, a SAN server is crucial for storing all the virtual machine information. Rather than keeping the systems localized on the 1U or 2U servers acting as virtual hosts, they are kept on a remote redundant SAN. Redundancy is a key factor in choosing a SAN because if it goes down all of the virtual machines are gone. (Unless of course we're working with redundant SAN boxes) A lot of these SAN devices are custom built to match the speed requirements of the user. Not just any RAID controller, for instance, will be fast enough to handle the intense data load placed upon these virtual machines. Asking for a custom server will make sure that the hardware matches your needs exactly!

The last system that a virtual solution would require is the management or heartbeat server. These manage all the virtual machines on the network and offer some pretty cool features in case things go wrong. One of the coolest features would be failover clustering. When one of the 1U or 2U virtual hosts goes down, the management servers notifies the others of the situation and tells them to take over the virtual machines. The entire process is nearly transparent to your customers! So, instead of rushing to get client services back up in an emergency, you can instead focus purely on getting that system back up and running. Other features can also reduce the power consumption of a datacenter by migrating virtual machines onto a virtual host and powering down the others during off-peak hours.

This is just the tip of the ice burg for virtualization technologies. Just keep in mind that it is incredibly important to seek out the guidance of a custom server configurator to make sure that what you're buying makes sense. Often times, prepackaged virtualization solutions are way more than you need.